Expert: Joe McSorley - 8/23/2009

Question
QUESTION: How come when I read information about awakening, and I feel a connection to it/I feel as though I understand, I still don't awaken? I'm still of the world, not letting go.

ANSWER: Dear Christopher,
  You answered your own question; you don’t let go, you still want to be Christopher in the world.  You might read a book about sports or mountain climbing and feel that you understand it and connect to it but that doesn’t make you an athlete or a mountain climber, you have commit yourself to become that.  Awakening is not about connecting to something or becoming full of something, it is about the total annihilation and reconstruction of the self.  From this standpoint you cannot become awakened because it is you, Christopher, that stands in the way of awakening.  So you may feel a connection or develop a deep understanding but it is not until you let go of yourself in a profound and thoroughgoing manner that you will have an opportunity to awaken.
         Take care,
         Joe


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello Joe. What does that mean, "total annihilation of the self"? I KNOW IT DOESN'T MEAN SUICIDE, THIS I DO KNOW. Is it a process of doing/not doing over a certain period of time? Or is it something one has to experience or go through some experience to achieve? I like to watch horror movies, I like to watch football etc. is it the removal of these things that make or are part of the annihilation?

Answer
Hello Christopher,
   This all comes down to self-identity, or philosophically put, who am I?  We can’t talk about annihilation or the self or awakening of the self without knowing who it is we are talking about.  It’s like saying, I have a soul, well, who has the soul, who is the self?  This is the starting point and the ending point for Zen for if you really face this then you are doing real Zen practice.  I have written about this many times on this site so a lot of what I say to you will be repetition.  The historical Buddha evidently faced this question head on as evidenced in this famous story:

There is a famous Buddhist story that goes like this: a man comes to study with the historical Buddha and is having a difficult time understanding its ideas.  The Buddha welcomes him but does not face his questions rather he asks him about his journey to meet him.  The Buddha asks ‘how did you get here’ and the man replies ‘ on a chariot’, the Buddha then says ‘I’m sorry but I don’t know what a chariot is, can you describe it to me?’ The fellow proceeds to tell him how a chariot is constructed and its layout from axel, wheels, buckboard, shroud to harness and horses.  The Buddha takes this in and says ‘ so all of these things together make a chariot?  When is it no longer a chariot?  When you take away the wheels is it no longer a chariot or the buckboard or the axel?  At what point does it become or not become a chariot?  This is a conglomeration of things you call a chariot but what really is the chariot?’  The man is puzzled by this and ponders it but the Buddha says ‘who are you?  Your thoughts, desires, senses, memories?  Remove what and you are no longer you?  When do you become you or not you by this composite of aggregates?’  Now this plunges the man into a deep inquiry of who the self really is.
 This idea of the five aggregates is classic Buddhist thought.  Form, sensation, perception, volition/will and consciousness are the five aggregates; they are how we know that we ‘are’, that we distinguish ourselves from others and how we judge the world.  They create our sense of self.  These are like the components of the chariot; at which point upon losing them are you not you?  I would reduce it to self-consciousness.  When you can no longer be conscious of a self separate from the rest of the world, if there can no longer be a sense of ‘I’, then you are no more.  The crux is, who is it that says I?  What is the root of self-identity?

  If I were to be sitting with you and I put my hand on your arm would you say I was touching you?  Chances are that you would.  If your arm had become amputated and now I was standing across the room from you touching it would you say I was touching you?  Most likely you would say I was touching your arm.  That which was a minute ago, you, is now apart from you and not you.  So who is saying they are you?
  You awaken on a hospital bed not realizing you’ve been in an accident. You feel no pain and can only see straight up.  A doctor stands over you and says “ are you wholly you”?  From your perspective nothing has changed so what do you reply?  Probably, yes, I am I, whole and intact.  The doctor then says “I am sorry to tell you but you lost your legs”, are you wholly you?  Not knowing your legs were lost you said yes but what of now?  If you say no, then what changed and if yes, then what is the ‘you’ that is diminished?  Now the doctor says, actually it’s worse than that, you are just a head.  Are you wholly you?  If not, why not?  Moments ago before your perspective changed you said yes and now why not?  And now the terrible ending, you were burnt and have no face, are you wholly you?  If you are then what is the you that has been untouched? If not wholly you what of you is less?
    This is something that really needs to be thought of deeply and not just read once and discarded.  If you really understand this it will open your eyes to an entire new way of seeing.  Your self-identity is based mainly on your looks, desires, history, cognition and many other things but none of these by their self is you so when does the you arise?  Clearly you have a sense of self, that you are independent of the rest of the world and that you have your own being but, again, who is that self?  We attach so greatly to our idea of self.  We have such strong likes and dislikes, beliefs, tastes and opinions on what will make us happy or unhappy.  We feed this idea constantly but we never get fulfilled by it.  This is best seen in rock stars.  They have everything all the money, sex and adulation there is but they are still unfulfilled, why?  Because the self cannot be added to or taken away from as you hopefully saw in the hospital example I gave.  So no matter what you gain it does not add to you and no matter what you lose, it does not diminish you.  Your perspective might change but the you behind it all does not and yet we don’t know whom this ‘you’ is. There is the idea that this is all caused by desire and by removing the desire you will then find the true self.  You can be free of desire and still not be awakened because the source of desire and no desire is the same divided self, the self that is separated from the rest of the world and does not know itself.  Through all of this not knowing who we are we still cling greatly to the idea of whom we are, this kind of shadow version of reality.
  The annihilation of the self is to lose the singular, filtered version of the world as seen experienced by your aggregates.  It is to see with ‘mind and body fallen off’.   Nirvana does not mean joy, bliss or heaven; it means extinction as in extinguishing a candle flame.  It means to lose the myopic self-view and be opened to a universal view free of the desires of Christopher while still having those desires.  You will still like horror movies (my fave, Ju on, in Japanese) and football but your self-identity will no longer be rooted to this desires or aggregates. If you don’t fulfill your desires you are still fulfilled.  After all, I am from Philly and if our self-identity were rooted in the Eagles there would be a lot of self-hate here.  Then again, maybe that’s a bad example.
  I know this is a lot to read and difficult to understand but it takes time to grasp it.  I had two of the greatest teachers of the last century and it still took me years to really grasp what they taught so don’t get discouraged.
        Take care,
         Joe