28/29 May 2009 - self (important)

Last night and this morning a couple of clearer insights...

I realised that my observation ages ago of only being able to see other mountains from atop a mountain, but not being able to see ones own mountain as is also poigned out by Pigmalion that - eyes need some distance for us to see things, is a good analogy of the non-existence of self.

The same observation occurs in Heideggar where he observes that Being hides itself in the presencing of things. The back light so to speak shining through the screen of the world yet hiding itself totally in the things.

We can only see things so the "back light" does not register directly in our minds as a thing only the vaguest sense.

Hui-Neng goes further when he says that the world can only be there because the mind is empty. He avoids any suggestion of the mind or Self being something by analogising it to an empty space into which the world is projected. This is the famous over-flowing cup in Zen - how can it take more tea if it is already full?

In Hinduism the same is expressed in the Upanishads as Atma (soul/self) being identical with Bramhan (the world). This has an interesting further implication that what each of us think of as ourself and have a different name to is actually the same as the "outer" world and also the same as opne another!

None of these are quite right because the self is not a thing and not being a thing it can't be separate from anything either. Yet as pointers to where to look for the self they are excellent.

Waking this morning and touching the oak tree in my sanctuary on the flood plain I came to think about the sense of such rituals. It is only me and an oak tree I thought. What is the use of saying thank you to a piece of wood?

But here is the problem. I can see an oak tree and I assume I am there, but what exactly am I? In the panic that arises from not being able to see ourselves - like a child who realises looking around that he has lost sight of his parents - we cling and identify with things to satisfy that desire to have something solid to call "me". Thus when I think it is only me and the tree it is wrong to think that there is a tree solid and secure and next to the tree is "me" solid and secure because this is not what is there! Actually there is only me-and-the-tree as a single complex of interactions, inter-dependence and relativity. I can't be separated from the tree anymore than I can step down from my mountain and still have the view of other mountains. In this sense "the tree" is proof of me; but not me as a separate thing like the tree but "me" whose only evidence is the tree. It is not that "I am the tree" but that the presence of the tree is because of me, in its purest form is me.

Such freedom to see the self as entirely without characteristics to be entirely the creator of events and the world around us is heady stuff and only for spiritual adults. I am yet a child and still grasp for self as a solid secure thing. Without a solid self questions like "what am I?" and "what am I going to do?" seem to panic and fall into disarray. We think erroneously that I can be anybody, or I can do anything: our imaginations drift without anything to fixate upon. The single story we have built of ourself becomes vague and we feel we lose security, solidity, grounding, peace and happiness. This all happens because we are not ready to accept emptiness or non-self. We still seek solid answer to perpetual questions like "who am I?". Freedom is not being ourself, or anybody - it is not being responsible for this action or that action - it is freedom from such thinking. It is not however being no-one and irresponsible - these are juvenile rejections of the normal concepts. Freedom is freedom from the concepts both positively and negatively.

Rituals enable us to calm the free-mind by getting it to fixate on solid things again. Ironically only when it is calm and secure is it ready to approach understanding of its own freedom from these rituals! Peace is the foundation and if we seek security then we must be given that to find peace - altho it will be an impure temporary peace until "we" gain liberation from ourselves.

Now in objective thinking we think that while we presence things by observing them they continue to "exist" when we are not present. So the mountains are "real" mountains that we are simply seeing by being there.

This is correct and incorrect. The insight is that any thoughts we have are being presenced themselves by "us" having them. Any arguments we have and any learning or memories or theories are all further mountains that we can see from our mountain. If we walk away and still claim the mountains are there actually we have simply walked onto another mountain where pictures of the mountains are visible. This is a very hard thing to argue and I'm out of time. But as Buddha would say this particular enquiry does not lead to freedom anyway.