Friday 7 June 2013

Little self, Big self and Not-self

I have noticed in my practice over the years three types of self. Firstly there is the little self, this is the contracted me caught up in my neurosis, worry, reacting to life as it arises. Doing my best to find some stable ground from where I can set about planing how to control this chaotic vortex of experience. This is the self built upon strategies and self images ( I used to be a Buddhist monk, I am a long term meditator, I am a psychologist  these ideas do not have any actual effect on the chaos apart from creating suffering). They are positions taken due to delusion and the feeling of being overwhelmed.
Then there is the Big SELF. To me this is the experience of space, stillness, equanimity a capacity to be bigger than life. This to me shows up in the areas of my life where my practice feels mature, developed, it is my optimal experience. It has a kind of freedom to it, yet it is the illusion that arises from having developed a practice, having had some insight, yet this has been gathered up to create a insight persona,we have become the one who knows.
Then there is Not-self, the big self thinks it knows this. Yet there is a big difference between equanimity and release of the self. It is not a sense of largeness, or vastness that can be attuned to when then mind is very still. It is the end of Self, not ego. Self is the stickiness that believes it is ego. Not-self is a moment of non stickiness, when life is not taken personally, no self is being constructed, it is a non experience. A hole in the fabric of self experiencing. Giving rise to faith in liberation, leaving a perception which seems to be neither a perception or a non perception that informs the process of spiritual development which aids in the maturation process. Does the experience of Not-self mature? or is the maturation the process of self structures being  released when Not-self arises?
I have to admit my experience in the Not-self arena has been rare, yet it has greatly informed my being. Big self and little self I know well. I feel it is not appropriate to make value judgements on these different types of self, just to open and know them when they are present.

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