The Experience of No-Self

An Eternal Now SG

so wat you are saying is buddhism is a teaching?

Buddhism is about the truth of suffering, the cause of suffering, the way and path out of suffering, and the end of suffering and attainment of the highest bliss. (4 noble truths)

So it contains teachings/view, path (practice), and fruition.

seyKai SG

You don't have to tell a lie to feed the family, we have to use some wisdom.

Also, if you ask these enlightened people to talk about their enlightenment, some or most of them would be willing to talk about it. Even if they don't announce it in public. I know many who openly admit their enlightenment, and those who admit it but not as openly as others (i.e. you have to ask him about it).

wisdom comes from experience and some may say from teaching

wen there is no self then why does he need to admit that he has attains enlightenment? for glory?

why do you need to suffer to attain highest bliss? ingorance is bliss

An Eternal Now SG

wisdom comes from experience and some may say from teaching

wen there is no self then why does he need to admit that he has attains enlightenment? for glory?

why do you need to suffer to attain highest bliss, ingorance is bliss

Wisdom comes from first learning the teaching, then practicing and realising it for yourself.

One can admit one's enlightenment so that others feel confident that they can achieve it too. It's not an ego thing. The Buddha himself proclaimed that he was awakened and so did many other enlightened beings. If nobody proclaim his own awakening, then Buddhism might be mistaken as impossible or impractical and nobody will have confidence. Also it helps to know who is awaken: then you know who to share notes and learn from.

Ignorance (not knowing our true nature, clinging to self) is suffering, but you don't know it. If you know that ignorance is causing suffering you'll let go... but this knowledge will not come through theory but through diligent bare mindfulness of our experience.

seyKai SG

i dun see your point, if one can attain enlightenment so why need to proclaim

geis SG

practice with heart and use your intuition. for even if we discuss this until the end of time is useless. In nlp this is called ur map is not my territory.

suffering is just a word used to discribe the aggregate of experiences that is perceived thru dualistic nature of the sense of self

An Eternal Now SG

i dun see your point, if one can attain enlightenment so why need to proclaim

To summarize my point:

1) Proclaim to show that it is possible, practical for ordinary people like us

2) Useful for people to know who to look to learn from

seyKai SG

practice with heart and use your intuition. for even if we discuss this until the end of time is useless. In nlp this is called ur map is not my territory.

suffering is just a word used to discribe the aggregate of experiences that is perceived thru dualistic nature of the sense of self

so practicing Buddhism is only for oneself?

JitKiat SG

Practicing Buddhism is not only for oneself. As everything is inter-dependent, changing ourselves will also benefit our family members and people who are closely related to us eventually. For those who are by nature more compassionate, they may get involved in activities of Engaged/Humanistic Buddhism like Tzu Chi Foundation to reach out to even more people.

seyKai SG

why need to proclaim wen u have the faith? meaning we r weak n needed the support?

An Eternal Now SG

why need to proclaim wen u have the faith? meaning we r weak n needed the support?

For those who don't have faith. Even those who have faith may have wrong notions like "it's too difficult for me, it's not possible, it might take hundreds of lifetimes" etc.

Sgforumposter SG

An eternal now wrote :

The sense of self is not really a self, it is an illusion but it is the condition for suffering to manifest. Without that there is no suffering.

Without a self can there be happiness ? Is happiness not-suffering ?

If we removed self are we also removing happiness ?

An Eternal Now SG

An eternal now wrote :

Without a self can there be happiness ? Is happiness not-suffering ?

If we removed self are we also removing happiness ?

No, without a sense of self there is just pure joy and love without subject-object duality. It is not the kind of happiness that is temporary, that arises due to the sense of a self achieving or gaining something. It is without self.

Weychin SG

Attachment of “self”
This morning, I woke up and I felt great. I greeted everybody I met and everybody returned in kind. Wow! What a great day! But,then I greeted this old man and he scowled at me and scream profanities at me in from of everybody. I made me so embarrased that I feel so everytime I see the man I avoided him! Why is it so! Why am I making myself miserable!

Sgforumposter SG

If there is pure joy who was it that experienced the pure joy ?

Love requires that someone be loved which demands that there is someone to love. How can love exist in a no-self vacuum ?

Sgforumposter SG

AEN wrote :

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.

Do you not agree that there is a take off point into oblivion ? Our mind has a very bad habit of compartmentalising everything and so our life is centred around a mind created order/reality. So we progress bit by bit, step by step, two-by-two ;-) ....no I am getting carried away .... into removing more and more of our delusions. Then all of a sudden - wham - you found yourself in oblivion. Do you consider this "oblivion" as a stage ?

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 not quite correct. You have to distinguish between emptiness of phenomenon and realisation of such emptiness.

This is the seal of no-self

So can I say that you have attained ? If a person come up to you and say "there is and always is only sound when hearing ; never was there a hearer to begin with" would you accept that as a seal of no-self ;-)

An Eternal Now SG

If there is pure joy who was it that experienced the pure joy ?

Love requires that someone be loved which demands that there is someone to love. How can love exist in a no-self vacuum ?

It is the intensity of experiencing a sensation, or anything, without a subject-object split. That is itself blissful, totally clear, though insubstantial. Without separation there is just the universe as it is, and a blissful sensation in just seeing and hearing because there is no attempt to distance oneself from anything else, because there is no 'one' who is doing the seeing and hearing. Just sounds, sights, etc.

An Eternal Now SG

AEN wrote :

Non-duality is not really an experience of oblivion since basically everything is just 'there' -- but without the sense of a separate experiencer or someone in your head looking outwards. There is totally no distance, just everything appearing as the manifestation of bright awareness.

This is not quite correct. You have to distinguish between emptiness of phenomenon and realisation of such emptiness.

Yes, but realisation of no-self is not the same as "me" merging with "sound" or the sense of self temporarily fading out of existence. This can occur through absorption but it is not the insight of no-self as a seal, there will be no burning away of ignorance since it's basically misunderstood as a stage rather than as the ever-present nature of reality.

There is no one to attain anything. There is just reality as it is, already Anatta. I am not denying that realization is important, but it is not the same as 'attaining a state of no-self' since no-self is not a state, basically it is what Always Is, always has been.

Sgforumposter SG

That was not my question. And all these meaningless verbiage is filled with impressive nonsense. Sights and sounds are function of eye and ear respectively. If there is no eye , no ear how could there be sights and sounds ?

SevenEleven SG

from science point of view, eye and ear sense has it limitation. There is ultra viloet rays. can it be seen? There are sound beyond our hearing. can our ear hear?

Sgforumposter SG

I did not say an experience of oblivion but basically plunging into oblivion or perhaps more accurate "dissolving into oblivion". An experience always come from history and memory and would require an experiencer. All experience is then nothing more than living our delusions.

If "everything is just 'there'" why can't we discern it ?

If it is always 'there' and we can't discern it because of the 'distance', what exactly is this distance you are speaking of ?

AEN wrote :

Absorption has no clarity.

So what if the person "merge" with the universe. Does this count as realisation of no-self ?

So can I say that no-self is a stateless state ? Or if realisation of no-self is the merging with the universe then can I say that the no-self state is the mother of all states ;-) ?

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