Expert: Alex Wilding - 10/22/2008

Question
Dear Alex
   What is the True self that lives within? Within the body there is ego,consciousness,observer.How do you tell the difference between the real you and what is not you.And how do you work on bring who you truly are up to the surface?
Thank U so much

Answer
Hi Julie-ann,
Your question goes right to the heart of Buddhism, according to which any attempt to pin down that "true self" is going to fail. Sometimes it is said simply that we have no self, or at least no "atman" in the sense of some Indian traditions. Perhaps that is just a bit *too* simple, but at any rate the true nature of our mind is, even though luminous and aware, nevertheless without foundation, boundary or anything we can grasp; something like the open sky, in one way of picturing it.
One technique that is sometimes taught in Buddhist practice is to sit, perhaps even for hours, day after day, trying to find our true self, looking for it in any possible part of ourselves, asking ourselves where it is, what it looks or feels like and so on. Eventually we learn to rest in the inability to find it!

I hope that helps a bit.
AW