Everything is non-self

When asked, if their a soul or a self, Buddha reportedly answered that we should identify everything as non-self.

Self is an unthinkable thing. The previous investigation into self-reference highlights the intrinsic problems of self. If we really had any relationship with ourselves, so that we might truly be able to refer to something as "self" would not that self be non-self referential? For if that self was self-referential then it would refer to itself and not-ourselves and if it was not self-referential then it would not be ourself since we are by definition in relation to it. In other words "can the mirror image really be us?". If the reflection is us then who is it a refection of? and if it is not us then how can it be our reflection. Neither are true, but neither are false either. Can a reflection really be of itself? It defies explanation. It is dialectical in european parlance, and certainly non-dualistic.

and so is the self.

More obviously where is the world are we? Can we point to anything in the world that we call ourselves? We might begin by pointing at the body. But what if we lost a part of our body, which bit is ourself? And so begins an endless process of finding the object whose reflection we call ourself.

Basically as far as we are concerned there is no thing called the self, because all the things in the universe are not ourselves. Indeed that is exactly what we are... not all the things in the universe! That is the great realisation that atman is brahman, it is the great realisation that the self is empty, of Hui Neng that because we are empty (or negative) there is room for the whole universe to exist... of Kierkegaard (quoted excellently in Waynes world) "If i name thee, I negate thee"... of Heideggar when we says that Being hides itself in the creation of the many beings... Being (ourself) is the negation of all th things, indeed is negative by the objective things of which we are actually "NOT" any of them. This is not nihilation but a very deliberate relationship between what IS and what must therefore NOT be, the two in an inexplicable relationship and marriage.

In society to make things confusing exists the double negation. "Gosson you are late" screams my teacher. My teacher is not-me. But to him I am not-him. He is my mirror reflection and I am his mirror reflection. So my mirror reflection is pointing at me and calling me his reflection... "Gosson!!" that is to say he is shouting, gosson You are late, I am not. So I am faced with a double negation and the apparent existence of myself standing in the class room being singled out as "late". Actually the double negation is not the same as "me" who cannot be identified in the room, and the double negation, this doppleganger, is this strange imposter in the world a ghost who I can verify does not exist yet other people seem to believe in.

But they have maybe fallen under the spell of self, just as I am dicing with.

Above is the issue of existence, of life, of death, of authenticity, delusion, and evil in a nutshell.

Am I going mad? because the further down this road I go, the further away I seem and the more mad the world then becomes... a sure sign of madness. Life also gets harder. I wonder if this really is the path, which while my desire to walk it is stronger than ever, I realise is a path that I would not wish anyone else to walk because this really is into an unknown wilderness.

Do only good.
Do no evil ever.