Self is just a natural process and so not a self

If we rightly understand this so-called person, or being, soul or self as just a natural process of mental and physical phenomena, then we do not take them to be a person or a being, a soul or a self, an 'I' or a 'you'. [Sayadaw U. Janakabhivamsa]

Reading some more the technique is to comtemplate the body in terms of its elemental qualities ... that is to see the body as composed from natural things rather than things that are built upon a notion of self.

What has been occurring to me thinking about the film Inception is that there is a very big problem in my thinking. I still don't know how to understand "action" itself. It seems to me that regardless of how we understand the body as elements there will always be a difference between myself and someone else in that I can decide to do something which someone else cannot. In there lies the seed of my misunderstanding of self.

Zhuang Zi once woke from a dream thinking he was a butterfly to disover he was a man. he was gripped by the thought that maybe he will awake from dreaming he is a man to discover he is a butterfly.

The problem with this is that hearing some one else say this doesn't make me think "they" are maybe a butterfly dreaming they are a man. It ONLY works for oneself. In our dreams "other" people don't exist... except in Inception where he considers sharing dreams.

Yet this raises the whole issue of self/other yet again ad nauseam... this is the crux of this blog now it must get resolved... it is linked to SRH too but I'm wondering now as I look deeply at SRH how important it is.