The self-sufficient substantially existent self

[Ven. Gendun]

According to the lower schools we are born with a strong identification with our 5 aggregates (form, feeling, discrimination, volitional formations, primary consciousness), capable of acting independently of the other aggregates. Yet it is also something we are deeply confused about. Sometimes we say “If feel” and sometimes “I have feelings’, and “I am beautiful” versus “my body is strong”. In other words, sometimes we relate to the body as a possession and sometimes as an identity. Explore what this does to your psychology and wellbeing, and how being free of this ignorance would benefit you.

• This topic was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by Ven. Gendun.

[Sara Caldwell]

When I explore this topic, I always end up wishing that language wasn’t so limited, especially regarding what the verbs “to be” and “to have” do to the psychology of humans. The subject / verb / object structure of our language actually causes me to feel like I am lying in a certain sense, because it doesn’t reflect the truth of impermanence. It solidifies and “freezes” my conceptuality, and I find this to be a huge obstacle in having any sort of realizations of impermanence and emptiness. It also generates feelings of wanting to go into a deep retreat, or to give up speaking and writing all together because I’d like to know things, including myself, as verbs, not nouns. But even that wouldn’t be the ultimate fix, because my thoughts are still in the format of the language with which I was raised. I agree with Ven. Gendun- it is deeply confusing. I feel like I need lifetimes of meditation in order to change my mind about this. Being free of this constraint would feel like the ultimate freedom and an ultimate truth. If I could just realize it and then show others how to realize it! Imagine!

[Ingrid Lander]

Meeting myslef as impermanent.
My life has been colored by the fact that I have made myself in a dialectical relationship between past and future. Life has then been lived in a constant attempt to control the future from experiences from the past and thus a fear of being punished, like a constant balancing on a knife edge. What then becomes clear when I stand in the presence, is a relief and a calmness, how through my senses I see, feel, taste and hear what is going on in a new way. That I don’t have to act on all the habitual impulses and thus continue on old trodden paths that only lead to suffering. That nagging anxiety and fear of reprisal fades away, as does the exhausting constant grasping for control and being one step ahead.

I meet a more honest and authentic person, more compassionate to myself, in my actions as a human being and thus more compassionate towards the actions of others. A form of calm wonder at the world I encounter instead of, like Jean d’Arc, fighting to achieve (own) peace and freedom. This is what I see, the next step is to try to keep this in mind when acting in everyday life, based on this more impermanent approach and image of the making of myself.

[Mircea Mocanu]

The s.s.s.e.s draws arbitrary borders to which we adhere blindly. That keeps the climate for disappointment active. Being confused and tired, most of the times falling pray to own illusions.

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