If there's no "me," I don't have any problems

Following up on "My best guess about God" musings, I wanted to take another crack of getting down to the core of a whole lot of religiosity, spirituality, mysticism, and philosophy.

My inspiration is Wei Wu Wei's "Open Secret," which I finished today. Like many books with a Zen, Buddhist, Taoist, Advaita, or non-dual slant, I passed through many stages of literary emotion while reading it.

Interest. Irritation. Confusion. Agreement. Contentment. Bewilderment. To name a few.

What kept me turning the pages were the glimpses of something intriguingly simple that the author, a.k.a. Terence Gray, was trying to communicate. It isn't an original notion, not by any means, but Wei Wu Wei -- at times -- says it more clearly than most.

From page 143:

Bondage, and the consecutive suffering -- which is all suffering -- is entirely dependent on the idea of an objective I, that is "a me." But no such contradiction-in-terms has ever existed, exists, or could ever be.

...To be an object is just to be perceptible, which is to appear.
To appear to whom? To be perceptible to what?

Only I can perceive. What else could there be to perceive, which could perceive? And whatever I perceive must be my object.

My object is an objectivisation of what I am. What else could there be for it to be?

Therefore every object is myself. There can be no thing which is not myself. I am no thing but my objects, and my objects are nothing but I.

Another try at saying it, from page 88:

The perceiver in fact has arrived at a point in his investigation at which he is looking at what he is himself; he has reached a dead-end in his analysis and finds himself face to face with his own nature, but, instead of recognizing it as such and realizing that the void is what an eye sees when it looks at itself, he goes on trying to objectify what he does not see, what he can never see, by turning it into an objective concept, like the good and well-trained philosopher he usually is.

...But there is, has always been, an alternative, when the dead-end, the Ultima Thule of conceptualisation has been reached, and that is just to turn round and wake up to the truth. Having arrived at the gate they tried to prise it open, not realizing that they were already on the right side of it.

And how is this realized? By doing nothing. From page 135 and 139:

All practice must necessarily be futile, and why the exercise of volition must necessarily defeat its own ends.

It is vain for an object to seek the subject which it is -- for only the subject could seek, and it cannot find itself by seeking -- for the sought is necessarily elsewhere than that which seeks it, is in a different moment of time and in a different area of space from those of that which is seeking. 

...It is from the illusion of autonomy that a pseudoidentity awakens, and it is the condition that then obtains, a state of universality, which has been given the name "enlightenment," for an apparent identity has become aware of its universality, and has returned to full consciousness of the totality that it is.

Now, maybe this doesn't sound so clear to you. So I'll express my own understanding of what Wei Wu Wei is getting at in some (hopefully) simple words.

We try to know who we really are. Why?

Because we feel that if we knew, we'd be better off. Happier. More at peace with ourselves and the world. And religiously speaking, we'd be saved, enlightened, God-realized, whatever you want to call it.

We presume that there is a self, a soul, a psyche, a "me" -- something objectively real -- which is going to be known by us. So we search for it via meditation, prayer, contemplation, drugs, psychotherapy, walks on the beach, studying books, and many other sorts of ways.

But wait! Who is doing the searching?

Why, it must be...me. Who else could be doing it? Hmmmmm. This means that if I find myself, it won't be me, because I'm the subjectivity doing the looking, not the object that is found.

There's a spiritual/philosophical and a scientific/logical way of looking at this. Both end up in the same place: There's no "self" in myself. No "ego" in my egocentricity. No "soul" in my soulful searching.

Mystics, like Rumi, say that what we're looking for is so close, we don't recognize it. Here's how I expressed a Rumi story in my book about the Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, Plotinus: "Return to the One." 

Rumi, a Persian mystic, speaks of a sage who told a man how to unearth a buried treasure. Paraphrased, the story goes like this: "Stand here," the sage says, "and shoot an arrow in that direction. Where the arrow lands, there the treasure will be found." The man gets a bow and enthusiastically does as instructed, carefully watching the high arc of the arrow as it flies away.

After digging where it landed, he is dismayed at not finding any treasure. "I'll keep trying," he vows. More arrows are shot, and soon the ground is cratered with holes. But still no treasure. Exhausted, he goes back to the sage and complains that all his work has gone for naught.

"I didn't tell you to shoot with all your strength," the sage tells him. "Simply let the arrow drop from your bow." The treasure, it turns out, was right beneath the man's feet.

Similarly, Plotinus says that our spiritual wealth is so close we are unable to find it. What separates us from what we seek isn't physical distance but rather the mistaken notion that we are separated at all. For it is by running outside ourselves that we distance ourselves from the One. A spiritual seeker's first step, then, is to stop moving and realize his or her true self.

Which, according to Wei Wu Wei, doesn't exist. So there is nothing for the non-existent self to do. Only to be.

There is no need to read books, chant Sutras, recite Scriptures, perform any antics; there is nothing whatever to discuss, argue about, or explain. There is nothing whatever to teach or to be learned... No volitional action whatsoever is possible that could "liberate" from "bondage," since there is no entity to be bound or to be free.

And from a scientific perspective, here's how Thomas Metzinger starts off his book about modern neuroscience, "The Ego Tunnel."

In this book, I will try to convince you that there is no such thing as a self. Contrary to what most people believe, nobody has ever been or had a self. But it is not just that the modern philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience together are just about to shatter the myth of the self.

It has now become clear that we will never solve the philosophical puzzle of consciousness -- that is, how it can arise in the brain, which is a purely physical object -- if we don't come to terms with with this simple proposition: that to the best of our current knowledge there is no thing, no indivisible entity, that is us, neither in the brain nor in some metaphysical realm beyond the world. So when we speak of conscious experience as a subjective phenomenon, what is the entity having these experiences?

Cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter has an answer in his book, "I Am a Strange Loop."

The strange loop making up an "I" is no more a pinpointable, extractable physical object than an audio feedback loop is a tangible object possessing a mass and a diameter. Such a loop may exist "inside" an auditorium, but the fact that it is physically localized doesn't mean that one can pick it up and heft it, let alone measure such things as its temperature and thickness!

...And thus the current "I" -- the most up-to-date set of recollections and aspirations and passions and confusions -- by tampering with the vast, unpredictable world of objects and other people, has sparked some rapid feedback, which, once absorbed in the form of symbol activations, gives rise to an infinitesimally modified "I"; thus round and round it goes, moment after moment, year after year.

In this fashion, via the loop of symbols sparking actions and repercussions triggering symbols, the abstract structure serving as our innermost essence evolves slowly but surely, and in so doing it locks itself ever more rigidly into our mind.

Interesting. Good stuff. But we're back to some complexity. I'd better end with some simpler Wei Wu Wei.

In this process of personalizing "mind" and thinking of it as "I," we thereby make it, which is subject, into an object, whereas "I" in fact can never be such, for there is nothing objective in "I," which is essentially a direct expression of subjectivity.

This objectivising of pure subjectivity, calling it "me" or calling it "mind," is precisely what constitutes "bondage." It is this concept, termed the I-concept or ego or self, which is the supposed bondage from which we all suffer and from which we seek "liberation."

...There cannot be any such thing as bondage at all, but only the idea of such. There is no liberation, for there is no "thing" from which to be freed. If the whole conceptual structure is seen as what it is, it must necessarily collapse, and the bondage-enlightenment nonsense with it.

Along with religion. Spirituality. Mysticism. Self-development.

Bye-bye. All gone. Good riddance.

Comments

[tAo]

yes, this is precisely what i have been saying for a long time... that 'enlightenment' (and everything associated with it) is a myth.

which also means that 'unenlightened' is also a myth... as well as 'god-realization' and 'liberation', religion, spirituality, mysticism, and all the rest of the forms of seeking that people engage in.

they are all predicated upon a myth: the myth that something or other is not quite right, and therefore that something or other must be attained.

[George]

but was wei wu wei (terence gray) not all about mysticism? So i cant see how you can say 'bye-bye' to it?

Surely these concepts that you have imbibed and followed over the years, on nonduality, the One, void, nothingness, non-action - are all concepts of mysticism.

This is definitiely not science and Metzinger;s stuff is very iffy from a pure science viewpoint.

[Brian Hines]

George, as I noted in this post:
---------------
There's a spiritual/philosophical and a scientific/logical way of looking at this. Both end up in the same place: There's no "self" in myself. No "ego" in my egocentricity. No "soul" in my soulful searching.
---------------

Yes, Wei Wu Wei uses Buddhism (and Taoism) to support his views. But reading his book I was struck by how closely those conceptions mirror modern neuroscience. That's why I included quotes from some writers who are familiar with neuroscience (and neurophilosophy).

There's no little man/woman or person inside our head. Searching for a "me," an ego, a self, a soul, we don't find one. Here neuroscience and Buddhism/Taoism agree.

It's true that there are mystical and metaphysical sides to the Eastern faiths. But these aren't necessary. Quite a few modern Buddhists view the teachings in a thoroughly physical/natural fashion.

How does the brain work? How does the mind work? How do subjectivity and objectivity work? These are the subjects that Wei Wu Wei tackles, though he uses the language and style of spirituality, rather than science.

My point is simply that we can explore the nature of our own consciousness without any recourse to "mystical" concepts. These can point us to some interesting hypotheses and questions, such as Ramana's oft-repeated "Who am I?" Or Zen's "Am I?"

[tucson]

Dear friends,

Back in '68 or so I had a transformation of my outlook and view of things. It was profound and yet simple and obvious...so obvious that I thought some people were putting me on when they apparantly didn't "see" as I did. To me, it seemed people were playing this game of being asleep when they were really awake.

Because of the conditioning of society and the apparant overwhelming "sleepiness" of it I guess you could say that maintaining my "wakefullness" gradually eroded, although the memory of what that wakefullness was like remained with me.

Occasionally I would slip into wakefulness and this continued to occur to varying degrees throughout my life. Oddly, the shock of 911 somehow rekindled this wakefullness to the forefront.

One of the aspects of this wakefulness is a diminished sense of "I-ness" and an increased sense of the cliche' word..Oneness. Another aspect is seeing that everything is happening exactly as it should be. Cycles and patterns are seen in their entirety in a moment. Nothing is out of place. All is well. There is a sense of affinity or harmony.

Interestingly, I came upon one of Wei Wu Wei's books in '68 at about the same time Sant Mat came my way. Wei Wu Wei's writings seemed to confirm my experience and really spoke to me, but somehow the magical allure of Sant Mat dogma influenced me to think that there could be more, that Wei
Wu Wei was just at a preliminary stage within the realm of mind. After all, he never spoke of inner spiritual regions with islands inhabited by innumerable exalted souls (dweeps of hansas) or a magnificent rotating cave (banwar gupha) or a purifying spiritual lake (mansorovar). Wei Wu Wei did not offer to place an astral replica of himself within my third eye, nor did he offer to take on my burden of karma and administer it in the most efficacious manner. He did not prohibit consuming muffins made with eggs or drinking a glass of beer on a hot day. He offered no practice or method.

So, I bit into the Sant Mat hook and played the guru-disciple game for a few decades until I saw the new guru, Gurinder Singh, in San Francisco in '91 and realized that Sant Mat was no longer for me. Satsangis seemed to be in an irrational trance about this turbaned man on the stage. I was no longer in that trance. The Sant Mat skin gradually sloughed away.

Wei Wu Wei continues to be one of my favorite philosophical writers. His books remain on my rather limited bookshelf along with a few other favorites and classics such as "Techniques of a Professional Commodity Chart Analyst" by Arthur Sklarew while my Sant Mat books are mostly given away. A couple remain in a box in the garage for reference.

Classic Wei Wu Wei:

I only am as all beings,
I only exist as all appearances.
I am only experienced as all sentience,
I am only cognised as all knowing.
Only visible as all that is seen,
Every concept is a concept of what I am.
All that seems to be is my being,
For what I am is not any thing.

Being whatever is phenomenal,
Whatever can be conceived as appearing,
I who am conceiving cannot be conceived,
Since only I conceive,
How could I conceive what is conceiving?
What I am is what I conceive;
Is that not enough for me to be?

When could I have been born,
I who am the conceiver of time itself?
Where could I live,
I who conceive the space wherein all things extend?
How could I die,
I who conceive the birth, life, and death of all things,
I who, conceiving, cannot be conceived?

I am being, unaware of being,
But my being is all being,
I neither think nor feel nor do,
But your thinking, feeling, doing, is mine only.

I am life, but it is my objects that live,
For your living is my living.
Transcending all appearance,
I am immanent therein,
For all that is - I am,
And I am no thing.

[Brian Hines]

tucson, thanks for the interesting story of how you found Wei Wu Wei and lost Sant Mat. I pretty much assumed that you were familiar with his books, given how similar your thoughts are to his.

I too now favor a naturalistic approach to life, rather than an abstract, conceptual, mystical viewpoint. I realize that a lot of people would object to "abstract" and "conceptual" being tied to "mystical," but I think this is valid.

There's what we directly experience, and/or can be proven, and then there's other stuff. Ideas like "God," "soul," "spirit" and such are just that: ideas. I like how Wei Wu Wei focuses on our immediate experience of subjectivity and objectivity -- though he delves into some fairly deep philosophical waters also.

[joe]

All very good, however, until it is actually experienced, and maintained as such, it is nothing but a concept, and possible a very amotivational concept where individuals end up doing nothing and behaving badly for all the wrong reasons. For instance, I especially like when passive aggressive advaitists attack other people and then say, "who is offended, there is no-one there to offend," or similar claptrap. Advaita is meant as the end of a journey. People still have to take the journey to get there, in my non-opinion.

[tucson]

"Advaita is meant as the end of a journey. People still have to take the journey to get there, in my non-opinion."

--What would this journey be? From where to where? This is it. No beginning and no end. Nothing else to it. It isn't an experience but rather simply existence as it is now. There is nothing special required, no preparation or purification or refinement. It is simply realized or recognized...a simple, aha! This is it. It isn't conditioned by anything so it can't be influenced by anything that happens in time. Whether, when or how it happens is independent of occurances in temporality. Therefore, any action, pursuit or endeavor to reach it is pointless. You think there must be some advantage you can gain, but there is none. You hope to escape from yourself, but that's impossible. You want a way out, but none exists. That which is here now doesn't need a way out and will never find a way out because that which is here is infinite and eternal. You can't walk towards or away from it. You are being it now. No big deal. Go your merry way and just live.

[tAo]

joe, you said:

"until it is actually experienced, and maintained as such, it is nothing but a concept, and possible a very amotivational concept where individuals end up doing nothing and behaving badly for all the wrong reasons."

-- i have no idea what you are talking about here. could you be more specific? until WHAT is "experienced"? and WHAT is the "concept"? and who is "doing nothing", and who is "behaving badly"? behaving badly about what? also, who are these "passive aggressive advaitists"?

i don't get what you are trying to say. you mentioned advaita, as if advaita is some sort of final end of the road, or the achieved goal at the end of some journey. that's not advaita at all.

for advaita, there is no journey, no journeyer, no end or goal, none of that sort of duality.

advaita can only always be here and now. advaita is always already the case. it is not the object or the ending of any journey. it is not elsewhere. it is not an object, nor a place, nor a state to be achieved. tucson has expressed that quite well.

anyway, i don't see what was the point that you were trying to make here? perhaps you could explain yourself more clearly? thanks.

[The world (as the Elephant)]

Tucson's response to Joe simply sounds like just like more claptrap. When the word 'you' is used what is it meant by 'you'?

I am often asked why do I attribute credibility (and not authority as Brian somehow liked to imagine and assume without obvious reason) to some (Hakuin, Meister Echkart, Spinoza, Dogen, etc.) and reject others (Tucson and Wu Wei Wei)? If you study their thoughts you will discover their views are inconsistent with the following statements for any reasonable interpretation (because both Tucson and WWW remain quite vague http://www.cog.brown.edu/~slomanlab/papers/self_deception_sloman.pdf) :

"Therefore, any action, pursuit or endeavor to reach it is pointless. You think there must be some advantage you can gain, but there is none"

Like we say, someone has to give .. to be wrong! Eckhart's idea of 'the birth of the son' cannot be squared with Tucson's affirmations.

It is also a question of integration: while it is possible to make sense of Tucson's narratives from Eckhart's or Spinoza's own narratives it is impossible do to the same starting with Tucson's narratives. One major reason for that state of affairs is that Tucson prefers to limit what the views and narratives of others can and cannot be ("You think there must be some advantage"). That makes any engaged and open discussion impossible since it is always Tucson and himself talking, as he never replies to its interlocutor’s views but to straw men views of his own.
Change and distinction does not have to be conceived only as a spatial process. Flex your imagination a bit and give up your limited views on what could be and could not be and then you might be able to engage seriously a discussion on these matters. Quantum physics has completely changed the way we had to think about certain realities. In a way, it looks like you are still stuck in a Classical world, and imposing your wrong views on others. The bottom line of your narratives is analogous to that of a psychoteraphist who would offer as sole therapy to the unhappy and unsatisfied patient the following: "You are unhappy? The solution is easy: simply be happy! No big problem! no big deal!" and the patient continues suffering ... the psychotherapist completely oblivious ... Why if this little story and the approach of this psychotherapist sound too stupid or naive to be taken seriously then it should not be the same for Tucson's narratives?

[tucson]

It is the endless search that keeps it out of reach. Does an artist achieve the perfect painting? Does the artist reach a goal? Maybe some artists do. But one who is an artist at the core of their being just paints because that is what the artist is..a painter or sculptor or musician or whatever. They can't help it. They don't have to search for what they are. They just do it..are it. It is an ongoing process of unfoldment without dimension or limitation. We are artists. We don't have to search for it because we are doing it, being it and yet when we look for what it is, there is nothing to be found in any objective sense.

So, what I'm saying is there is no creator or creation. There is only this infinite unfoldment outside of which nothing could possibly be. No matter where one looks, there one is and yet when one tries to see what one is it is impossible. We are the looking and the looking is the seen.

So, when it is understood that there is nothing to perceive, one remains as they are... doing/being whatever is happening now..the unfoldment. If there is anything we can say about what we are absolutely, it is total emptiness without a second. We can't say whether we are or are not. Certainly we are nothing conceptual.

One can't escape or be outside of This. Wherever one may go, there they are...This. Whether one stays still or moves about, no one moves and no one stays still. All one can do is be the totality of what they are, even in the realm of time and space.

There is no practice to be done because a practice or a 'way' arises out of the primary illusion of two-ness, separation, suffering which arises out of the first 'I' thought. This first idea creates time, space, a universe. As long as the 'I' appears to be real there will be a desire for liberation, but liberation could only be from something that doesn't exist. So how could one be liberated from it?

Don't listen to me or to anybody, not even yourself. Whatever is conceived can't be what you are. Recognize that everything is a lie, especially the one who recognizes everything is a lie.

If one goes around thinking 'I am withut form' or 'I am not' they are still in the realm of separation from their intrinsic nature. Who is it that has no form? See what I mean? Just see that what exists in no form exists in form also. Without a sense of difference and separation all is complete.

Playing concept against concept is like a game of tennis hitting the ball back and forth. It may be fun and interesting but this conceptualization hides the essence of life, and in this essence the conceptualizer disappears.

To approach this essence, words are useless. Stillness and silence enables all objects of perception to disappear into awareness of toatal potentiality which Wei Wu Wei and others call noumenon. There is nothing more to say in the stillness of emptiness which paradoxically is a fullness.

[Brian Hines]

the Elephant, reading your comment I was struck by how the same criticism you apply to tucson could be applied to you. Meaning, I don't see you as responding to his thoughts in a conversational sense, but rather in a judgmental dismissive sense.

All we're doing here is talking about stuff that is deeply personal, subjective, and unprovable. Everybody has an opinion about what life is really all about (including whether "really" has any meaning in this context).

Today I came across an essay by Wittgenstein. See:
http://www.galilean-library.org/manuscript.php?postid=43866

He said (and I agree):

"Thus in ethical and religious language we seem constantly to be using similes. But a simile must be the simile for something. And if I can describe a fact by means of a simile I must also be able to drop the simile and to describe the facts without it. Now in our case as soon as we try to drop the simile and simply to state the facts which stand behind it, we find that there are no such facts. And so, what at first appeared to be simile now seems to be mere nonsense."

You seem to be saying that there is something about enlightenment or self-realization that isn't nonsense. Tucson, by contrast, seems to be saying that all efforts along such lines are indeed nonsense, because there are no facts behind all the similies and metaphors supposed sages, mystics, and masters utter.

Two opinions. Two points of view. I just feel that the burden is on the person claiming that one spiritual narrative is more true than another to point to the facts that back up that claim. Which is you. Otherwise, all we're doing here is story-telling: you, tucson, me, everybody. Which is fine with me.

[Anudasa]

"I don't need books" then why you read?
"I don't need teacher" - then why you study and read other's writings? So that is contradiction. Bona-fide spiritual master is needed. Hare Krsna

[George]

"Along with religion. Spirituality. Mysticism. Self-development.
Bye-bye. All gone. Good riddance."

Are advaita (nonduality) and/or neoplatonism also gone?

Most mystical traditions appear to have in common the notion of an undifferentiated absolute reality that underlies our supposedly illusory differentiated reality.

You also mention Hofstadter and his 'strange loops' theory of consciousness or self, but what underlies this theory appears to be an attempted explanation of paradox and of percieving various abstractions of reality that loop in on themselves and sometimes import meanings on lower more simplified layers. Alot of this stuff with different layers of reality and limits to our conceptual knowledge and paradox is not that far off zen budhism or taoism imo.