Do you want to know what the realdelusion or illusion is? It’s the one we all have with ourselves. So, you think you know who you really are? Read on.
Each day we use the ‘I’ word a helluva lot. ‘I am a Democrat,’ we may say, or ‘I am a Catholic.’ So, if we change our politics or our religion, has a new ‘I’ come into existence, or has the original ‘I’ morphed into something different? ‘I am James Wong [or whatever be your actual name],’ you say. But what if you change your name? Think about it, is ‘I’ your name? It can’t be. Nor is this ‘I’ our body or even our mind, for both of those things are constantly changing. ‘I’ is simply a one-letter English word we use to refer to the person each one of us is. Only the person is ontologically real. The ‘I’ is a mental and linguistic construct. It is not ‘real.’
You see, just because we have a word for something does not necessarily mean that something actually exists. Most philosophers and neuroscientists now take the view that there is no permanent, unchanging ‘I’ at the center of our existence. The Buddha said this some 2,500 years ago. ‘I’ is simply whatever we attach to it. It is always something external to our point of reference. ‘I’ is identity-less. To use a Buddhist term, ‘I’ is empty. It is whatever label we attach to ‘it.’
The author in front of the Great Buddha of Kamakura,
at Kōtoku-in, in the city of Kamakura, in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
By now you may be saying to yourself, so what is this all about? Well, here’s where the real delusion comes in. It’s when we start identifying this illusory ‘I’ with ‘me’—‘me’ being the person that each one of us is. So, when we say, ‘I am angry,’ we are identifying the ordinarily negative and often very destructive emotion of anger with the person that we are. There may be anger ‘in’ us, but we—the person that each of us is—are never angry. Get the point? There is a real difference. You see, when we identify ‘I’ with ‘me,’ the latter being the person that we are, we always (yes, always) end up suffering.
We are always our own worst enemies, and most of our suffering is caused by ourselves. Here’s one very effective way to reduce the amount of your self-induced suffering. Stop identifying your ‘I,’ which in truth is identity-less, with your ‘me.’ Each time during the course of a day you find yourself—that is, the person that you are—identifying ‘I’ with ‘me,’ pull yourself up. Bit by bit, start changing a lifetime of self-delusion. When you hear yourself saying, ‘I am angry,’ say, ‘No, that is not the case. There is anger in me.’ Of course, that does not relieve you of the responsibility of owning that anger and managing it appropriately. Look to see what is causing your anger. It will always be some desire of some kind. Then take appropriate action.
A man once said to the Buddha, or perhaps to some Buddhist monk or teacher, ‘I want happiness.’ The man received the following advice. ‘First remove “I”. That’s ego. Then remove “want.” That’s desire. See, now you are left with only “happiness.”’
HOW MINDFULNESS CAN HELP YOU TO OVERCOME ANGER AND OTHER NEGATIVE STATES OF MIND
THE ILLUSORY MIND [Part 1]
THE ILLUSORY MIND [Part 2]
Source:
http://ianellis-jones.blogspot.com/2015/04/our-delusion-with-ourselves.html
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IF I IS HUNGRY AND IS MEANINGLESS
THAT MEANS TO BE HAPPY IS TO
STARVE!!!
This just shows the strength of the delusion—the power of the illusory I in us. Of course, the person that each one of us is gets hungry. We feel the hunger. There is hunger in us. But we are never the hunger itself. Therefore, it is wrong to say, ‘I am hungry.’ Rather, it is a case of, ‘There is hunger in us.’ Best wishes, Ian.