more on selflessness

just got this sogyal rinpoche quote. do you think this is controversial? outrageous?

At present, our body is undoubtedly the center of our whole universe. We associate it, without thinking, with our self and our ego, and this thoughtless and false association continually reinforces our illusion of their inseparable, concrete existence. Because our body seems so convincingly to exist, our “I” seems to exist, and “you” seem to exist, and the entire illusory, dualistic world we never stop projecting around us looks ultimately solid and real. When we die, this whole compound construction falls dramatically to pieces.

“I” definitely associate my body with “me”, as defining the boundaries of me. but i’m also not entirely consistent about it: if i were to lose an arm by accident, i would think i was still “me” even without the arm. perhaps i would be a different me, and others would experience me as different. but i would still be “me”. so the connection between body and me is not exact, though conventionally i think it is.

“I” was talking to my friend anthony over dinner last night, and we pondered what it would be like to see the world from a non-dualistic viewpoint, to see that very conversation from a non-dual view. sitting across the dinner table from each other, in a nicely lit restaurant in the city, talking about existentialism and relativism. but then imagine that “you” are not seeing yourself as separable from the world, from the surrounding environment, and not inherently separate from the person across the table from you. that you’re having a conversation with. sure that person isn’t necessarily the same as ‘you’, they have their own perceptions and awareness and consciousness, but it is inseparable really from the environment. you are inseparable from the environment that you came from, that you’re sitting in. you’re not really a separate, independent “you” and he is not truly a separate “him”.

I guess this viewpoint is questioning to some degree the notion of a “soul”. because in my judeo-christian upbringing that notion seems to point at something in a person that is truly separate from the environment, something truly lasting, independent, that arrives (from somewhere else) and at the moment of death persists and goes away (to somewhere else, tbd). you could semantically draw a line at the soul, and say well “me” and “anthony” are souls that are truly independent, but the rest of “us” our bodies and our memories and points of view are inseparable from the world and our experience. then that would be non-dual for most of “us” but dual for just that small subset of ourselves that is the soul. a compromise perhaps between a dual and non-dual view.

do you think there is a truly independent, permanent soul? i’m not going to try to convince you one way or another. i’m quite curious myself. what do you think?

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