A Buddhist Perspective on the Duality of Self

A look at Cause and Effect from a Naturalist Point of View.

“A Buddhist Perspective of the duality of Self and Non Self”

By Robben Wainer

To answer the question if the self exists, or not, I would like to start with an autobiographical sketch, and then see if what I consider to be characteristics of the self exist, or not. I am a Mahayana Buddhist, A Graduate Student, A Gay Parent, and an incest survivor of an alcoholic. Yet even when I am practicing, or engaged in activities that I use to define who I am, somehow I am transparent, and processing the state of equanimity of being alive, and a human being. I am also a sentient being who is prone to all of the permanence, and impermanence of emptiness in form.

I am hesitant to say that self is non-existent, since it delivers to us a state of reference in which judgments, decisions, choices, and motives all stem from, the Buddhist Teachings of non self, that these labels also do not exist, in that absorption's of distinction are entirely unnecessary, and lead to questions that cause suffering.

 In my experience that self reflections, feelings and emotions are all transparent inclinations to cause ourselves grief if not pain. It is the impermanence of such states that help us to avoid such feelings of guilt, shame and even passive aggression. So the question still persists is the self good, but the absorption of self disagreeable.

I understand, the notion that even meditation in natural selection is a rebellion against the fear/ and flight response that has evolved for our survival. I believe the Buddhist Philosophy of Non Self to be about the permanence and impermanence of qualities of the soul and spirit, that help us to see the emptiness in dual realities that often lead to distractions of several kinds. It is also the faith in No Self, that asks the question “Who am I” for which the response is “don’t know”

Self as described by natural selection, is a transient, precarious, questionable, and fabricated process. The essence of Buddhist meditation is that there is nothing to attain. If there is nothing to attain in our thoughts, and feelings they will cease to have power over us. I believe in the Buddhist teachings that the self does not exist, that only mind, body, spirit, energy and life do, but rather than seeing it as a negation of terms to define even our mood, it is the sense that we have already achieved enlightenment, and are already perfect without exception. Buddhist Philosophy which shows that self in terms of ego, is a limited cycle of cause, and effect breaches the quality of life in letting go of preconceived notions, thoughts and opinion, to answer in an informal way questions that do not provide us with real knowledge, or insight into belief of self, and ego, and is also unnecessary in practicing beliefs based on faith.