Where is the "Me"?

In previous post said this:

"This is a very old Indian meditation. Look at our hand and see if there is anything in there that is "me." Proof is cut that hand off and see if "me" is any less"

It's actually more subtle than this.

Imagine picking up an apple with the left hand. You can feel the apple. Now do the same with the right hand. You can feel the apple. Now cut off the left hand and give it an apple. We cannot feel it. But we can still feel the right hand. This leads to the idea that "I" am in the body side of the hand, and it being cut off takes the feeling away from "me".

But actually the cut off hand doesn't feel anything! It's not that the feeling has been "bottled" in the hand that is now separated from us. There is no feeling any more! By cutting it off you have stopped the feeling.

To get a feeling you need the nerves attached to the brain. You need the whole thing.

Now it is true that there is the phenomenon of "phantom limb" where someone who has had their limb removed can still feel like it's there. Again this leads to the idea that "we" are in the body not the hand. But this suggests that feelings exist in the body regardless of the presence of the hand or not. So why do we need a body at all to feel anything. Can't we just make it up? And then we're in real trouble because where do we make it up if we don't even need a body to create the feelings.

Well we kind of say something like "data" comes from the bodily feeling receptors and this is turned into the experience of "feeling" in the brain. But we're cheating slightly because the brain is the body. It is there on the mortuary slab during autopsy. If we have decided that feelings are mot in the body and that is just "data" then where are the "feelings" now?

So we dump material existence all together and create a Mind where the feeling and consciousness  occurs. But then we're in Descartes territory with 2 completely separate worlds. How does the data come into consciousness. One idea is that the data IS the consciousness. What looks like electrical signals for the researcher is feelings for the "subject." But where is the subject hiding? where for that matter is the researcher hiding? We already said that body is not "me" so the bodies of the research and study subject are not where these people are hiding. Somehow there are two minds hiding in the room somewhere.

Well this obviously doesn't make any sense.

The whole problem is trying to "hide" things in these pictures. Why are we doing this? Why can't things just be what they are?

So starting again.

We hold the apple in our left hand and we get a feeling. We hold the apple in our right hand and we get a feeling. We let go of the apple in our right hand and we no longer get a feeling. Equally we cut that hand off and the same result of no feeling. Perhaps we get a "hallucination" and we get the feeling of the apple even while touching nothing. That is just what it is: a feeling. And so on, and so on. There is nothing more to do here. There is no need to slot a "person" into any of these situations. Feeling happen by themselves without anyone being present!

Feelings being present without anyone being present is obvious really. If we need to put someone inside us to make us feel, then who is inside them to make them feel!

The point about feelings is that they are simple happenings like any other happening. They happen. They don't need any more scaffolding to exist.

Now in the heart of this is the pervasive idea of a "centre." The world revolves around a centre that is "me." Having this assumed centre means that we even end up trying to enforce it. Things that don't conform to this assumed idea of a centre put us off centre and we feel uncomfortable. We end up trying to restore the centre again. This is what is called "Ego" and the behaviour stemming from this leads in Buddha's analysis to suffering: that feeling that nothing is ever quite right, because nothing ever quite gets to the centre. The reason is because the centre is not real, its just a presumption that we grip onto very strongly.

My current belief is that the bliss that people report on Enlightenment is really the absence of the stress of constantly holding on to this centre. Everything we do more of less involves us grasping this centre. "I am hungry" is not just there hunger of wanting food, its the bringing of food toward this centre. When the centre does not get the food, its not the hunger that really matters, that can make us a bit scratchy and bad tempered, what really matters is that food has not made this centre their centre. Especially if the food goes to someone else we see that another centre is present and that challenges our centre. We can still make this all about ourselves by having ideas like "I'm generous I'll give them the food" or "I'm better than this, I'll not make a big deal over this" thus establishing the whole situation as being around our centre. Spiritual practice can actually make us worse because the broader and wider philosophy can put is ever more in the centre. In Hinduism there is the Atman which is ultimately identified as the Universe (Brahman) which if you do it wrong leads you to see your personal centre as the universal centre which is even worse than when you started! What should happen is you realise your personal centre is a mortal illusion and the actual centre--that previously you hung the idea of The World upon--is the same as your own. But this still places reality around a centre. This is the same as Newton trying to make all motion happen against a true stationary point. Motion is always measured between things the actual motion of which is unknown. The same with the whole of existence: it does not happen according to a fixed centre, but the centre arises between things which themselves have no fixed centre.

So the key manoeuvre we need for freedom from being a slave to this fixed centre is to let go and not need to grasp it. This does not evaporate all centre, but the centre is adrift now occurring only momentarily as things happen and then evaporating again. Most importantly being free from this expectation we no longer struggle to look for and establish this centre. For example we get humiliated and this feels bad because our centre is being challenged. If we build our perspective around something like we are "cool" anything that challenges this moves us from this centre. The struggle between what is emerging and the fixed centre is suffering. We can just ignore it and save ourselves a load of grief, and just get on with things.