No Self, No Problem(Audiobook) by Chris Niebauer

Stop thinking, and end your problems. —Lao Tzu, The Tao Te Ching (Stephen Mitchell translation)

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It is the process of thinking that creates the self, rather than there being a self having any independent existence separate from thought.

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For now, the essence of this idea is captured brilliantly by Taoist philosopher and author Wei Wu Wei when he writes, “Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself—and there isn't one.”2

2. Wei, W. W. (1963). Ask the Awakened: the Negative Way. Sentient Publications.

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The mind is a tool. The question is, do you use the tool or does the tool use you? —Zen proverb

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Our association of our true self with the constant voice in our head is an instance of mistaking the map (the voice) for the territory (who we really are).

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Furthermore, our left brain is so tied to the power of words that it is hard to see their effect. Think of an example in your own life when someone said something to you that you found hurtful. You may have suffered greatly, but the truth is that this person was simply sharing an opinion and expressing it via sounds emanating from their voice box. How is it possible that such a thing “hurt” you? Obviously you were hurt by your interpretation of it or the map that these sounds created in your left brain. Next, imagine for a moment if there were no self to hurt? Would words directed at this “you” ever be seen as a problem?

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This is consistent with my view that the self is more like a verb than a noun. It only exists when we think it does, because the process of thinking creates it.

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During a now famous lecture, the Eastern philosopher and spiritual teacher J. Krishnamurti asked the audience “Do you want to know what my secret is?” According to several accounts of this story, in a soft voice, he said, “I don't mind what happens.”

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Advaita Vedanta teacher Nisargadatta Maharaj said, “You are not in the world, but the world is in you. It is only a result of consciousness.”

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Former Harvard professor Richard Alpert (now known as Ram Dass)  said, “All spiritual practices are illusions created by illusionists to escape illusion.”