SuttaCentral
Suppose, you see the body in the mirror, do you not regard this body as you or yours at this moment, habitually? Is there not a train of thoughts in the mind like this?
Or, suppose, you feel pain, don’t you habitually reflect about this experience in terms of ‘this pain is mine’, or, maybe, ‘this pain has arisen in me’? or ‘I am in pains, i have pain’?
Hi @Green,
I’ve never had any thoughts even remotely close to that with my body’s reflection in mirrors. Sure, I abide, as in the previous sentence, by verbal behavioral convention of personal pronoun use, but that’s only to avoid confusing people and/or annoying them with nerding out on linguistic technicalities. Yet I don’t think, or feel, or have any emotions about identifying my body as one or more of my selves when I use personal pronouns, and since the idea of True or Higher or Real Self, or core identity, or Eternal Soul, etc…, has always felt foreign to me, I’ve never believed I had one of those to identify with anything.
As far as pain goes: (1) it’s not an aggregate. (2) I’ve had chronic pain since my early teens (I’m 53), and the last thing I want to do is identify it as one of my selves. Even the phrase, “I am in pain,” has never confused me into thinking it’s one of my selves. (3) In all the instances where we find The Buddha saying, “My back is sore,” no one accuses him of contradicting his anattā teachings.
Don’t get me wrong, I can behave selfishly, egotistically and conceitedly, did so at a much higher rate before I took up consistent metta and generosity practices. But I can’t recall even one of those instances of selfishness, and/or egotism, and/or conceit involving identifying one or more of my selves with one or more of the aggregates.
best,
~l
I have, kinda sorta (especially in terms of not identifying at all with the vedanā which is where I’d situate chronic pain and the like), but it’s pretty common for people to identify with their cognizances or consciousness or whatever we’re calling viññāṇa these days.
Also, a lot of this stuff is specifically directed at the Upanishadic idea of the atman as eternal, unchangeable, and (in some of those schools of thoughts) as identifiable with the cosmos as a whole, which was definitely a thing in the milieu back then and there, but not really so much for your and my cultural background, maybe.
On another hand, I knew one guy who wrote his PhD thesis on “the credit theory of identity.” He was a proto-TESCREAL type back in the 1980s who was concerned with how identity could be maintained philosophically over the course of very long lifespan and extensive self-transformation. Since he put his money on who got the credit for making the choices and decisions that resulted in whatever this entity became, his theory amounted to identifying self with saṅkhāra. He was very definitely a metaphysical materialist, one of those “scientific realist” guys.
The 5 are the upādānakkhandhā and the 4 are the
X as self,
self as having X,
X in self, or
self in X
where X is one of the 5.
Hi Landis,
Thanks.
I see all anusaya as subconsciously arising compulsive, unfree, tendencies. Very strong conditionings, strong habitual ingrained patterns.
A Buddha can still deal with the body and mind as me and mine, but this is freed, it is not compulsive of nature but just functional to live.
I do not believe Nibbana is about loosing the intellectual capacities, the ability to think and conceive or the ability to regard things, but it is not anymore of an obsessive nature, no slavery, it is also freed.
Think about will or volition. In the unfree mind volition rules us, as it were. But Nibbana means we freely can use the will.
Or, think about how a defiled mind unvoluntairy becomes directed upon and engaged with a sense object. If Nibbana is realised there is still the capacity to direct the mind but now it is freely to use.
Nibbana represents such freedom and all anusaya, also sakkaya ditthi, represent unfreedom, habitual patterns, slavery, strong conditionings.
I see that sakkaya ditthi refers to the strong, unfree, habit to automatically start to reflect (intellectually relate) upon experiences in terms of me and mine.
Pain belongs to the vedana khandha and when pain arises almost always a train of thoughts arises in the sense of ‘I have this pain’ etc. Experiences so often give rise to thoughts, reflection that can be summed up as identitviews.
At those moment we also feel that these thoughts are true, that experiences really are mine, and there really is an I or Me as the owner of these experiences and as the one who experiences them.
If we do not stop reflecting this way upon experiences, we also never even start to question the existence of this Me-that-experiences and this ownership.
I also think this is not really a topic for many people. Also not many religious people but as i see it, it is here where Buddha sees the escape of suffering.
Indeed. Very often, i see.
There is something that makes gold gold and not lead. In this sense there is also identity, not as some unchangeable essence or substance but gold can be identified as gold and not as lead because it is really different. I can also be identified as Green and not as Landis. That shows, i feel, that identity also has a true basis. Identity is not really about some eternal essence, substance. It does not require it.
Even if an union consist of merely many shells and one does not find a core, does this mean it cannot be identified as union?
To speak about identity must there really be some unique substance, core, essence that always exist?