The Illusion of Self
Many Eastern religions and philosophy say that the self is an illusion, that there is no real self. I have always found this nonintuitive, after all I do seem to be here. But I have found some thought experiments that helped me to internalize an understanding of the illusion of self.
Experiment 1
Suppose we are sitting together talking and I produce a living rabbit. I say, "Here is a rabbit." Then I cut the rabbit exactly in half, right down the middle. Don't worry. This is a thought experiment so no rabbit is ever actually harmed. Now we look at both halves of the rabbit and I ask you, "Now where is the rabbit?" Further suppose you decide to answer me, "There is no rabbit, only 2 half rabbits."
Next I produce another rabbit and this time I cut off exactly one-fourth of the rabbit leaving a three-fourths part with it. We look at both pieces and I ask, "Now where's the rabbit?" Again you answer me, "There is no rabbit, just one fourth and three fourths of a rabbit." I produce a third rabbit this time cutting off exactly one-eighth and ask the same question and I get the same answer.
Suppose we continue in this way, cutting off less and less of each successive rabbit and you, rather stubbornly I must say, consistently answer that there is no rabbit, only parts of rabbits. Finally, with one rabbit I just trim the end of one toe nail and I point at the rabbit and the piece of toenail that I have removed and again ask, "Where is the rabbit?" If you are really stubborn and continue to insist there is no rabbit, then with my next rabbit I just sit for 10 minutes and wait for the few 100 or so skin cells of the rabbit to fall off in the process of normal skin exfoliation and ask again, "Where is the rabbit?"
This experiment makes it clear to me that what I am commonly calling a rabbit is a completely arbitrary definition of something that, in fact, never exists. The actual thing I am referring to when I say "rabbit" is just a mental image that does not actually correspond to anything of a real nature.
Experiment 2
Now suppose we are walking together in the wilderness and we see a coyote hunting a rabbit. We stop to watch and the coyote catches the rabbit. The rabbit is struggling in the coyotes mouth and I ask you, "Where's the rabbit?" Suppose you say, "It is in the coyote's mouth." We continue to watch as the coyote devours the rabbit. First he bites off a foot -- crunch, crunch, swallow. The rabbit continues to struggle. I ask the same question and receive the same answer. But now I find the answer unsettling because the foot has already been swallowed. That foot was part of rabbit. Now is it still part of rabbit or is it now part of the coyote?
As we continue to watch the rabbit eventually stops struggling and the coyote devours the rabbit, piece by piece until everything has been consumed. When did the rabbit go? At what point in this process did the rabbit cease to be? When the rabbit pieces are in the bowels of the coyote they are digested into smaller and smaller pieces until finally they are decomposed into their chemical constituents, absorbed and incorporated into the tissues of the coyote. It must be clear that any choice we make about when the rabbit is and when it ceases to be is completely arbitrary. Furthermore, what was once rabbit has become coyote. When it is one thing and when it becomes the other is again completely arbitrary. Any choice that we make has no relationship to the actual identity of the thing from the point of view of the Natural Order.
If the rabbit became the coyote when it was fully digested then it must also have been the coyote when it was undigested pieces in the coyote's stomach. If it was coyote when it was pieces in coyote's stomach then it must have been coyote already when it was struggling in coyote's mouth. If then, it must have been coyote when it was yet to be captured and still running for it's life. If then, it must have been coyote before the coyote ever saw the rabbit. In fact it must have been coyote even before either coyote or rabbit were yet born.
No Natural Entities
From the point of view of the Natural Order what we are calling a coyote and a rabbit are just porous bags of molecules, sacks of energy wrapped by the sheerest gossamer netting. And these bags or sacks may come close to each other and then move farther apart, at times commingling so intimately that they seem to be one. But it is always a matter of distance, sometimes very short, sometimes farther apart. It is always a continuum with no intrinsic borders, limits or boundaries. This demonstrates clearly that there are no individual entities, only relative concentrations of energy coming and going with extreme dynamism. This observation has profound implications.
First, it becomes clear that from the point of view of the Natural Order there are no entities only actions, without entities that do the acting. Thus the web of connections that constitutes the Natural Order is all of the Natural Order and the nodes we may talk about between the connections are illusions. There are only connections.
Second, any actions of ours that arise from a idea of self, where self is different from some other, are actions based upon an illusion. When you hate me you hate yourself. When you kill me you kill yourself. When you help me you help yourself, you help every person, you help everything connected to the Natural Order.
Michael Labhard
michaelL@towardsfreedom.com
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