Can you forget the "I"?

[china]

Simply, is it possible for one to forget oneself? Don’t just say yes or no.Look deep, inside of yourself .We really don't know what it means ,do we? . The Bible , sacred books say so-and-so, but all that is mere words, and words are not reality.I think what is important is for the mind to find out whether that which has been put together—the "me" , the experiencer, the thinker, the watcher, the ‘I’—can disappear, dissolve itself. There can't be no other entity who dissolves it. I hope you understand . If the mind says, ‘The 'I' must be dissolved in order to arrive at that "wonderful" state which the sacred books promised, then there is the action of will; there is an entity who wants to arrive, so the ‘I’ still remains.t So the question is ...how do you dissolve the "I"..., do you want to dissolve it?
Let's talk.

 

[Tonington]

I don't think one can forget one's self without some kind of brain trauma, or halucination. The 'I' is constantly changing, but there is still the recognition that you as an entity are real.

I certainly don't want to forget myself. The memories and experience are what make me, if I forget myself I lose all of that and leave the path it was I was wandering. Kind of like that question, "If you could change something in your past, what would you change", and to me that answer is always nothing. One can still have regrets, but I wouldn't change any of my experiences.

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

There is a conventional I.
That "I" goes to the store, feels hungry, gets embarrassed.

Try this exersise: Ask yourself where is this "I"...Is it in my feet, is it in my chest, go over every part of the body and you will say no.
Is it my eyes, my hearing....is it the part of me that interprets the hearing...then what about my feet, they are there....
You will never be able to identyfy this I, we all know and live with...

This is it's empty nature. It requires many aspects of many things to put it altogether ...so in this way , by itself there is no I.

It's not really a spiritual goal to lose the "I" to enter some suuperior state of spiritualty...thats a common mistake.
It's just something to not get hung up on whilst in the human form.

The less you are attatched to the conventional "I" the less you suffer. the more you think of others.

But conventionaly it is there.....

Now as I spoke to you before during meditation there are these gaps called rigpa. That is the place between thoughts...This is also a place where the "I" has vanished. But not really ....conventionaly it is always there whilst dwelling as a samsaric being int the saha worlds of samsara.

 

[Cosmo]

Why would you want to forget the "I"??? I am the collection of my experiences, thoughts, weaknesses, strengths -- all unique to me and no other in the history of the world. I honour that.

I'm big on "enlightened self interest". No one, ever, does anything ultruistically. No such thing. Even the greatest acts of goodness and kindness are self serving in that the person doing them feels good about themselves. The by-product is the good that occurs for others.

I think this is just how we're wired. Nothing wrong with it. The better I live -- that is the happier, more fulfilled, wealthier I am -- the more I have to offer. Taking care of myself frees my attention to share the well being. If I don't do that first, I have nothing to offer. Howzat go? "Beware the naked man who offers you his shirt"?

There's my two pennies worth.

 

[triedit]

I am VERY narcisistic. I always think of events as how they will relate to me. It's instinctual for me. I fight it every day and don't always win. I attempt to choose actions that put others first, but in my mind Im still thinking about how everything affects me. I'm nowhere near being able to transcend that.

 

[china]

Try this exersise: Ask yourself where is this "I"...Is it in my feet, is it in my chest, go over every part of the body and you will say no.
You will never be able to identyfy this I, we all know and live with...

Well Doc ,I think that "I" is very recognizable and its not only recognizable by ones self but also by others . The "I" is your own personal image that you have build around your self ;an image that you will " protect" to your "last breath". I can see that image very clearly in the letters that you have send to my past and present thread (s).The "I" , the image that we build around our selfs is EGO.Nothing wrong with an EGO , there is a proper place for a "healthy" EGO... as long as the EGO doesn't think that it's at the center of the universe.

Dear DocDred ,will continue later -got a meeting .

 

[Curiosity]

China - how could you get back to work instead of staying here and chatting ....hehehe

To me - all that we intuit from very early on is survival - and that includes 'I' with reference to life in our surroundings, our environment, our recollection of stored experience, our feelings, our reactions, our changing personalities, and our intellect.

There must be an 'I' for us to function - rationally or otherwise - else we would be dependent upon our surroundings - reactively - illogically - and robotically.

Once we have formulated our basic 'self' - the 'I' can take a back seat however and weigh in but not necessarily be promoted to the most important consideration - because in our need to work within society - our 'I' must learn temperance and cooperation - and again that would be for survival as well.

Additionally, the basic 'I' can be changed. It is a continuing litany of instruction. Whether we choose to hear, obey or ignore.

 

[china]

China - how could you get back to work instead of staying here and chatting ....hehehe

My dear Curio ,It wasn't work as much as a dinner party(din't want to go through all the Explanations) which was a celebratioffor a birth of a boy to one of my" leaders"( Itwas not chairman Mao).
And even though I am not a "drinker " of alcohol (usually) now I am quite inabbr...what the hell -drunk.I'll talk tomorrow.

 

[china]

Love you all.

 

[Curiosity]

Oh Oh China - happy headache tomorrow! Hope the party was fun anyway!

 

[china]

No headechs tommorow ,just couple more km. of swiming.

Ilove you CURIO.

 

[Curiosity]

China - love you back ...

 

[Twila]

What about people who rescue others at great peril to themselves? Would that be considered forgetting about I? Or is that more of the case of there are truely no unselfish acts?

 

[Curiosity]

Twila

What a fantastic question you posited..... have to get to work....but I hope we get some responses on this one..... wow!!!

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

What about people who rescue others at great peril to themselves? Would that be considered forgetting about I? Or is that more of the case of there are truely no unselfish acts?

Well i for one do think that ultruism is alive and well in at least .00003% of the population at any given time period on earth..I got my figures from Durka so don't nag me about their accuraccy.....

Yes indeed Twila one does not think of brownie points when jumping into a raging river to rescue a person or dog for that matter.
I for one don't flip the odd loonie into the hands of the hard pressed and think tonight it's the lottery for me....although admittedly there is a hard wiring in me that good karma is produced from random acts of goodness...so maybe it's all knee jerk karma jerk action on my part....

I do understand Cosmo's take on it...But i think cosmo could be a tad cynical...justyfiable in this world today....

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

Well Doc ,I think that "I" is very recognizable and its not only recognizable by ones self but also by others . The "I" is your own personal image that you have build around your self ;an image that you will " protect" to your "last breath". I can see that image very clearly in the letters that you have send to my past and present thread (s).The "I" , the image that we build around our selfs is EGO.Nothing wrong with an EGO , there is a proper place for a "healthy" EGO... as long as the EGO doesn't think that it's at the center of the universe.

Dear DocDred ,will continue later -got a meeting .

Yes indeed..

As for your "I" in above I refer to it as the conventional I.
Not the mind that continues after death.

i think the ego is made up of 2 parts...psyche people are gonna kill me but here goes.....There is a small ego seeking happiness for oneself, and a large ego seeking hapiness for others...
I see the ego as something other than the "I".
The ego is like a motivation force...ego's are coruptable, shaped....
the "I" is identity or observer like...

Both are part of the illusion of living in samsara

 

[china]

Twila,

What about people who rescue others at great peril to themselves? Would that be considered forgetting about I? Or is that more of the case of there are truely no unselfish acts?

Great questions Twila-I have not performed any heroic acts lately so I can not say anything that is of my own personal experience.I'm convinced though that when one risks his (physical) life,in order to rescue/help another from a grave situation ; there is only action ,pure love;and in that very moment ones "I" ,ones 'self', ones thought which is the EGO, is non-existent.All / some of us ;at least once in our life time ,have performed some unselfish act ;being aware only of what has to be done ; not thinking of the consequences - not thinking at all.When the self and thought disappears , there is a tremendous power -Love, which the"I" can not capture nor remember- and that is what is .

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

Twila,
Great questions Twila-I have not performed any heroic acts lately so I can not say anything that is of my own personal experience.I'm convinced though that when one risks his (physical) life,in order to rescue/help another from a grave situation ; there is only action ,pure love;and in that very moment ones "I" ,ones 'self', ones thought which is the EGO, is non-existent.All / some of us ;at least once in our life time ,have performed some unselfish act ;being aware only of what has to be done ; not thinking of the consequences - not thinking at all.When the self and thought disappears , there is a tremendous power -Love, which the"I" can not capture nor remember- and that is what is .

Nice stuff china i like that...Mixing love with forgetting the "I" and just doing....excellent point of referance to the final goal.....

 

[china]

Curiosity ,

To me - all that we intuit from very early on is survival

Since I can remember( I try to do that as little as possible) I was always curios (obviously still am) of where am I and what the heck am I doing here.Perhaps that is the reason that I have entered a monastery for few years; not to "escape from the world" ,not to find God ,it wasn't a question of survival , I just wanted to find out what the heck am I doing here .In monastery I have done allot of reading ,praying , studying 'manufacturing' a "god" that I did not want to find in a first place ;I did all that a good monk does ;but I still didn't know ...what the hell am I doing here - and all that I found in the monastery, is more unanswered questions , and that,s good.Yeap , Love and do what you will.

- and that includes 'I' with reference to life in our surroundings, our environment, our recollection of stored experience, our feelings, our reactions, our changing personalities, and our intellect

What you are saying Curio is that if there is no"I" , no image of yourself, then you are nothing. ? But are you anything anyhow? Are you anything in yourself? Strip yourself of your name, title, money, position, your capacity to write posts in the forums and be flattered—and what are you? So, why not realize and be that? You see, we have an image of what it is to be nothing, and we don’t like that image; but the actual fact of being nothing, when you have no image, may be entirely different. And it is entirely different. It is not a state that can be realized in terms of being nothing or of being something. It is entirely different when there is no image of yourself. And to have no image of yourself demands tremendous attention, tremendous seriousness ,I can say that it is only the attentive, the serious, that live, not the people who have images of themselves.

 

[talloola]

And, perhaps one, who has been dominated and abused, over a long period of time, has no perception of 'I', as
it has been forced out.