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Bodhisattva Road

No Self and You

Last updated on: February 1, 2018 at 8:52 am   by Daniel Scharpenburg

No Self and You 2018-01-12T13:56:54-05:00 Daniel Scharpenburg

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This is a hard concept for us to understand.

Anatta….no self.

I’d like to explain it this way.

Everything you think about yourself is a story you’re telling. There is no you, not in the way you think. All the concepts, feelings, and beliefs that we have about ourselves are self-created.

We weave things together from our environment and fashion a self out of it. It’s not so much that there’s nothing as it is that there’s nothing to hold on to. There’s nothing to point to and say, “That’s me.”

Where do we end and where does our environment begin? I think we learn more and more as we go through life that these lines are a little blurry.

We can examine this no self really deeply with mindfulness. If we contemplate no self, it can bring great insights.

The truth is that we can go beyond our opinions and baggage and see what’s really going on. We can let go of who we thought we were.

 

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