We are impermanent…(we will all die)…but as well as the sureness of that - every second we change (subatomic particles – but also our mind is constantly changing with respect to thoughts pooping (!) up out of seemingly nowhere, as well as making running commentaries on almost everything encountered - continually arising and ceasing)…so, can we say we are a stable entity having a even, (steady, unwavering) fixed, permanent self?
So, in that case if there is no fixed entity called self, this constantly changing being we call I, can any view of self be valid? (Because form one moment to the next this self has changed…who ‘I’ thought ‘I’ was is no longer the same self.)
And if there is no self we can grab and say, ‘hey, this is me!’ should we be clinging to this view and the notion of ‘me’ that I and we have built, and had built.?
And if this notion of no fixed self can be believed and experienced and felt and penetrated would it eventuate in not clinging to this notion of a impermanent self and therefore, one might think one would not allow, or cling to, anything that made this impermanent self suffer …that would be illogical…this realisation could lead to the end of suffering. Or help soften it anyway.
But there is a self…otherwise who’s talking now…but there is no fixed, permanent, unchanging self.
Given the Buddha’s last words, ‘All conditioned things are impermanent. Work on your salvation with diligence,’ you could think of the 3 characteristics…impermanence is the master key – so impermanence applies to the self…every changing moment this self is in a state of flux…there is nothing permanent about it. See this, apply this diligently and see what happens.
Who we think we are we’re not…because we’ve just changed.
Whoever you think you are you are not …you have just changed…but what if one thinks (knows) one is not a fixed stable self…is knowing that true (a fixed view)? ‘By not holding to fixed views’ (re the latter) one can think this (ie we are not a fixed stable self) but not cling to the view allowing that this is simply how one is thinking at this point in time and that this too is going to change.
Because of this constantly changing self (body and mind) you can’t actually say ‘hey, this is me’ because in the time you’ve said that you’ve changed. Another, complicated, way of putting it…All theories of self (as outlined in the suttas – and other philosophers) are invalid as the position taken is no longer represented by the same set of aggregates that put it forth because the initial set have changed in the after moment that the initial position was stated – ie a new ‘person’ has come into being = the constancy of arising and ceasing ie impermanence.
And NB – In the Buddha’s view on not self, because of this constancy of change (as well as their being no one fixed identity), is the notion of liberation (as in the 3rd tetrad) about not holding on to (fixed views of) greed and non greed/ hatred and non hatred…exalted and non exalted …etc states of mind to be looked at thus? Is this why, in the ultimate sense re the Buddha’s philosophy, there is no greed or non greed/no exalted or unexalted mind because this worldly mind of fixed views and notions, is simply made up of conditions (and constantly changing every nano second)?
So these states, be they positive or negative, ultimately do not exist in a stable sense. If the body is not self so to the mind is not self…all aspects of mind…hence greed and non greed are not to be sort after, infatuated over or clung to (as self). If notions of body and mind can be let go of now, the experience of this moment – in the ultimate sense – is simply this experience of now; mind is empty of all views; be they negative or positive? Is this state of emptiness (in formal meditation or in the meditation – training the mind – of daily experiences and doings) where peace, tranquillity and the true experience of now experienced?
However, for the monk in training, or lay person in practice, notions and efforts to create positive karma/good intentions is very much part of the Noble Eightfold Path, spiritual progress, insight and must be practiced according, first, to the Buddha’s elemental and then advanced instructions as progress in made.
Re note 299 in the Majjhima Nikaya for the monk in training this includes giving up other acquisitions ie the 5 aggregates, objects of sense pleasure, defilements and karma (intended actions)… so, giving up intended actions (volitional formations) is giving up states of mind (liberating states of mind) as per the 3rd tetrad.