CLASS NOTES: The Experience of the Not-Self (Buddhism and Modern Psychology )

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Notes on video lecture:

The Experience of the Not-Self

Buddhism and Modern Psychology

Robert Wright, Princeton University

Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on May 21, 2017 (go to class or lectures)

Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:

affective, extra, detach, dominant, opposition, puzzle, mind, surrounded, identification, convinced, words, thoughts, counter, cement, realm, capture, experience, universal, necessary, thought, awareness, grab, concept, ones, air, modest, next, knowledge, contention, stillness, modular, mystic, enlightenment, mindful, generate, ownerless, own, identify

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Buddhist meditation is sometimes called a mystical form of

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William James

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there are two hallmarks of a experience

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1. noetic

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a sense that has been imparted, that some deep insight has been apprehended

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2. ineffable

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its hard to express what the experience was like

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no adequate report of its contents can be given in

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the experience of not-self

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not the version of not-self

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"I don't have to identify with that feeling as myself"

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but the full-on, extreme not-self

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where the person becomes that the is no self in there

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this usually defies clear expression

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an example explanation of this experience:

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infinite

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no object that is to yourself, and self that is counter to an object

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awareness

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got the sense that awareness was a property of the universe

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like the around you, it doesn't apply any pressure

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it is as if the air is , it's everywhere

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if feels like you are being internally and externally by something that is not self-generated

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two themes in these reports

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1. a sense that your awareness is not something that is owned by a self, i.e. consciousness

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2. no sense of , transcending the subject/object duality

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another avenue to understand the experience of the non-self

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what were the of people who have experienced this

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exercise

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imagine that every thought that is arising in your mind is coming from the person to you

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and notice if that would make a difference if in how you are relating to the thought

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it can give you a sense that the identification with thought is

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view of the mind

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consciousness does not the thoughts

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thoughts are generated by modules outside of the of consciousness

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"It's a dog-eat-dog world going on in your brain with different systems competing to make it to the surface to win the prize of conscious recognition. Whichever notion you happen to be conscious of at any particular moment is the one that won, the one that came bubbling up, the one that's ."

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normally we don't see a though enter the conscious realm

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rather we identify with it immediately apparently and just think that the conscious mind generated the

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meditation, by calming the mind and making the mind still, allows you to experience the thought come emerge in consciousness before you with it

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while in an unreflective state we usually conceive of our ourselves as a self which generates thoughts, upon closer examination it seems to be more the case that thoughts arise and attempt to the consciousness

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they come from somewhere in your body, somewhere in your brain, and the thoughts that come reach out and try to the consciousness and carry it with them

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humans have a strong habit of to be identified with one's thoughts

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this very strong habitual identification is how we have always lived our lives, and it takes practice to break that conditions, and this practice is called meditation, to be of the thought rather to be lost in it

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it's quite common that people report that during meditation, they feel that they are not the thinking their thoughts

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one can understand that the modules are outside the realm of consciousness

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thoughts are actors in our consciousness and we have the habit of going along with them and getting caught up in the mind's drama of them, but that's not

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thoughts have an quality, a feeling tone associated with them

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the feeling tone of a thought becomes a kind of , which allows you to own it

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in our everyday lives, we own our thoughts, and in a sense become our thoughts

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in meditation, the goal is to yourself from your thoughts

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to do this, you can begin by detaching the feelings from your thoughts, allow them to simply be thoughts without any feeling attached

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as feelings become detached from your thoughts, you find that you no longer them, and you can allow them to float by

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the more modest version of not-self

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there are thoughts that I don't have to own

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don't really let go of the of the self

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extreme version of the not-self

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not owning any of your thoughts

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you eventually lose the concept of the self

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it's not so much a distance from the self, but a non- with the self

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all of the experiences of consciousness and all of the thoughts are still there scattered around, but they simply aren't necessarily connected to a self per se

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there's the without being identified with those experiences

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the theme is one of ownerless consciousness

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this brings up the : when you are seeing not-self, don't you have to be seeing it from some perspective, and the answer is simply no, you don't, as the self is just another one of those ideas that floats by

Ideas and Concepts:

Describing the not-self, via tonight's Buddhism and Modern Psychology class:

"William James said that there are two hallmarks of a mystical experience:It is (1) noetic, which means that there is a sense that knowledge has been imparted, that some deep insight has been apprehended. And it is (2) ineffable, meaning that it is hard to express what the experience was like, one feels as if no adequate report of the experience can be given in words.

But if we are going to talk about anything, we need to use words, and if you ask people who have had not-self experiences, or if you try to describe your own not-self experiences, it is often described as a sense of stillness, a state of no contention, of infinite calmness and tranquility. One feels that there is no object that is counter to oneself, and that oneself is counter to no object. One feels a kind of universal awareness, not in the sense that one is aware of the universe, but that awareness itself is merely a property of the universe, that awareness is everywhere, like the air around you, applying no pressure, just simply there.

One feels as if one is being surrounded internally and externally by something that is not self-generated, a sense that one's awareness is not something that is owned by any self whatsoever, that there is an ownerless consciousness about, one is filled with a sense of non-opposition as one extends as a not-self beyond the familiar subject/object duality."

State of the mind, via tonight's Buddhism and Modern Psychology class: "It's a dog-eat-dog world going on in your brain with different systems competing to make it to the surface to win the prize of conscious recognition. Whichever notion you happen to be conscious of at any particular moment is the one that won, the one that came bubbling up, the one enjoys dominance until it is replaced."

On the purpose of meditation, via tonight's Buddhism and Modern Psychology class:

"Normally we don't see a thought as entering our conscious realm, rather, we identify with it immediately and just think that our conscious mind generated the thought.

But through the practice of meditation, by calming the mind and making the mind still, we can experience a thought form and emerge into our consciousness before we identify with it.

In fact, while in our everyday unreflective state of mind we tend to conceive of ourselves as a self which generates thoughts, yet the opposite is more the case. Through closer examination it seems to be that thoughts arise and attempt to capture the consciousness. They come as physical sensations from somewhere in our body, somewhere in our brain, and as they arrive, they reach out and try to grab the consciousness and carry it with them.

We have been conditioned to identify ourselves with our thoughts, as if we have a self which creates them, since this habitual identification is how we have always lived our lives and is anchored in the metaphors with which our mind relates to the world.

But upon closer examination, we find that this is not the case, and this closer examination is called meditation, i.e. the process of becoming mindful of our thoughts rather than lost in them."

On slowing down and freeing the mind, via tonight's Buddhism and Modern Psychology class: "Thoughts are actors in our consciousness and we have the habit of going along with them and getting caught up in the mind's drama of them, but that's not necessary."

On detaching feelings from thoughts, via this morning's Buddhism and Modern Psychology class:

"Thoughts have an affective quality, a feeling tone associated with them. The feeling tone of a thought becomes a kind of cement, which allows you to own it. In this way, in everyday life, we generally own our thoughts, feel very close to them, are attached to them through feelings.

In meditation, the goal is to detach yourself from your thoughts. You can begin by detaching the feelings from your thoughts. Look for the feelings attached to each thought and allow them to drift off of it.

As your feelings become detached from your thoughts, you will find that you no longer own them, and you can watch your thoughts float by."

On attaining the extreme not-self, via tonight's Buddhism and Modern Psychology class:

"In meditation, as you watch one thought after another disassociate from you and disembark on its own way, you realize after awhile that your self, who you are, is less and less associated with thoughts at all, and you gradually arrive at a kind of modest concept of the not-self, i.e. a stripped-down self which is no longer associated with any thoughts.

But at some point you realize that this concept of the self is itself a thought and like any another thought, can disassociate and float away as well. At this point, you arrive at the extreme notion of the not-self, a broad feeling of awareness without any sense of self at all.

Some describe this as not so much a distancing from the idea of self, but a non-identification to any thought whatsoever, including thoughts of being a self. All of the experiences of consciousness and all of the thoughts are still present and scattered around, but they simply aren't connected to anything.

It's an experience of being, but without being identified to anything attached to that experience. The theme becomes one of ownerless consciousness.

A modern term for this might be auto-pilot in the sense that the plane flies on, but there is no more pilot. A sports-related term for this might be being in the flow, where you lose your sense of conscious control yet deliver top performance. And the Daoist term for this is wu wei, the cultivation of a mental state in which your actions are quite effortlessly in alignment with the flow of life."