Post by Rudy on Apr 19, 2013 15:39:35 GMT 1
Rudy, in Buddhism where/how do the mind and the idea of a "self" differ? I know that there is no such thing as an inherent unchanging self. But this experience of "me"... what is that? That's the mind, no? So where does that sense of "me" go when I die, but my mind keeps on existing?
Good question. The mind is the non-material phenomenon that experiences, thinks and feels. The idea of a self is just one of the thoughts the mind has. Similarly, if you compare the mind-stream to a river, any thought or concept or experience is like a drop of the water. A river is basically just flowing water, as the mind-stream is a continuouis flow of thoughts, feelings etc.
When we are sentient beings with a body, like right now with a human body, we do not merely identify ourselves with our mind; usually we focus even much more on our body when we think of 'I'. When I hit you on the head, you certainly do not get angry because I hurt your mind-stream.
So as a human, we tend to consider our mind and our body to form the 'I'. This creates a mental construct in our mind of what we call 'I' or self. This sort of self is for all conventional purposes valid, and probably even essential to our survival.
The main problem from the Buddhist point of view, is that our mental construct of the 'I' or self has a major flaw, as it prevents us from 'getting beyond our self and our own karma', and it keeps us from being able to find happiness without suffering.
With my simplistic mind, I like to think of this as if we are all quite crazy, and believe we need to have blue crocodiles. Basically, blue crocodiles do not exist, so we keep trying to find something similar, and we always get disappointed. Even if we find something very close, like a real crocodile, chances are that the encounter will not end with happiness at all...
The idea of 'me' is pretty tricky; it seems so obvious, but even in very simplistic language and without much philosophy, our idea of me or self is shaky at best:
For example, if I say, 'I am my body and my mind', that sounds quite acceptable, but I can also say that I have a body and I have a mind. Now that is interesting: if I say 'I have a body', it means the 'I' must be something besides the body. If I say 'I have a mind', it must mean that the I must be something besides the mind, so is it then body, or the mind? In our mind, it is almost as if there is something beyond our body and mind that is the owner of body and mind. But this 'owner' is nowhere to be found...
Also, if I look at a picture from myself when I was a baby, I tend to say something like, 'that's me'! But it is quite mad that a 58 year old man can point at a one year old and claim to be the 'same'. People with less obvious delusions have been locked up in mental institutes...
