”If you could get rid of yourself just once, the secret of secrets would open to you. The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe would appear on the mirror of your perception.”—Rumi
During one of our recent online group meditation sessions, someone raised a question related to the teachings around anatta or not self. She observed that while it is possible to see that there’s no permanent identity in our changing moods and thoughts, it is hard to shake the idea that the silent witness in meditation is not the self. Who is the one who observes the mind?
Many meditators will eventually ask this question. My own attempts to understand it haven’t been completely satisfactory and I’ve long been content to keep it at the level of mystery. I have learned to settle in what’s been called “Don’t Know Mind” — which is an acknowledgment that some questions can be safely placed in parentheses, as in “I don’t know the answer right now.” Don’t Know Mind comes with some faith that with continuing practice, contemplation, and study, revelation may some day arise. Or not, and that’s OK too.
Strangely, a revelation did arise for me after my dharma friend asked her question. This I didn’t expect. More on that later.
First, here are some thoughts about anatta that I have found helpful:
The teaching on anatta (“not self” or “no self”) is not a denial of existence. We clearly exist as individuals with bodies and personalities, with thoughts and feelings and identities in real time. Relax. And it’s OK to use the words “me” and “you” and “us” and “them” to describe ourselves in this conventional sense.
It’s also OK to use words to describe what anatta is pointing to, even though that is beyond words and concepts. The Buddha made extensive use of language, using words like the “Unconditioned” and the “Deathless” to describe nirvana or nibbana. Some contemporary Insight teachers use phrases like “Loving Presence,” “Silent Witness,” “Big Self,” “Big Mind” or simply “Awareness” to describe the liberating essence available to us. Right now, I’m favouring the word awareness.
As I understand it, our ordinary, conditioned self slips in and out of awareness all the time. When not in awareness, the mind and body more or less operate on habit energy or impulses conditioned by past events, including trauma. So, we could be on a train of thought and not realize it until we are many miles down the track. When awareness arises, the train stops.
The ordinary mind tends to identify with its thoughts. Our mental chatter — running commentary, judgments, plans, memories, stories, wishes, brilliant ideas, debates, fears, beliefs, and so on — seems to identify who we are. Which is confusing because there’s usually more than one internal voice and they are often at odds. This habit of identifying with internal mental processes is described as “selfing.” Selfing is a function — maybe the function — of egoic mind.
Through the cultivation of mindfulness, wise contemplation, and other practices, we develop an increasingly stronger ability to stay in awareness and watch the egoic mind. We notice more and more that the egoic mind is often characterized by the presence of dissatisfaction — dukkha. If we stay with dukkha as an object of awareness, we may notice the felt sense of craving (tanha) that is the cause of dukkha. We’ll then see how craving conditions the mind to reach for or push away experience. When we don’t see this, we are in a state of avijja or ignorance. The result is clinging. The mind attaches to, identifies with, a memory, a plan, a pleasure, a pain, an opinion, etc. This is grasping, clinging mind.
You know those awful sticky glue traps that are used to catch mice? That’s what grasping, clinging mind is like. It’s a sticky trap. We get caught and stuck in stories and beliefs and emotional states.
To understand anatta and the liberation it points to, it is necessary to know the egoic, grasping, clinging mind really well. This is where meditation is a great help. In meditation we watch the movement of the mind as it shifts from calm to chaos and back again. This is why we listen to the stories our minds tell without getting carried away by them, or worse, believing them. This is why we try to sit with our emotional states as we would with a beloved child — with wise, loving, patient acceptance.
If we watch the mind with care, we will see that the movement of the mind, the content of the mind, is not self. Same with the body. If it were truly self, it would not change. At best, our personalities can be described as a continuum of mind/body experience.
We are not trying to get rid of our personalities. After all, our conditioned body/minds are the channels through which we experience life. And they are the vehicles through which awareness can flow. When we rest in awareness, we can experience it as intuitive or as a flow of unimpeded creative expression. In Buddhism we would say this experience is free of dukkha — free of clinging, contraction, limitation, thus free of unsatisfactoriness.
The personality is quite useful, really. It helps us pay the bills and drives us to seek liberation from itself. However, it does have limits. Humility is worth cultivating in that regard.
Finally, in order to know the egoic mind really well, without getting caught up in its multitudinous traps, we need to follow a learning path. The Buddha’s Eight Fold Path comes highly recommended. It incorporates the three great practices of wise understanding, ethical conduct, and mental discipline. The Eight Fold Path can be a base from which other practices and teachings — including non-Buddhist ones — can be explored, as needed. For instance, if you find yourself yelling at random strangers who cut you off in traffic, try metta Or, if you want to explore the teaching of anatta, you could try contemplating the Buddha’s Five Aggregates of Clinging.
From the point of view of ordinary, egoic self, the learning path of the liberation project is long. Some say complete liberation takes many, many lifetimes. Others say this current life is your only chance. Personally, I take the view that while complete liberation from grasping mind seems pretty daunting, liberation in this moment is entirely doable.
As for anatta, it’s worth noting that its realization is part of the first of the four stages of enlightenment as described in early Theravada Buddhism. Along with the abandonment of doubt and attachment to rites and rituals, letting go of self view brings on Stream Entry. Stream Entry is said to be attainable even for a devoted lay person holding down a job and a family. This is encouraging.
Joseph Goldstein says the witnessing mind is the last bastion of the egoic self. In other words, we think the silent witness is the “real me” and we try to make it into something.
After last week’s online meditation session, I took a walk in the warm evening air and again pondered the question of who observes mental phenomena. Who — or what — listens objectively to the mind. Amidst the awareness of chattering squirrels, a soft breeze on my skin, and random commentary in my mind stream, four words bubbled up: “Awareness has no personality.”
I stopped in my tracks. It was maybe the first time it had occurred to me that the silent witness — awareness — has no preferences, no moods, no cravings, no opinions, no commentary, no judgments, no attachments, no aversions, makes no comparisons with others, and tells no stories. There isn’t anything there that looks like a self. It’s not self. It’s empty. Yet its reality is undeniable. And it contains everything.
“We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all.”—Kalu Rinpoche
—Nelle Oosterom