Self-esteem.

[psychoslice]

Originally Posted by amy green

Yes I get that and agree, but how we deal/interact with the world on a daily basis involves our ego (more than our spirit) so it pays to have a good relationship with it I find.

Most certainly, as long as one believes they are the ego, then yes please keep it healthy, at least we all can live together much better.

By experimentors full throttle...

A STRONG SENSE OF SELF

Psychologists tell us that a strong sense of self is essential to be psychologically healthy. But it seems Buddhism says there is no self. How can we reconcile these two views?

When psychologists speak of a sense of “self” they are referring to the feeling that oneself is an efficacious person, someone who is self-confident and can act in the world. Buddhists agree that such a sense of self is both realistic and necessary. However, the sense of self that Buddhism says is unrealistic is that of a very solid, unchanging, independent “I.” Such a self never has and never will exist. To understand this is to realize emptiness.

Strange though it may sound, someone may have a psychologically weak sense of self that in Buddhist parlance would be considered strong self-grasping. For example, a person with poor self-esteem may focus a lot on himself and have a strong feeling of the existence of an independent self that is inferior, unlovable, and a failure. From a Buddhist viewpoint, such an independent self does not exist, although a conventional self does.



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Buddhism for Beginners by Thubten Chodro

[the_crow]

Buddha was not speaking of 'self' in the modern usage of the term.

[psychoslice]

Originally Posted by Neville

There in lies the issue, I have not now, nor have I ever been able to get, a conclusive definition of a true SELF , the very hint of the existence of which implies the existence of a false self (presumably the ego, but not necessarily).

I think true and false reside in the eye of the beholder anyway. Which is at times a bit awkward because that which one see's as a authentic may well be seen as phony by others...difficult to win on that score really.

The true inner Being cannot be reduced to a concept or defined, it is beyond the mind, it is what IS, you can only experience it for your SELF, and even that is not what IS, the experience is secondary. Even though In use words such as false and true, that is not what it is, I only use words because I need to communicate to the other, from one mind to the other mind. Yes what one see's may not look authentic to the other, but to the one who has Awaken see's all as authentic, its only when we are discussing what IS with the one who is still asleep, that we need to use words rolled in duality.

I get that as an integral part of creation , doing what creation does we are creation etc..I knew that as a part of it we are it. I understood the metaphor "God made Man in his own image" Microcosm's and Macrocosm's et al...

It does not feel like enlightenment or having found my true self, which presumably just so happens to be yours and everyone elses true self.

Even though this is all true to me, i cannot attribute the title true self when to me it is what it is. It's difficult to articulate so please forgive me. Cognitive bias is a both a blessing and a curse. A thing to me is what it appears to be to me and (quiet importantly) what I perceive it to be. The evident flaw in that being, what I see to be true may in fact be only true to me personally, hence the "true" self might not necessarily be as true as one would have immediately thought.

It's not really the inside track , because one see's it as such, I really do wish the matter was so cut and dried , but experience continues to prove otherwise sadly. perhaps diversity, mutability, flux are the thing. the "true" thing. Dynamic creativity in action in all it's random, arbitrary , chaotic glory. the cycle being birth , flourish , dissolution and rebirth in the material plane..

I don't know...and it always comes as a surprise to me when I encounter people who say they do know.

[the_crow]

Yes! That is as good a description as any, PSlice.

[the_crow]

Originally Posted by Neville

I don't know...and it always comes as a surprise to me when I encounter people who say they do know.

Why is that? Surely some must know.
I use this test: does it work?
If it works, for me, it works.
Although none is equal, all are of The Source.

[psychoslice]

Originally Posted by Neville

I get that as an integral part of creation , doing what creation does we are creation etc..I knew that as a part of it we are it. I understood the metaphor "God made Man in his own image" Microcosm's and Macrocosm's et al...

It does not feel like enlightenment or having found my true self, which presumably just so happens to be yours and everyone elses true self.

Even though this is all true to me, i cannot attribute the title true self when to me it is what it is. It's difficult to articulate so please forgive me. Cognitive bias is a both a blessing and a curse. A thing to me is what it appears to be to me and (quiet importantly) what I perceive it to be. The evident flaw in that being, what I see to be true may in fact be only true to me personally, hence the "true" self might not necessarily be as true as one would have immediately thought.

It's not really the inside track , because one see's it as such, I really do wish the matter was so cut and dried , but experience continues to prove otherwise sadly. perhaps diversity, mutability, flux are the thing. the "true" thing. Dynamic creativity in action in all it's random, arbitrary , chaotic glory. the cycle being birth , flourish , dissolution and rebirth in the material plane..

I don't know...and it always comes as a surprise to me when I encounter people who say they do know.

Yes no one knows, the Realization is beyond knowing, its simply Realizing who you are, but by no one, there is no one to know who you are, there is just a taste, mmmm, that's nice.

[the_crow]

The sound of one hand clapping?

Originally Posted by the_crow

Why is that? Surely some must know.

That's a very interesting conclusion to arrive at, I was under (the perhaps misguided) impression , that we only ever know that which we think we know.