I-Making

An Unhealthy Disease

We define ourselves constantly — reifying what does not exist

Every breath, every sight, every thought — I, me, mine. It is the dismal refrain, the self-made shackles that nail us to Mother Earth, for who does all the work, who keeps the chains in place? You do. We do.

Who chases elusive human happiness 24/7? You do. We do.

A happiness that finally makes its true appearance only when we lose ourselves completely to become an ego-less being of happy moments; to then become happiness knowing only happiness — no I, me, mine (us or them) to be found.

The Buddha knew this, knew this very well, and also knew that he had to preach, teach and expound this truth of anatta, self-lessness, to a population who were not (and still are not) ready (or willing) to hear and understand it.

Sue Hamilton makes a well-informed reference to this teaching when she quotes Malalasekera, a distinguished modern Theravada Buddhist, on the topic:

“This is the one doctrine that separates Buddhism from all other religions, creeds, and systems of philosophy and which makes it unique in the world’s history.

“All its other teachings are found, more or less in similar forms, in one or other of the schools of thought or religions which have attempted to guide men through life and explain to them the unsatisfactoriness of the world. But in its denial of any real permanent Soul or Self, Buddhism stands alone. This teaching presents the utmost difficulty to many people and often provokes even violent antagonism towards the whole religion.

“Yet this doctrine of No-soul or Anatta is the bedrock of Buddhism and all the other Teachings of the Buddha are intimately connected with it.

“Now, what is this ‘Soul’ the existence of which the Buddha denies? Briefly stated, the soul is the abiding, separate, constantly existing, and indestructible entity which is generally believed to be found in man. It is the thinker of all his thoughts, the doer of his deeds and the director of the organism generally. It is the lord not only of the body but also of the mind; it gathers its knowledge through the gateways of the senses.

“Buddhism denies all this and asserts that this belief in a permanent and a divine soul is the most dangerous and pernicious of all errors, the most deceitful of illusions, that it will inevitably mislead its victim into the deepest pit of sorrow and suffering.”

That last clause is what I would term the opposite of mincing words: “That it will inevitably mislead its victim into the deepest pit of sorrow and suffering.”

Yes, the Buddha knew and tried to make us see — to this day.

Nagarjuna and his Tibetan disciples (I’m thinking about Tsong Kapha among others) developed elaborate logical constructs to prove, by human reason, that the self does not, could not possibly, exist. I have tried to follow such reasoning, tried very hard indeed, but still after several attempts I find these logical high-rises specious, a little sleight-of-handish.

To me, you truly know by being. You truly know selflessness by letting go and experiencing the gone self as pure self-less experience. This is beyond reason. It is beyond thought. It is beyond speculation. It simply is.

Tsong Kapha and his cohorts so loved and so impressed themselves with logical thought that they even ridiculed any mystic (mainly Indian) who claimed that to see ultimate self-less truth, you have to ascend thought.

Thought, they claimed, should not be ascended but should be deployed to convince yourself that the self did not, could not exist.

There is a universe of difference between knowing by being and knowing by conviction. A logical edifice has to be scaled to be appreciated while being is a pure experience — reaching far deeper, far higher than analytical thought ever will.

To me, this incessant love affair with thought and reason is a disease of the ego, the very thing this thinking is supposed to disprove.

© Wolfstuff