nobody watches

the buddhist view of egolessness is perhaps the most esoteric and hard to convey concept. it sounds nihilistic. one way to contemplate it is to consider that the decision where your body ends and the rest of the world ends is simply a concept and the inference of mind. there is nothing inherent that makes the atoms of your arm part of “you” and the atoms of the air around your arm part of the “world”. it is merely the mind that decides which is which. therefore, to say that we exist as inherent, separate from the world, is quite questionable. yet, the result is not nihilism. it is quite the opposite. this quote was just sent to me along those lines from chogyam trungpa rinpoche:

The term for awareness in Tibetan means “the knowledge that realizes egolessness through awareness.” Awareness brings egolessness because there is no object of awareness. You are aware of the whole thing completely, of you and other and of the activities of you and other at the same time. So everything is open. There is no particular object of awareness. If you’re smart enough, you might ask the question,” Who is being aware of the whole thing?” That’s a very interesting question, the sixty-four-dollar question. And the answer is, nobody is being aware of anything but itself. The razor blade cuts itself. The sun shines by itself. Fire burns by itself. Water flows by itself. Nobody watches — and that is the very primitive level of egolessness.

from “the path is the goal: a basic handbook of buddhist meditation”, pages 21 to 22.

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