All Buddha says is…one must not see nor considere anything as …this is me, this mine, this is my self
Then one is oneself. So, without any self-views, self-conceit, self-ideas, one is naturally oneself.
This is what we fear most because all this stuff about identity is our grip.
Yes, this seems an accurate account of what I’ve seen in the Pali canon.
This does not seem an accurate account of what I’ve seen in the Pali canon. Maybe you are not representing that it is? Maybe you are representing this as a further inference on your part?
In which case, again this is a foreign language to me and I don’t understand the point of saying, “one is naturally oneself.” I don’t understand how that is helpful to say that or insist upon that. I don’t understand what is gained by saying this or insisting upon this as an inference following what the Teacher said.
Rather than a valid inference based on a logical argument, “one is naturally oneself” instead appears to my mind as a tautology that is void of any meaning or significance. Might as well say, “two is naturally twoself.” Rather than a valid inference it seems a non-sequitur to conclude from what the Teacher said this simple tautology.
It is just true for me. When there is no attachment in the mind at all, you are yourself. Then you are not:
-pretending…show no ego…have no conceit in any way…are not busy to be someone…not lost in conceiving.
You are merely present in open way.
I have recognised this long ago as being my real self. I have always felt that when there is conceit and i am lost in conceiving i am not my self. I do not see this as some judgement. I know it is like that. For example, when i see someone, and i become conceited and that conceit starts to rule me, i can feel i am not myself. If this is…superiority conceit, inferiority conceit…equality conceit, all that measuring oneself on others and believing this is true, being absorbed by it, i do not doubt at all that then i am not my self. I feel it is affliction. Pain. Disturbance.
I am sure a lot of people feel this is so disturbing that they avoid people, they avoid contact and they like isolated places. Then they can be themselves. Just plain simple minds not burdened by the complexity of conceit and conceiving.
What is suffering is never me, like Buddha says trutfully.
Avoidance is not the Path but i can understand people become Avoiders.
Ok. I can accept this is true for you.
From around 10 years i remember measuring became very active (mana anusaya). For me that meant that from that moment on my life became complex and burdened, which i never felt before.
The conceit flips from inferiority, to superiority conceit. Feeling equal i do not have much as conceit.
But i feel conceit as pain, as burdensome. In that sense i relate to EBT that teach conceit as defilement, disturbing, and also as not me, mine, my self. But this mana anusaya, this measuring tendency of the mind, is strong. Trump has it in extreme. Ofcourse it is all very normal, but still painful.
Humans often relate to eachother in a conceited way. That is not a judgement, it is so.
It is a blessing when conceit completely drops away for moments. And surely, for this to happen one does not have to be an arahant. I do not feel there is really another mental burden but conceit.
For me there is not really a difference between a wish to be a light for oneself and others, a real friend for oneself, others and the world, an island,…and the heartwish to be oneself.
I am sure that all tendencies to become violant, agressive, fanatic, greedy, intoxicated, insensitive, unloving, cruel, objective, conceited, alieniated are all merely forms of being not oneself. It are all sign of loosing presence and being ruled by collected internal bagage, by anusaya, asava, tanha’s.
We are all in this situation. Oke, I am 
A Buddha is always himself because he is not ruled anymore by what is bagage, what is adventitious: 7 anusaya, 4 asava, 3 tanha’s. That is his beauty, his freedom, his sensitivity, his receptivity, his warmth, his natural radiance and presence. AN1.51 describes this in a very condensed way.
This appears to me very well stated and the language is not nearly as foreign to me. I do think it suffers a problem in that AN 1.51 does indeed describe the mind as radiant, but it does not describe that mind as worthy of being called “oneself” nor attaching to or identifying mere mind in such a way.
I don’t wish to dissuade you from something you find beneficial. It is very good if you’ve found a way to let go of violence, aggressiveness, fanaticism, greed, intoxication, insensitivity, etc. It is very good to realize that none of these things are intrinsic to who you are.
I am very well aware that IF arising formations are seen as not me, not mine, not my self (all, so also wholesome ones), one must not start to grasp at asankhata: the stillness, the emptiness, the signless, the desireless, the uninclined, that aspect in our lifes what is not a formation and not seen arising like a formation… as me, mine, my self.
Patisambidhamagga really uses a very nice simile. If one sees formations as not me, mine, my self one enters a gateway to liberation. It is like a door the deathless. I like that simile.
I can see you think i have changed grasping from formations to what is not a formation.
That is not true. No, those who i regards as my teachers always warn against this and even say…this is even more worse then seeing formations as me, mine, my self.
Detachment, i see as really being without grasping and being without any views, ideas, notions, conceit and desire of this is me, mine, my self and thus als without any ideas, views, notions, conceit, desire of this is not me, not mine, not my self because those always mutually asire. If you see something as me, mine you also see something as not me, not mine.
Ofcourse an awakened one does not all the time see everything and everyone as not me, not mine, not my self. That is self-evident.
The teachers i regard as my teachers do not denie that there is really something as pure water, an essence of water. Water itself. Water which is undefiled is itself, as it were! The more water is purified the more it becomes itself. Ofcourse this is only language but maybe you understand what i am saying?
Likewise the mind. When the mind is cleansed it becomes more and more itself.
This is not experiences as…we take a Path from A to B…No.
It is experienced as…we go from defiled A to cleansed A.
We arrive where we always were. We cannot arrive anywhere else.
It is not that essence of mind can change. One can cleanse it, but this only means that the essence of mind only becomes more and more apparant. It is does not change but only reveals itself more and more.
No, I can’t claim that I do. This seems to view water as substantially existing. That when I look I should be able to find the “core” of water or the essence of water. I can’t find any such essence or core in water and the closer I look the more it appears void, hollow and completely insubstantial.
Moreover, this claim that there is a “core” or essence of water seems not to fit the world I experience. It seems an impossible mode for water to take. If there really was a pure essence of water, then all beings would experience pure water in exactly the same way and have the same reaction to this essence. Every sentient being would be able to find this “core” or essence of water when they looked. But that just isn’t the case. The simile of the god, human and hungry ghost illustrates that this just isn’t the case in a very compelling way to my limited mind.
The language you are using to me seems in tension with the language you used before. I’m more than willing to accept that I simply do not understand you and the error is on my part.
This is probably personal. Like you apparantly cannot see what is the practical use of certain thoughts i share, I do not understand, and it does not work for me at all, that seeing or contemplating an icescream as void, lacking any inherent existence, coreless, hollow, insubstantial, really causes that I become totally dispassioniate towards an icecream.
For me it works more when i contemplate the dangers of socalled rewarding feelings, nice sense feelings of eating an icecream. The fettering aspect, the addictive side, the delusion that i really reward my self or that i really become now happy. Often i laugh about my own mindprocesses of desire. It sees happiness in eating this or that. Then i smile to these ideas and think…he, finally i will be happy eating this and that. Finally the Great Happiness will come 
I feel all these analyses about this and that appearing void, hollow, insubstantial, what does it often mean in a practical sense? You talk about how water appears void etc. But you just drink water to survive, you wash in water and you can even drown in water.
Then it does not appear at all as void, hollow, insubstantial, right? So what does this all mean?
i accept that we can call the way we experience things, dreamlike. The experience of water of an insect walking on it, and telling you…“Yeshe…water is really solid”…cannot be denied as her experience.
And if we humans experience water in a certain way, this does not mean that this is better, right, truthful, real. It just our way of experiencing water. Tibetans say: it is of no use to debate which dream is right. I feel this is true.
I think this is different from discussing causal relations. In that context one can really be wrong.
One can see causes that are not causes.
Many here feel that there can be no stable element in our lifes. Something that is not seen arising, ceasing and changing. I say…they rely on theory. Because no person really experiences this.
We can really see that stillness, emptiness, desireless, the uninclined, peace is a stable element in our lives and is also not seen as a formation.
Oke, fine, one can reason, theorize, that this stilness, emptiness and element of non-change is illusionary. I can accept such ideas, but no one can say he/she knows it is.
Fact remains, no person has ever seen this element of stillness, peace, ceasing. I have for long played with these ideas and argued that bhavanga is experienced as the element of non-movement.
And because bhavanga is also between any sense moment, our overall experience is like a combination of movement (vinnana) and non-movement (bhavanga). Years ago i saw it this way.
But that moment i also relied on theory. What do i really know about this?
I believe sutta-Buddha does not teach a bhavanga.
Anyway, what is happening here? Why do so many people here denie the existence of something that is not a formation and can be called stillness, peace, emptiness? Something that is, while awake, not seen arising and ceasing?
Correct. It seems the converse is also true 
I’ve found that viewing the insubstantial nature - at least conceptually and in the contrived nature in which I’m able to understand it - does indeed cause some dispassion for those things. I don’t claim any kind of total dispassion though.
Yes! But all of this for me is based upon seeing the insubstantial nature of those things. Were ice-cream or anything else substantial and stable I can see how grasping at them or craving for them might be deemed a worthy endeavor.
Sure! But I don’t believe describing the completely void and hollow insubstantiality of water contradicts in any way the mere existence of water. Water can still be used to drink and drown as you say. Nonetheless, it is helpful to have a larger and more expansive viewpoint towards what water is and what water is not. Same with all things we subject to analysis. Analysis can help clarify misconceptions about the way things exist. Going beyond insubstantiality, analysis can also help clarify interdependent relationships and the fallacy of individual substantial dichotomic things.
Don’t you think it is also good to see its limitations?
Yes, I do. Undoubtedly, analysis can only take us so far. That doesn’t mean that we should ignore analysis or that we should fear to use it to travel the distance it is able to take us though.
it is not hard to see that analysing mind processes from a first person perspective creates also her own stories, knowledge, insights which are 100% bound to this perspective.
For example, we do not perceive all what happens before we have an awareness of a certain sound.
We do not see the airwaves. We do not notice the eardrum movements. We do not notice how the electrochemical signals on the auditive nerve move towards the auditive center of the brain etc.
This is quit bizarre, i feel. For a great part we are so unaware of what happens. We know it happens, but we do not consciously experience it.
We are totally unaware of so many causes and conditions that help to give rise to the awareness of that sound. This is not included in our personal knowledge . But can we say we can exclude it, and still declare we know how ear-vinnana arises? If all that remains unconscious but still conditions a ear-vinnana to arise, can we claim that we see things as they really are? What is the worth of that statement? And what is the worth of PS if all that remains unaware, but still contributes to arising and ceasing of our experiences, is not included?
It makes me really think…what do we really know?
I agree that the track record of conceptual analysis is not so good at discovering positive substantial things to know. I certainly haven’t found any. However, it is really good at ruling out the substantial existence of a thing.
I believe the only thing that Buddha found as substantial, home, is that reality that is not composed, constructed, build up, made and is not seen arising, ceasing and changing. But this cannot be seen as a formation, phenomena, temporary state.
It is not substantial like being an eternal atta, soul, something in time and space. Reifying it, conceiving it, try to grasp it , does not work. Probably this escapes the duality substantial and insubstantial?
Just saying for consideration, what you are calling asankata is also arising of formations. Citta bhavana or kusala cittuppada. Not uncovering an underlying aspect of our lives. Also ‘alobha’ and so forth is not mere absence of ‘lobha’ . This is talking about the nature of certain types of cittuppada. Alobhi nature of citta. Citta can arise with especially strong alobhi nature and so forth, very peaceful but conditioned.