Waking Up cuts through a lot of the irrelevant details and misdirection regarding spirituality and gets to what Harris thinks is the core: "But the deepest goal of spirituality is freedom from the illusion of the self..." (p. 123)

In the book he writes about what to look for while in meditation: "When you are able to rest naturally, merely witnessing the totality of experience, and thoughts themselves are left to arise and vanish as they will, you can recognize that consciousness is intrinsically undivided. In the moment of such an insight, you will be completely relieved of the feeling that you call "I"...The gesture that precipitates this insight for most people is an attempt to invert consciousness upon itself--to look for that which is looking--and to notice, in the first instant of looking for your self, what happens in the apparent divide between subject and object." (p. 140-141)

I have personally read a middling amount about meditation and practiced on and off mostly without much success over the past 40 years, with a bump up in efficacy over the last couple years. After contemplating, "to look for that which is looking", I suddenly had a much better feeling for the perspective of what is meant by the lack of "I". After a few days of somewhat deepening the knowledge of this perspective, my reaction is, "Really?! This is what the contemplative traditions are all after?!" No-self is not a trivial perspective, but it isn't super meaningful (you still chop wood and carry water, as the saying goes) and I can see how this perspective could be destructive. Interestingly, Harris himself discusses the reaction of "So what?" to the insight of no-self on p.148. His discussion doesn't make much sense to me, so I won't dwell on it here. Overall, I think people are done a big disservice to characterize this state of no-self as awakening or enlightenment. Those are fancy words that shouldn't be associated with the state of no-self. People think that they are missing out on something big and important that they can get from the contemplative traditions, but there isn't much to learn from those traditions. The no-self perspective is not a nothing-burger, but there are things in life which are much, much more important.

Something also crystallized for me in Harris' section (also starting on p. 148) about the paradox of acceptance: "The paradox is that we can become wiser and more compassionate and live more fulfilling lives by refusing to be who we have tended to be in the past. But we must also relax, accepting things as they are in the present, as we strive to change ourselves." He gives an example of acceptance, "If you are anxious before giving a speech, become willing to feel the anxiety fully, so that it becomes a meaningless pattern of energy in your mind and body."

Here's what is destructive about this attitude: you can feel anything fully so that "it becomes a meaningless pattern of energy in your mind and body"! Your love for your child. Your passion for music. Loving-kindness for every living creature on earth. Anything can be perceived as a meaningless pattern of energy. And there you have nihilism. In my readings about meditation, no one addresses this logical result: if one treats negative aspect X as a meaningless pattern of energy, then why isn't everything a meaningless pattern of energy? What is the logical difference?

To me, the idea of no-self is essentially a way to orient one's mind so that one no longer attaches much importance to one's internal states. (i.e. The internal states are all arising and passing away. There's no little homunculus self driving the whole operation, so who cares?) There is less emotional connection and intensity in general. 

There are perhaps positive aspects to this perspective of no-self: less defensiveness, more willingness to hear criticism, less attachment to status. But whether the perspective of no-self is a net-positive overall depends on how far one takes this no-self perspective to its logical conclusion. Basically, to remain a human being that cares about things, one has to refrain from applying one's meditative practice to things that one values.

So, dear dharmaoverground commentators, tell me why I am wrong. Tell me why the mental moves that one makes to relax one's grip on thoughts and emotions to realize the perspective no-self is something that one should strive to achieve. Why doesn't no-self logically lead to nihilism?

Transient states are not themselves equivalent to nibbana. It is common for people to say transient states are awakening, non-dual, nibbana when they are not. 

Nibbana is the end of suffering, the self is the root of suffering, meditation is the path to the end of suffering. There are many important things one can do in a lifetime, but walking the path to the end of suffering tends to be high priority for those who have recognised that they are suffering. 

When one comes to recognize emptiness or no-self as a lived exerience the play of patterns of energy across our sensations is tantalizing, engaging, alive and awake. It is not meaningless in the sense that nothing means anything, it is meaningless in the sense that a meaning is no longer required in order to satisfy our intellectual or egoic understanding of things. That whole psychodrama is transcended and there is profound beauty in that, one can find cascades of novel sensate experience beyond the dependence on meaning. That is certainly not nihilism. I think it is difficult for people to grasp a way of experiencing beyond a reliance on meaning and narrative but I assure you a loved experience of utter mystery is breathtakingly beautiful. 
​​​​​​​

Is it not obvious here logically that this understanding is it self dependent on a self and thus not an adequate representation of no-self?

I do not know whether or not Sam Harris's interpretation of buddhism is good or not. I really don't know. It is apparent to me based on how you're communicating that you may not yet grasp the depth and richness being pointed to by these teachings. 

Imagine for example being free from the need for ontology. Imagine nihilism itself is transient, not self. Imagine what it is to be a drop of water in a river? Could you be a single drop in a river? Where would you begin to define your borders or edges? Would you be defined by this eddy or that?

As we deepen our experience of no self one comes to inhabit an experience of awake, alive, energetic engagement with the world. That is made possible by recognising that no single location through experience can contain or be responsible for a self. That our life is the result of a multiplicity of living and dying intelligent cells and systems both within us and around us. 

Awakening and no self are not intellectual frames they are lived phenomenological experiences, emminently tangible experiences.

Happy new year!

It is important to realise Anatman as a seal, it is not a state of non-grasping or egolessness.

As I wrote, partial excerpt from https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2021/07/anatta-is-dharma-seal-or-truth-that-is.html - "
First I do not see Anatta as merely a freeing from personality sort of experience as you mentioned; I see it as that a self/agent, a doer, a thinker, a watcher, etc, cannot be found apart from the moment to moment flow of manifestation or as its commonly expressed as ‘the observer is the observed’; there is no self apart from arising and passing. A very important point here is that Anatta/No-Self is a Dharma Seal, it is the nature of Reality all the time -- and not merely as a state free from personality, ego or the ‘small self’ or a stage to attain. This means that it does not depend on the level of achievement of a practitioner to experience anatta but Reality has always been Anatta and what is important here is the intuitive insight into it as the nature, characteristic, of phenomenon (dharma seal).

To put further emphasis on the importance of this point, I would like to borrow from the Bahiya Sutta (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.1.10.irel.html) that ‘in the seeing, there is just the seen, no seer’, ‘in the hearing, there is just the heard, no hearer’ as an illustration. When a person says that I have gone beyond the experiences from ‘I hear sound’ to a stage of ‘becoming sound’, he is mistaken. When it is taken to be a stage, it is illusory. For in actual case, there is and always is only sound when hearing; never was there a hearer to begin with. Nothing attained for it is always so. This is the seal of no-self. Therefore to a non dualist, the practice is in understanding the illusionary views of the sense of self and the split. Before the awakening of prajna wisdom, there will always be an unknowing attempt to maintain a purest state of 'presence'. This purest presence is the 'how' of a dualistic mind -- its dualistic attempt to provide a solution due to its lack of clarity of the spontaneous nature of the unconditioned. It is critical to note here that both the doubts/confusions/searches and the solutions that are created for these doubts/confusions/searches actually derive from the same cause -- our karmic propensities of ever seeing things dualistically.

John Tan adds: "This is the seal of no-self and can be realized and experienced in all moments; not just a mere concept."
"

Also, when genuine realisation of Anatman arises, it is the opposite of nihilism. Something I wrote before may express this point: 

"Why awakening is so worth it

Soh
From time to time, people ask me why should they seek awakening. I say, awakening will be the best thing that happen in your life, I guarantee it. It is worth whatever effort you put into it. You won't regret it. Or as Daniel M. Ingram said, "Would I trade this for anything? Maybe world peace, but I would have to think about it. Until then, this totally rocks, and missing out on it would be barking crazy from my point of view."

What is it like? I can only give a little preview, an excerpt of what I wrote taken from the AtR guide: 

"Personally, I can say from direct experience that direct realization is completely direct, immediate, and non-intellectual, it is the most direct and intimate taste of reality beyond the realm of imagination. It far exceeds one’s expectations and is far superior to anything the mind can ever imagine or dream of. It is utter freedom. Can you imagine living every moment in purity and perfection without effort, where grasping at identity does not take hold, where there is not a trace or sense of 'I' as a seer, feeler, thinker, doer, be-er/being, an agent, a 'self' entity residing inside the body somewhere relating to an outside world, and what shines forth and stands out in the absence of a 'self' is a very marvellous, wondrous, vivid, alive world that is full of intense vividness, joy, clarity, vitality, and an intelligence that is operating as every spontaneous action (there is no sense of being a doer), where any bodily actions, speech and thoughts are just as spontaneous as heart beating, fingernails growing, birds singing, air moving gently, breath flowing, sun shining - there is no distinction between ‘you are doing action’/’you are living’ and ‘action is being done to you’/’you are being lived’ (as there is simply no ‘you’ and ‘it’ - only total and boundless spontaneous presencing). 

This is a world where nothing can ever sully and touch that purity and perfection, where the whole of universe/whole of mind is always experienced vividly as that very purity and perfection devoid of any kind of sense of self or perceiver whatsoever that is experiencing the world at a distance from a vantagepoint -- life without ‘self’ is a living paradise free of afflictive/painful emotions (note: I am not proclaiming a state of Buddhahood or Arahantship where all traces of mental afflictions are totally obliterated, see this link http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2022/07/buddhahood-end-of-all-emotionalmental.html and Traditional Buddhist Attainments: Arahantship and Buddhahood in the original AtR guide https://app.box.com/s/157eqgiosuw6xqvs00ibdkmc0r3mu8jg for more details), where every color, sound, smell, taste, touch and detail of the world stands out as the very boundless field of pristine awareness, sparkling brilliance/radiance, colorful, high-saturation, HD, luminous, heightened intensity and shining wonderment and magicality, where the surrounding sights, sounds, scents, sensations, smells, thoughts are seen and experienced so clearly down to the tiniest details, vividly and naturally, not just in one sense door but all six, where the world is a fairy-tale like wonderland, revealed anew every moment in its fullest depths as if you are a new-born baby experiencing life for the first time, afresh and never seen before, where life is abundant with peace, joy and fearlessness even amidst the apparent chaos and troubles of life, and everything experienced through all the senses far surpasses any beauty previously experienced, as if the universe is like heaven made of glittering gold and jewels, experienced in complete gapless directness without separation, where life and the universe is experienced in its intense lucidity, clarity, aliveness and vivifying presence not only without intermediary and separation but without center and boundaries - infinitude as vast as an endless night sky is actualized every moment, an infinitude that is simply the vast universe appearing as an empty, distanceless, dimensionless and powerful presencing, where the mountains and stars on the horizon stands out no more distant than one’s breath, and shines forth as intimately as one’s heartbeat, where the cosmic scale of infinitude is actualized even in ordinary activities as the entirety of the universe is always participating as every ordinary activity including walking and breathing and one’s very body (without a trace of an ‘I’ or ‘mine’) is as much the universe/dependent origination in action and there is nothing outside of this boundless exertion/universe, where the purity and infinitude of the marvellous world experienced through being cleansed in all doors of perception is constant. (If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern. - William Blake) 

You know all the Mahayana Sutras (e.g. Vimalakirti Sutra), old Zen talks about seeing this very earth as pure land and all the Vajrayana talks about the point of tantra as the pure vision of seeing this very world, body, speech and mind in its primordial unfabricated purity as the Buddha field, palace, mandala, mantra and deity? Now you truly get it, you realise everything is really just like that when experienced in its primordial purity and perfection, and that the old sages have not been exaggerating at all. It is as much a literal and precise description of the state of consciousness as it is a metaphor. As I told John Tan before, Amitabha Sutra’s description of pure land resembles my living experience here and now. “To me it just means anatta. When what’s seen, tasted, touched, smelled are in clean purity, everywhere is pure land.” - John Tan, 2019. "If one is free from background self, all manifestations appear in clean purity in taste. Impurities from what I know come from mental constructions." – John Tan, 2020

This is a freedom that is free from any artificially constructed boundaries and limitations. And yet, this boundlessness does not in any way lead to the dissociation from one’s body, instead one feels more alive than ever as one’s very body, one grows ever more somatic, at home and intimate as one’s body. This is not a body normally conceived of, as the boundaries of an artificially solidified body that stands separated from the universe, dissolve into energetic streams of aliveness dancing and pulsating throughout the body in high energy and pleasure, as well as sensations of foot steps, movement, palm touching an object, where the body is no longer conflated with a constructed boundary of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, ‘self’ or ‘other’, where no trace of an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside’ can be found in one’s state of consciousness - there’s only one indivisible, boundless and measureless world/mind - only this infinitude of a dynamic and seamlessly interconnected dance that we call ‘the universe’. This is better than any passing peak experiences be they arisen spontaneously, in meditation or through the use of psychedelic substances. And yet, despite experiencing life to it fullest every moment without any veils, in complete openness and utter nakedness, nothing gains a foothold in consciousness, for as vivid as they are, they leave no trace just as a bird leaves no tracks in the sky, an empty and lucid display such as a gust of wind and the glittery reflections of moon on the ocean waves - appearing but nothing ‘there’ or anywhere. All these words and descriptions I just wrote came very easily and spontaneously in a very short time as I am simply describing my current state of experience that is experienced every moment. I am not being poetic here but simply being as direct and clear as possible about what is immediately experienced. And this is only a figment that I am describing. If I were to tell you more of what this is like, you would not believe it. But once you enter this gateless realm you shall see that words always pale in comparison."

Labels: Anatta | " - https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2021/04/why-awakening-is-so-worth-it.html


Also, see more at https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2020/04/different-degress-of-no-self-non.html

First up: I think Sam Harris is a very, very difficult figure in the meditation world. If you need one year of accumulated retreat time to land SE, then MAYBE the tradition you're working in isn't suited to your personality type. If you then write a book in wich you spend signicant time arguing why the tradition is at fault (as opposed to, maybe, you), and then go on to argue for Dzogchen over vipassana, that's quite impressive ammounts of ignorance paired with impressive eloquence. Harris seemingly doesn't like to be wrong and seems to be largely ignorant of his ignorance, as many people in several fields have noticed by now. So, buyer beware. My take is that if your first opening happened on MDMA, maybe jhanas as a way into vipassana (or Dzogchen) would have been the better way. No need to try to denegrate "dualistic mindfulness" (wich, if practiced as advertised, boils down to progressive non-duality...).

And now Harris seems to be in this cul de sac of his own making, where he seems to try to switch to momentary non-duality again and again and again in the hope that this will at some point result in permanent resolving of the dualistic split. Which, to my mind, seems like the very definiton of the idea of progression from dualistic to non-dual that he says doesn't work or is fundamentally flawed in the vipassana approach. Again, he seems to be unaware of his ignorance. Interesting also that he denegrates "states" and peak experiences, wich is sort of the middle of the road, dry vipassana snob attutide. So on the one hand that whole tradition is deeply conceptually flawed, but the chliche of putting down jhana somehow is still valid. 

See the Michael Taft interview where he says he recently took MDMA again after decades and now has this koan to solve: If he would be in a place more often where he felt like THAT (like on MDMA), than maybe he'd be in a better place for the quest of meditation. Hm. Sounds like that path of serenity and insight to me, wich has been advocated as one good way to go about awakening for a while now... Again, it's just astonishing that he doesn't seem to be aware of that, never seems to have experimented, branched out... Dry vipassana, getting pissed off at U Pandita (who was a bad treacher for telling him he was in EQ, wich made him grasping and goal oriented, as he said in a discussion with Goldstein - that maybe the way forward would have been to vipassanize the grasping, keep on keeping on with three characteristics all over again - but never mind...), then, with the perceptual upgrades of SE, he encountered Dzogchen, wich he likely never would have been able to make something of without the SE upgrades, and now that's where he seems to be at as teacher and expositor of mediation. "Dualistic mindfulness" only good as a beginner practice, switch to Dzogchen at your earliest convenience. Never mind that the vipassana approaches, both dry and wet, have worked for so many other people and that all traditions are basically progressive non-duality models. Ditching the split seems to be the name of the game, regardless of what label is on the tradition box. 

The only reason this person has a standing in the meditation world, I think, is because people don't really know anything about how the traditions technically work, what alternatives there are... Basically, he was able to exploit the very weird info ecology created my the mushroom culture while being himself a victim of it. I don't doubt that he means well, but that alone doesn't make him a good teacher or positive force in public discourse around meditation. He has no really workable models of attention development to offer, he considers a pure, contentless consciousness a fact, never mind that that can only appear as sensations wich are the defintion of content... Well. Buyer beware. 

See this passage that Daniel Ingram wrote about that weird Dzogchen over Vipassana confusion, that doesn't seem to be just specific to Harris (and wasn't meant as a commentary about Harris, as far as I know):

Daniel's Posts Compilation - When it’s time for Vipassana, when it’s time for Dzogchen.




To the specific question why realization of no self doesn't need to lead to nihilism: Part of it is, I think, a matter of confusing proof of concept of no self with an abiding ditch of the dualistic split. 

As the smarter "fully awakened" individuals have said for ages, samsara and nibbana will at one point turn out to be and have been identical. This is part of what ditching the split ammounts to. Meaning, if you try to have a momentary glimpse of no self, then, yes, back in the self perspective, it seems like you have reduced all that might be worthwhile to meaningless particles and have basically spilled the baby with the bathwater and run the risk of nihilism. 

But when the centerless field is all there is, with no alternative, then the specifics of "what the field is doing" is all that is left, as Daniel Ingram has stated again and again. It's no longer one or the other, it's BOTH. Empty, causal unfolding that is AT THE SAME TIME all there is and can have relevance. So that if these sensations that are centerless, ephemeral, etc. happen to display your children and loved ones and how you relate to them, then that matters greatly in the relative sense.  
But that is not something that really can be resolved conceptually, logically, or by going for a quick dip into proof of concept no self-y experiences. It is a paradox that can only be resolved experientially by actually ditching the split. Otherwise that understanding would be more prevalent, I think. 

And even then, there is pratice ecology of three trainings. Working on your conduct being in keeping with your understanding is stressed as a life-long endeavor in the framework of the three trainings. In all the Buddhist taditions. Because body-mind conditioning patterns still proliferate. Weeds will grow. 

Again, playing out the relative in favor of the absolute or vice versa seems to be missing the punchline of them not being ultimately two seperate things. It's called non-duality for a number of reasons, it seems to me from my still incomplete vantage point. If what formerly appeared to be "you" is now waves that are waving in the same ocean that the waves of "other" appear in, then it get's kinda difficult to "other the other" and treat them as irrelevant sensate particles and whatever happens to them as equally irrelevant. It still will seem that things will be better if they were better, if suffering were reduced. If will proably even be way more sensorially noticeable how much humanity is in a bad shape and things need to improve when you can't put up boundaries between you and them anymore. 

Unless you're a psychopath. But that you were before getting on the path, that isn't the fault of no-self. 

The no-self 'perspective' may seem like just that when it is first introduced, one perspective among others, but the more it sinks in as an actual insight, meaning your experience always has been and always will be no-self in nature, the more glaringly out of sync the 'self' perspective becomes. It becomes a matter of epistemology, of what you can actually know to be true and perceive about your experience rather than of philosophy or psychological framing. It's not that everything becomes meaningless or stripped of emotion, it's that meaning and emotion are seen as natural occurrences that you can relax into, rather than markers of an identity that needs to be upheld, or that can be threatened. The only thing you lose in the end are those behaviours that are born of a kind of confusion about what human experience is made up of, that make you cling to things that you could never actually hold onto.

For what it's worth --

"No-self" as a term in common use gets the whole thing wrong. There is no such thing as having absolutely no self at all.

The discovery engendered by contemplation and meditation is better called "not-self." It means, very simply, that impermanence applies to the I/me/mine as much as it does to anything else. This is the realization of the three jewels, or characteristics, of human existence. The other two are that there is always suffering of some sort, in some amount, and that all the things we perceive have the quality that is called "not me."

There is always a "self" in some sense, but the mind creates that self-sense as we go along to suit the present moment - to create ownership of thoughts and feelings, the illusion of control, and so on.

Realizing "not-self" is an essential component of awakening. "No-self" is a misunderstanding and causes the kind of confusion we see in the opening comment to this topic.

First, Happy New Year and thank you to everyone who took the time to respond. 
  
@Chris M: That's an interesting distinction between not-self and no-self, but I am a bit confused. Are you saying there is always a self, but that through awakening you  are more aware of the self as a tangible creation of the mind? And by impermanence, do you mean that the self-sense isn't stable and can go away? 

I tend to agree that as you say, "There is always a "self" in some sense". What drives me a bit crazy in these discussions is that you have Daniel Ingram writing, "In short, there are just the sensations, the transient sensations, and nothing more, no self to be unified with them, no separate thing perceiving them, just transient causality as it is, where it is, just being itself." (https://danielpostscompilation.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#jump-to-170). When I read things like this, I always feel like responding (if my memory is correct) as Rick Archer did to some claims of no-self, "Ok, give me all of your money." If someone claims there isn't a self, then what leaps out of the way of an oncoming car? One can claim that there is just causality happening (some wiring in the brain causes our bodies to move away from the car), and I somewhat sympathize with that point of view. But I think just claiming "causality" doesn't add much clarity. That specific chain of causal actions originated from a specific formation process of the organism that united to preserve the organism. Whether you call these circuits in the brain "self" or "causality" seems to me a question of labels, with causality being less precise.

@bahiyababy
My understanding of what you have written is that you find experience as experience such a beautiful thing that you don't need meaning or a value systemI. Is that a fair summary?

If that is the case, then would you find beauty in the sensate experience of walking through a battlefield full of dead and dying people? Does it not matter what type of sensate experience there is? Would you find equal sensate beauty in watching a child playing outdoors on a swing set as you would in watching a child in a hospital bed stricken with cancer? Would you be indifferent between the two experiences?

(I write in such stark terms to try to bring clarity, because I am confused by talk about sensate experience as an end in itself. I have seen a lot of people including Daniel write as such about sensate experience. I have wanted to ask him these questions that I asked you, so I definitely mean no offense.)

@sohweiyu, @willg

What is your perspective on Chris M's response regarding "no-self" being wrong and preferring the term "not-self"? Do you still experience a self, in some sense?

@pixelcloud

Thank you for your thoughts about Sam Harris. 
I agree that Harris' thoughts on consciousness are not very clear nor do they make much sense, at least to me. At the same time, Harris isn't alone in talking about consciousness as a pristine, untouchable state. Many dharma writers seem to do it. I haven't understood that perspective. Conscousness can vary as can anything else. Just get drunk to find out. Or don't get enough sleep. Or almost get in a car crash. Etc.

The process of awakening reveals an ever changing sense of self. It's not a permanent, solid entity. It's definitely a creation of the mind, but then so is everything else. 

BTW, Ingram is saying the same thing using different words. The sense of self is just one more object like all the others we perceive. It arises and passes dependent on conditions.

Hope this helps.

I would break up what's being negated by the term no-self or not-self into two categories:

The first is the homunculus that people feel themselves to be, behind their eyes, when you ask them where 'they' are.

The second is the sense of inherent existence, that applies as much to the 'self' as to external objects. 

Both of these can be seen through quite thoroughly, without negating what we might conventionally attribute to the self, and without us ceasing to behave as though our bodies were a single unified whole extended in space. 

Negating the first, the homunculus, leads to non-duality, as the spaces in front of and behind the eyes are seen to have always been the same. There's nowhere apart for a 'self' to stand.

Negating the second, the inherent existence of objects, leads to a kind of phase shift, as though experience changed from a solid to a gas. Sensory reality is a representation, a multi-media novel created on the fly. It has no 'self', no inherent existence.

Neither of these negate the self's conventional expressions, they just see them as being so intimately connected to and determined by an environment that the distinction between self and no-self stops seeming meaningful. 

These insights decouple the sense of identity from any particular expression of the self: our identity becomes something much vaster, that could never be exhausted by any particular configuration. This gives us a special kind of capacity for the self's expressions, if anything, allowing them to be more fully embodied, and allowing emotion and meaning to be more intensely experienced.

Well said, Will G!

He's referring to the I AM. Check these out:

https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html

https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2007/03/mistaken-reality-of-amness.html

https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html

I agree with Will G.

Additionally I want to mention I wrote a long article a decade ago on this subject which I recommend reading in full: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2011/10/anatta-not-self-or-no-self_1.html Anatta: Not-Self or No-Self?


But I will just cite a small section:

"Wrote to Christ Marti:Actually I would say it is more important to stress on no-self than not-self. Not self can be mistaken as Advaita's neti neti (rejecting everything as not-self in order to discover or assert a true self underneath or behind all the not-self). This is not the purpose of Buddha's teachings, which is meant to elicit a realisation into the complete absence of an inherently existing self/Self, essence, substance, core, in or apart from the five aggregates.The Vajira Sutta states:Then the bhikkhuni Vajira, having understood, "This is Mara the Evil One," replied to him in verses: "Why now do you assume 'a being'? Mara, have you grasped a view? This is a heap of sheer constructions: Here no being is found. Just as, with an assemblage of parts, The word 'chariot' is used, So, when the aggregates are present, There's the convention 'a being.' It's only suffering that comes to be, Suffering that stands and falls away. Nothing but suffering comes to be, Nothing but suffering ceases.""

....
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"
Update: More posts by Kyle Dixon in 2024:
 
You are citing an excerpt that is cautioning against intellectual identification with a “view,” meaning a conceptual conclusion divorced from experiential realization. Akin to merely identifying with the idea that sugar is “sweet” and attaching to that mere view without having actually tasted sugar experientially.
This is not a rejection that there ultimately is no self. It is obvious from the Buddha’s teachings on the skandhas, āyatanas and dhātus that there is no self as a core entity within that nexus. Further, the Buddha is very clear that there is no self in any conditioned or unconditioned phenomena, which exhausts the gamut of possibilities in which a self could reside.
“Non self” and “no self” are identical views. u/optimistically_eyed (since you’re involved in this discussion).
To add, I think monkey_sage’s comments about “no self” damaging the presentation of the Buddha’s teaching in the West are absurd and frankly abhorrent.
The definition of anātman is very clear, the Bodhisattvayogacaryācatuḥśatakaṭikā:



——

Ātman is an essence of things that does not depend on others; it is an intrinsic nature (svabhāva). The non-existence of that is selflessness (anātman).



——


The entire “no self” versus “not self” thing is total nonsense, they are identical in meaning. There is only one domain of anātman, and it is the absence of a self as a core essence that is the owner of characteristics or an agent of actions.


—-


Here’s an old post I made:

There is a group of individuals who interpret anatta in an apophatic way based on SN 44:10, and Thanissaro Bikkhu’s insistence on “not self,” but the conclusion drawn is illogical, given that the consequence of “not self” would still be absence of a self. They assert there is no outright negation of a self, even though the Pāli suttas state sabbe dhamma anatta repeatedly, these individuals sometimes even believe the prospect of some sort of self that is exempt from “all dhammas” is somehow plausible.

This idea from Thanissaro is not an official position given that other Theravadins like Bhante Sujato disagree. Bhante Sujato says this idea that the Buddha refused to answer is false and that Thanissaro’s assertion to that end is flawed or incomplete. Sujato cites Bikkhu Bodhi for clarification, and explains that the silence in that one particular instance was to keep Vacchagotta from adopting a view of annihilationism where a self currently exists and then ceases to exist.

But Thanissaro is very popular so people consider his view authoritative. Arguably, as I’ve witnessed, adopting this “not-self” view as a process that does not make an ultimate claim regarding the impossibility of a substantial self results in an indifferent, indiscriminate no-man’s land of a position on anatta that injures the import and intention of the view.

The real meaning of anātman is selflessness, lack of self, without self, no self, absence of self and so on. The realization of anātman, which is the absence of the background substrate which the self or entity is imputed onto is the insight that brings about the species of awakening that the buddhadharma champions.

If the consequence of “not self” is not “no self,” as in an absence of a substantial selfhood, then “not-self” as a gloss and principle is an inadequate exercise in apophatic theology which will not go the distance. Still, the logical consequence of “not-self” is the same if the import of anātman in both conditioned and unconditioned dharmas is properly understood. Thus even if not-self is the exercise one chooses, then all phenomena and non-phenomena should be understood to be “not self” and then there is then no self to be found anywhere, and the same consequence is made apparent.

A lack of an inherent self is not annihilation, but the doorway to actualizing our true modality of cognition as gnosis [jñāna]. As Śākyamuni Buddha states in the Śatasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra:

If it asked what is the samadhi known as the lamp of gnosis [jñāna], abiding in that samadhi is clearly explained as the absence of self in phenomena and persons.
"

In practice one way to develop and maintain a perception of anatta is to do exercises that clarify the autonomous 'on its own' nature of experience as well as experiencing.

We set up an anchor - resting awareness on the heaviness of the body. With that as an anchor we can develop curiosity regarding:

1. The anchor position breaks down ... on its own
2. Awareness moves ... on its own
3. Objects show up and pull awareness ... on their own
4. Raw perturbations on awareness happen ... on their own
4. Perturbations are interpreted and ascribed various meanings ... on their own
5. Meanings construct affect/vedana ... on their own
6. Awareness movements, perturbations, meaning, affect, all of this moment by moment follows certain patterns. These patterns run themselves .... on their own

We discover that we appropriate these autonomous functions. We believe that I exist and I am doing these things. This belief gets challenged and we find out that in this experienced moment, basis one or more of the above autonomous activities, there is appropriation happening .... on its own, and a sense of ownership / me making happens .... on its own.

The appropriation, ownership, me making .... feels good! But it invariably leads to feeling bad. Either here and now or some time in the future.

Then we learn to withdraw active participation from the me making, the ownership, the appropriation. And we attain to nibbana.

In this process we discover that what we did, what we gained, was entirely orthogonal to the axis of existentialism and nihilism.

We may have been disturbed agitated existentialists/nihilists.
Now we are relaxed and content existentialists/nihilists.

"Tell me why the mental moves that one makes to relax one's grip on thoughts and emotions to realize the perspective no-self is something that one should strive to achieve"

It leads to being relaxed and content as opposed to being agitated and discontented.

"Why doesn't no-self logically lead to nihilism?"

It is orthogonal.






To develop and maintain this perception over a period of time will also clarify how the process itself works. The process of awakening.

The only motivator that supplies motivation consistently is dukkha. To try and grok philosophy, as it is conventionally understood and discussed, from the perspective of awakening practice is a fool's errand.

1. I feel like shit
2. I do awakening practices to attain to nibbana
3. I dont feel like shit any more

This flow makes sense

1. I am conflicted between the mental positions of existentialism versus nihilism
2. I do awakening practices to attain to nibbana
3. I am no longer conflicted by opposing mental positions, thus there is no conflict that needs resolution. Whether I am a existentialist or a nihilist is immaterial. What is material is that ... now ... finally ... I am a happy camper

​​​​​​​This flow also makes sense

@Will G

Are you saying that in the mind, the representation of self and non-self are the result of the same process, so the distinction isn't meaningful? But there are still meaninful differences between these two representations. Even though "sensory reality is a representation", there is a very meanginful distinction between the representations of matter and representations of the self formed by the mind: namely, a "truck representation" will run you over. You won't get run over by your self representation. In other words, self and no-self are both products of the mind. In that way, they are similar. But in many other ways, self and no-self are very, very different. 

Could you explain how you draw a distinction between sense of identiy and self? By sense of identity, do you mean the things that you value?

As a matter of experience the boundaries between what is self and what isn't start breaking down, or become unfindable, so that the distinction actually loses its meaning, because you can't easily identify where it is. It isn't that you don't know to stay clear of traffic, it's that even in the experience of being hit by a car, if you could remain perfectly cognizant, there would be no clear boundary between your body and the car. This probably also answers the question about identity: if you use the term self to mean body, organism etc, which conventionally still holds after insight into no-self, by sense of Identity I mean the expanded non-dual, non-localizable volume of perception that is never defined by any one thing, but also isn't other than them. 

Soh Wei Yu --

You've twisted my comment, turning it into something it's not. I don't subscribe to Advaita's neti neti and I'm not, and did not, assert a true self underneath or behind a not-self.

​​​​​​​Also, my name is "Chris," not "Christ." Please don't plant that one on me  

My take, once again: There is no permanent, self that we can find, anywhere. I'm happy to drop the argument over terminology (no self, not-self, whatever) because we seem to be adopting various terms to assist others in gaining a better intellectual understanding when that that, alone, can't deeply grok the situation. We have to find that truth for ourselves.

My apologies for spelling your name wrong.

I just really don't agree with the whole 'not self is not no self' saying and those who repeat Thanissaro's arguments ad nauseum on Reddit. Krodha and I think these sort of sayings is doing a lot of damage to people's understanding of Buddhadharma.

Okay, apology accepted (but I was joking - see smiley).

@will g

There seems to be a tension between the following two comments of yours.


Can you tell the difference between your body and a car? Or is it just the boundary between body and car that you have a hard time discerning?
If there is no clear boundary between your body and the car, how do you know to jump out of the way?
Do you still have body awareness of the location of you limbs?

I hope you don't find my questions impertinent. I genuinely am puzzled by claims of "lack of self" or "oneness". No one who actually claims these attributes actually *behaves* as if they lack these attributes. As you said, you still know to stay out of traffic.

@Chris M and @sohweiyu

I actually found Chris' comments on "not-self" very, very helpful. It helped me focus on the subtleties of what is claimed about self from an awakened perspective. After all, everyone who claims awakening actually *behaves* as if they have a self. In the same way, everyone who claims awakening actually still suffers at times.
 

@adivader

What you wrote is helpful.

Do you no longer feel a sense of self?

If so, what is it that makes you jump out of the way of a car? What prevents you from giving away all of your money? etc.

As I said with Will G, I hope you don't find these questions impertinent. I am genuinely puzzled. No one who claims a lack of self *behaves* as if they don't have a self. I wonder whether claims of a lack of self are some form of hallucination. I was practicing some Fire Kasina and I stopped when I noticed that I was creating the appearance of a flame even when I had ended the practice for the day. I didn't want to mess with my nervous system about what was real and what wasn't.

I can tell the difference between my body and the car, but I guess the boundary isn't as clear to me as it seems to most people.

You can try to understand this intellectually but I suggest you start (or continue) a meditation or self inquiry practice if you're really curious.

To point you in a direction, do you feel identical to the visual outline of your body? Do the sensations in your hands conform to their visual outline?
To point you in another, if I were to ask you where the car was appearing, you might say, out there. If we were looking at the same car, and I asked you where it's appearing to me, you might say it's appearing in the same conventional space, but it's actually a completely distinct appearance in a separate stream of consciousness. What is the relationship between a person and their conscious awareness? Are they inside it? Do they own it? Produce it? Are they identical to it? And where would you look to answer those questions?

@will g

Those are interesting questions. I will ponder them when I meditate (briefly) next.

I need some intellectual answers before I put a lot of hours into meditation, which seems to be what is needed to have experiences such as having a hard time distinguishing between the boundary of a car and your body. I need to have a sense of how *useful* the skills developed really are. Being more aware of thoughts as thoughts is somewhat useful for me. When I hear claims of practitioners losing a sense of self and being one with objects, I am skeptical. Furthermore, these practitioners don't *behave* as if they have lost a sense of self or they are one with objects. So I wonder if they have hacked their nervous system in a way that produces effects which feel real, but are about as real and useful as an out of body experience. My short experience with Kasina practice showed me that it's possible to induce hallucinations. That's not something I am interested in.

Thank you for your time spent answering my questions. 

Yep. We're all still human beings, awakened, not awakened, and whoever might be in between. 

Chris Marti told me something which I found to be very profound and it was at the time I had a (wrong) view about awakening being some kind of special experience of sorts to get to. He said, and I quote "Its not about what we experience, but how we look at it"  

Not self is fine, but if you think of not self as merely a strategy of disidentification (the wrong view taught by Thanissaro) rather than a realisation into No Self as a seal, or that not self and no self are different, or if you think that Buddha taught not self but not no self, then that understanding is wrong and will not get you very far and certainly not to awakening.

What is crucial is the realisation of anatta as dharma seal as I wrote before many years ago: 

"First I do not see Anatta as merely a freeing from personality sort of experience as you mentioned; I see it as that a self/agent, a doer, a thinker, a watcher, etc, cannot be found apart from the moment to moment flow of manifestation or as its commonly expressed as ‘the observer is the observed’; there is no self apart from arising and passing. A very important point here is that Anatta/No-Self is a Dharma Seal, it is the nature of Reality all the time -- and not merely as a state free from personality, ego or the ‘small self’ or a stage to attain. This means that it does not depend on the level of achievement of a practitioner to experience anatta but Reality has always been Anatta and what is important here is the intuitive insight into it as the nature, characteristic, of phenomenon (dharma seal).

To put further emphasis on the importance of this point, I would like to borrow from the Bahiya Sutta (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.1.10.irel.html) that ‘in the seeing, there is just the seen, no seer’, ‘in the hearing, there is just the heard, no hearer’ as an illustration. When a person says that I have gone beyond the experiences from ‘I hear sound’ to a stage of ‘becoming sound’, he is mistaken. When it is taken to be a stage, it is illusory. For in actual case, there is and always is only sound when hearing; never was there a hearer to begin with. Nothing attained for it is always so. This is the seal of no-self. Therefore to a non dualist, the practice is in understanding the illusionary views of the sense of self and the split. Before the awakening of prajna wisdom, there will always be an unknowing attempt to maintain a purest state of 'presence'. This purest presence is the 'how' of a dualistic mind -- its dualistic attempt to provide a solution due to its lack of clarity of the spontaneous nature of the unconditioned. It is critical to note here that both the doubts/confusions/searches and the solutions that are created for these doubts/confusions/searches actually derive from the same cause -- our karmic propensities of ever seeing things dualistically."

Anyway, this description I wrote many years ago may be of interest:

​​​​​​​"What is the Awakened State like Experientially?
A friend (without much spiritual background) asked me recently what's the difference between my experience and his experience. What does awakening entail, experientially? In order words, what is the feeling of it like? (Note that I am recalling from that conversation, this isn't the exact words)
I answered: Here there is a complete absence of any sense of sense of self, body, sense faculties, objects, boundaries, and an absence of any sense of locality. Whereas those are present in experience for you.
For example when I'm driving the car, there is no sense at all of being a driver located in the driver seat. The whole infinite field (including trees, roads and traffic lights) is simply experiencing itself and reacting seamlessly and spontaneously with no sense of distance (no sense of a me here encountering and reacting to things 'out there'). Presencing (vivid experience) "stands out" as the "concrete textures and details" of everything when not a trace of self remains. Everything shimmers with a vivid intensity of pure aliveness and presence.
He asked: If you don't experience locality, why do you like to travel to different places? Doesn't non locality mean you can teleport anywhere since you are not located or fixed anywhere? Since you are nowhere and already everywhere, why do you need to travel? Why did you visit a music festival (Tomorrowland) in your recent trip to Europe?
I answered: I still enjoy experiencing new stuff sometimes. Non locality is not teleportation, it means there is no locality or reference point to which a fixed subject (experiencer/self) or an object exists. Appearance 'knows' from itself without a knower behind. It does not mean that because there is no self besides everything that appears, I am everywhere in the world all at once, like including Antarctica. Specific appearances only appear in the presence of specific conditions. Ever-fresh phenomenal appearances manifest due to certain conditions including travel, etc. The experience of a music festival requires conditions like international DJs playing music, the communal setting of massive numbers of people coming together, so on and so forth.
(And even those appearances cannot be pinned down as "it is here" or "it is there" as they are simply and merely appearing due to conditions, like reflections of a moon on water. There is no intrinsic existence of a phenomenal appearance to be found.But as Thusness/John Tan said, "When you are luminous and transparent, don't think of dependent origination or emptiness, that is post-equipoise. When hearing sound, like the sound of flowing water and chirping bird, it is as if you are there. It should be non-conceptual, no sense of body or me, transparent, as if the sensations stand out. You must always have some quality time into this state of anatta. Means you cannot keep losing yourself in verbal thoughts, you got to have quality hours dedicated to relaxation and experience fully without self, without reservation.")"

Do you no longer feel a sense of self?

I do feel a sense of self. Clearly and distinctly. When I see my kids playing, I know clearly and distinctly that they are my kids. They dont belong to the interconnected universe. That would be absurd. When I look at my hand I know it is my hand and not my parent's hand, to not know this would be absurd.

When I walk about my living room, I know that this big toe is my big toe and if it were to get stubbed on a piece of heavy furniture, the pain would be felt by me, it wouldnt be felt by the shakyamuni Siddharth Gautam. To not know this would be absurd.

what is it that makes you jump out of the way of a car?

It happens in this way:

With a working eye and awareness as a necessary condition - awareness is perturbed - the perturbation happens on its own
The perturbation is recognized on its own as:

1. A perturbation happening in eye consciousness
2. Representing a large object 
3. The object is moving in my direction

All of this recognition happens on its own. It doesnt need to be 'owned' or controlled

A similar process of recognition is mirrored in mind consciousness but it creates the story of a subject

1. A perturbation happened - therefore it happened to somebody - which is me
2. A recognition of it as a perturbation of eye consciousness happened - therefore there is somebody who's eye consciousness got perturbed - which is me
3. A car was recognized - therefore somebody recognized the car - that is me

All of this recognition happens on its own. It doesnt need to be 'owned' or controlled

All further decisions regarding the subject reacting to the object happen on their own. They dont need to be controlled.

In the absence of establishing  ownership and control, of the story creation of the object and the subject and their dance together, there is no dukkha. No friction in the mind. No fear, misery, disgust, desperation. This is the result of the iinsight into not-self.

It is not a perceptual upgrade. It is a cognitive simplification. Though I am calling it cognitive, it is preverbal and preconceptual, thus atavistic and thus protected from approach through verbal and conceptual analysis. The only result of this cognitive simplification is that the heart does not jump into places where it doesnt belong. The only attainment, one I keep, is mental, affective and physical relaxation, sanity!

I wonder whether claims of a lack of self are some form of hallucination

The presence of a sense of self is a hallucination. The absence of a sense of self is also a hallucination. I have no idea what people are talking about when they say they have no sense of self. But when someone says - I have gotten an insight into not-self, I used the perception of not-self and maintained it and through maintainance of that perception of not-self I attained to nibbana - the lokuttara Citta arose and took nibbana as its object (quite a mouthful of indic words ... I know ). In doing this I have become free of Rupa raga, Arupa raga, Mana, Audhatya, and Avidya ....... I know exactly what  they are talking about. Whether they are speaking the truth or are lying or are deluded .... that is a separate matter entirely

I was practicing some Fire Kasina and I stopped when I noticed that I was creating the appearance of a flame even when I had ended the practice for the day. I didn't want to mess with my nervous system about what was real and what wasn't.

Your nervous system has been functioning well for decades. Meditation practice isnt going to mess it up. You will be fine. Your problem isnt the possibility of faulty nervous system, it is that through the practice of meditation you have discovered that you dont own/control your nervous system. It functions on its own. There is a very deep fear associated with Insights. When we initially start to meditate. Awareness keeps engaging with objects. This is a preliminary serenity practice. Over a period of time awareness starts to engage with characteristics  of experience:

1. Experience (and experiencing) is a construct, it is assembled, it has a life cycle a beginning a middle and an end - Shunyata
2. Experience (and experiencing) are unreliable, we cannot rely upon it to be one way or the other - anityata
3. Experience (and experiencing) are not-self, we cannot own experience or experiencing in their entirety or any of their facets, they operate on their own, they  have an autonomous nature - anatma
4. As long as we keep encountering these properties of experience and experiencing and keep going contrary to them, we experience friction - dukkha

If you continue to practice carefully, systematically, while ensuring that you do it in a well rounded fashion - tranquility, concentration, equanimity, to  balance energy, investigation and joy - you will be fine. You will keep encountering shunyata, anityata, anatma - keep relaxing, keep accepting .... and one day you will be free of dukkha

You havent asked for advice but I will presume to offer it hoping that  you might find it useful - 

You are trying to understand the results of insight practice through intellect ... you can't! Take some amount of theory, enough to get your self started and then fully commit yourself to practice. Try and devalue the theory of meditation and awakening. Use the theory as a support for practice. You will be fine.

Sometimes I think people jump into esoteric meditation ideas too soon.

A really good place to start with self/not-self is with something more approachable like the popular book "inner game of tennis". It's very relatable and directly applies to normal life, no meditation stuff required.

https://fourminutebooks.com/the-inner-game-of-tennis-summary/ 

But this information is also like a gateway drug, as soon as you start calming self 1 and trusting self 2... you're on your way to becoming a yogi.

Inner Game Techniques For Tennis

Timothy Gallwey wrote his first book »The Inner Game of Tennis« in 1974. He presented us with a radically different approach to teaching tennis (and other endeavors) as was the standard practice. He wrote his second book, "Inner Tennis – Playing the Game" in 1976, which somehow was not noticed as much, but is in my opinion even better than the first one.
He masterfully demonstrated the role of the mind in learning and playing tennis and how in most cases it is our biggest obstacle in reaching our peak performance. He also showed us some drills on court with which we can direct our mind to actually help us.

When one realizes that something in his mind is preventing him from reaching his full potential, he becomes the inner player. Now he knows what to work on. But most of the time – he has no idea HOW to do that.

He does understand though that errors in performance usually take place in his mind before they express themselves in actions. So his goal becomes getting rid of these limitations.

Here’s a short list of these limitations – inner obstacles:

- fear (of losing, not improving, looking bad in the eyes of others, …)
- lack of self-confidence
- self-condemnation
- poor concentration
- trying too hard
- perfectionism
- self-consciousness
- frustration
- anger
- boredom
- expectations
- a busy mind
- …

Although this list may look very discouraging, the solutions are few and simple. Some of them though may not be easy to practice.



The Fundamentals of the Inner Game of Tennis
Self1 and Self2
If we take a moment and listen to what is really going on in our minds, we will discover that there is a constant dialogue going on. There seems to be one voice doing all the commanding and criticizing and some other part being quiet and doing the actions.
We can quickly see that their relationship does not feel too friendly. There is one part, Self 1, which constantly tells the other part what to do. It seems to know everything there is about tennis – how to bend the knees, watch the ball, follow through and so on. And then there is the other part, Self 2, who is a silent doer.

And yet, the Self 1 doesn't trust Self 2 much and even takes things in its own »hands« and starts moving the body, tightening all sorts of muscles and makes the arm go where it thinks it »should« go. Since all the fluidity and timing is gone by now, the »arm« usually mishits the shot and Self1 gets one more chance to degrade Self2.



Trusting the Body
This is the first principle of the Inner Game. Tennis is very complex sport and our bodies (Self2) have a fantastic potential and ability to learn without conscious interference. Without the interference of Self1, Self2 shows such a great talent that we are often afraid even to identify with it, since it is so far from our normal expectations. When we actually experience that once in a while, we call these shots – lucky.
The first skill to play the Inner Game is called »letting it happen«. This means gradually building a trust in the innate ability of your own body to learn and to perform. It usually takes some time but you can start right now.

Here's an exercise for demonstration: stand on one leg. Just stand and »listen« to all the muscles in your leg working to keep you in balance. The more aware you are the more muscles you'll feel and how they move – contract and expand. And yet, this is not what you’re doing consciously. You can consciously raise and lower you arm, if you want to (so go ahead and do it). This is a conscious (Self 1) made movement. But these contractions and movements of the muscles in your leg are not conscious. They are subconscious or made by body or Self2.

So letting it happen means that you let the balance happen. You are not consciously holding the balance – you just want to be balanced. That’s the best role of Self 1. To give directions, goals and then lets Self 2 do its magic.



Quieting the Mind
This is the second principle of the Inner Game. Tennis game gives you sometimes just enough time to consciously think during ball exchange. But the capacity of our bodies to perform at their highest potential is in direct proportion to the stillness of our minds. When the mind is noisy, anxious and distracted, it interferes with the nervous system's silent instructions to the muscles.
The main goal of the Inner Game is to control and quiet the mind so that it pays attention to what is essential. As long as the mind tries to play the game, it will be too slow, make big errors and move the body in jerky movements.

If Self 1 gets absorbed by the ball, then Self 2 is free to perform at its peak. And that is the right relationship between Self 1 and Self 2. Only in this case you have control of your mind, able to use it as a tool when it is needed, rather than letting it use you.

One of biggest obstacles of learning is the constant Self1 activity. It prevents us to experience events as they are. It clouds our awareness and projects our fears and doubts into the event – the flying ball or even before that.

One of the main purposes of the Inner Game approach is to increase awareness of what is. If you want to change your tennis – or your life – the Inner Game approach suggests that as a first step you don’t try to change it, but simply increase your awareness of what is.

Experience is the primary teacher in the Inner Game approach. You can learn everything you need to know in tennis through awareness only of your own experience. But to be able to experience events or yourself fully, you need to develop the art of non-judgment.



Non-judgment
It means getting rid of the concepts »good« and »bad«. As long as we look at shots as good or bad, we lose clear information of what happened. When the shot is good, we try very hard to make it good again. And when the shot is bad, we try very hard to do it better. Can you imagine trying hard to hold balance? What is the best approach to be balanced? To be quiet in your mind and let your body start finding the solutions of balancing you.
Can we achieve this state of non-judgment or are we so socially programmed that there is no way out? Yes, we can and we do it a lot, we're just not aware of it.

Demonstration:

Place a tennis ball 20 feet away from you on the ground and take 5 or 6 tennis balls in your hands. Now throw each one and try to hit that tennis ball on the ground. Just throw the balls one after another and try to hit the ball.

Regardless of the outcome, here are a couple of questions:

- Did you try any less when you missed the ball?
- Did you try much harder when you missed?
- Did you criticize yourself when you missed?
- Did instruct your body what to do for the next shot? (bend you elbow, make a bigger swing, …)

Most of the people say NO to all these questions. And when you play a tennis game?

Do you try less or harder when you miss? Do you criticize or degrade yourself? Do you keep telling yourself what to do next (watch the ball, racquet back …)?

Probably YES.

Let's see what is really happening. When you missed the ball on the first shot (assuming you didn't get very lucky ;)), what did you do next? For most people the answer is: «If I threw too short, I tried to throw further. If I threw too much to the left, I tried to throw more to the right. «

Exactly, and that is the perfect role of Self1. Just to give directions and to notice the outcome – the experience.

And then what happened – did you instruct your arm to move for a bigger swing so that you're able to throw a longer ball? No, you just »let it happen«. It happens automatically. Self 2 did this adaptation. You trusted the body!

And then you threw the next ball and noticed what happened and again let Self 2 do the correction.

The reason why you were able to become Inner Game master in this exercise is because you were in the state of non-judgment. Most people answer that they didn't criticize or degrade themselves. And most people would say that they didn't try harder or less, just adapted to the experience. This non-judgment approach to learning is the fastest way to improvement.

There is no faster way to learn how to play tennis. Our body and brain need many many repetitions to coordinate hundreds of muscles in our body to produce the movement which will bring desired outcomes.

But there are hundreds of ways of slowing this down. And all these are made by the interference of Self 1. Either by constant mental activity which clouds our perception of what happened or by actually trying to move the body parts itself – taking the racket back and under the ball, bending the knees and so forth.

Judging one's performance is slowing or even stopping the growth and learning. But even more devastating is judging oneself. The player who decides that he isn't any good will soon be playing that way. But there is actually no connection between our performance and ourselves. You may be a good tennis player, but maybe you suck at bowling. Does that make you a lesser person? No, and so it doesn't mean, that there something wrong with us, when we miss a tennis shot.

We make these connections in our minds and we can also stay away from making these connections. They only hurt us and stop our growth. The Inner Game approach shows this way to freedom in performance, being in the state of acceptance – of the events and of yourself. And when we can make the transition from tennis court to life with these new acquired ways of looking at ourselves and events around us, we experience freedom.

Explore the rest of the Inner Game section to find out more about certain principles, drills on how to quiet your mind, book reviews which deal with this concept and various articles, which help you understand the Inner Game approach in tennis.

Shargrol, would you like me to fix that tiny text? It's very hard to read for my old eyes.

I don't know if this helps, but I'm just throwing it out there anyway because why the hell not.

I was of the same idea Dusko. I thought it was all bells and whistles, it's actually BETTER. There's this instinctual understanding of phenomena that is unperturbed or not interrupted. Another way I can describe my current experience, there's no fear of fear itself, or excitement for excitement etc. Stuff comes up and then goes away that's it, it's a gentle experience. The self arises given the situation and is nothing more then the seperate phenomena that makes it. I find that happens when awareness contracts to points within the body and there is an understanding that this is me. If we then break those points down you see it's not you. Other times awareness becomes very wide, vast and expansive and there is no known point where "I" am but the self can still arise.

As far as I can see, consciousness is a guide, it expands and contracts to help navigate the organism depending on input through objective reality and this happens automatically.

PS take my limited understanding with a grain of salt, please.

@shargrol

It was fun reading the summary decades(!) removed from reading the book the first time. I got nothing reading the book the first time. I am much more aware now of what Gallwey is getting at. Probably the most important paragraph for me in the whole thing is the following:There's also an interesting tension between *caring* enough to try to improve and taking one's performance as a referendum on one's own value. Ultimately, the two don't have any connection, but it is hard to realize that. Much misery can be avoided by realizing there is no connection.

I clicked on some drills (https://www.tennismindgame.com/inner-game-tennis-drills.html), which I thought were great. I will have to apply them to pickleball. lol. At the same time, I wonder how much of the Inner Game really is true. There have been many, many great tennis players who are (seemingly) neurotic messes on the court. In fact, just from casual observation, I would say most top players are neurotic messes on the court, muttering to themselves, raising their arms in exasperation, etc. One can always say, "They would be even better sitting in equanimity." But there's not much evidence either way that I am aware of.

One thing I like about Ingram is that he is pretty open about how skills in meditation are not very transferable to other areas. He's good at puncturing the  whole conceit that when one achieves awakening, then one is also going to be good at X, whatever X may be. 

@adivader

I really appreciate your forthright answers to my questions. It was a breath of fresh air! Do you consider yourself free of dukkha now? I am curious how you would define dukkha. If defined as suffering, I am doubtful there is anyone on earth who is free of suffering at all times, but maybe there is someone!

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Well, two thoughts come to mind. The first is we tend to have a very sanitized view of equanimity -- the "they are nice buddhists" version where the person is calm and agreeable and pleasant, etc. But that's a kind of superficial equanimity. I would argue that profound equanimity is very meta, it's even being equanimous within disruptive states. But initially we can only be equanimous when the mind and body is calm, then maybe we can learn to be equanimous when the mind is calm but the body is in turmoil, then we can learn to be be equanimous even when the mind and body is in turmoil. But obviously that takes practice.

The other thought is in terms of sports performance, they only need to be in the zone during game play. Whatever happens outside of that kinda doesn't matter. So that's going to be personality driven, some will get angry, some will sulk, some will get psyched-up, but whatever happens - as soon as the ball is in play, all the top athletes will be very focused on the game itself and not that emotional.