Wed, 04 Aug 2010
The False Self
So our false self is a product of our thinking mind. Our usual idea of the mind is constructed on an analogy with the physical world. Just as our body is situated in the world, we think our mind is somewhere within the body. And just as our senses perceive the world, we think that our mind perceives our thoughts. This belief of the mind as within the body and separate from, but perceiving thought, is a deeply ingrained habit. Still, there are exepriences which call this habitual belief into question. For example, there are out of body experiences where you perceives your body from the outside. And their are mystical experiences, where the sense of separate self vanishes temporarily. The existence of these experiences shows us the arbitrary nature of how we understand the mind. But the goal is not to come up with a more accurate theory of mind. It's to drop the theories and conceptualizations altogether and just relax and let things be as they are. Since most people find this difficult, we have artificial practices like meditation, that allow us to train the mind to relax. When this ability to let go and relax reaches a certain level of development, we can catch a glimpse of our basic mind, or alaya. But this shouldn't be misunderstood as our ordinary way of seeing. It more of a being. It similar to how our finger touches itself, and yet has no sensation of itself. Similarly, mind sees mind, but there is no experience of mind.
