flat lining
203
flat lining this morningnot depressed, but completely fed upit is an emotion, is there a sense starting it?grey, cold, no sleepa jumble of thoughts come up, some newer, good and and, some older. why her? why so strong memories? need to be saved?I keep grasping/reaching, not connected to anything. Just mind in circles. Exactly.
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This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self. The Buddha implies here that this statement can be used as an antidote to our habitual “I-making” and as a means of penetrating reality as it is. That is, by cultivating the understanding that “this perception (or material/body, feeling, conceptual fabrication, cognizance) is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self,” we begin simultaneously to weaken our sense of self and see how things really are—devoid of self, essence, spirit, or soul.
arise - persist - dissolve - disappear
Sutra 6
It is important to note that the Buddha is not denying the reality of each of these processes. He is merely clarifying the nature of their realness. In our everyday speech, don’t we use “real” to indicate qualities of absoluteness, continuity, solidity, fixedness, and so forth? That sensation you feel on touching a hot cup of coffee is a real, felt sensation. There is no denying the fact. But in what sense is it real? The Buddha’s examples seem intentionally to run counter to our common assumptions about the nature of “real.” Like a water bubble, a feeling of “hot” arises when the necessary conditions are present; persists as long as these conditions hold together; dissolves as those conditions weaken; and disappears as they disintegrate. Why is this insight important? You can do an experiment. Practice viewing appearances, perceptions, feelings, conceptualizations, and thoughts in the manner recommended by the Buddha here. Is your habitual way of reacting altered at all? What qualities of being become present when you see forms as balls of foam and thoughts as magical illusions? When you view reality in this manner, what then?
feeling: sensation -> emotion
disenchanted. When we unconsciously, unquestioningly view some object as being just as it “appears” to us, or just as we perceive it (and so on with the other khandhas)—in some objective, absolute sense—this view is evidence that we are enthralled or enchanted by the appearance, perception, and so on. The Buddha asks at the end of each section, in effect: Why do you persist in being caught up in the endless barrage of appearances, ideas, images, concepts, viewpoints, perspectives, judgments, and so on and on and on? The slow dawning that all of these things are like mirages or magical illusions or hollow tree trunks engenders a clear-eyed disillusionment, disenchantment, and loss of infatuation. No longer infatuated, we naturally experience a dispassionate withdrawal from our habitual involvement with these endless forms. This withdrawal is liberating; it frees us from our previous life-limiting enthrallment. When we are no longer held in thrall (from Anglo-Saxon thræl, “slave”), what then?