Meditation people talk about dissolving the sense of self, but often try to push it away. A better approach is to accept the sense of self and make it explicit in awareness with as much clarity as possible. Then it is no longer who you are, but instead, what is being observed.
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I tend to find that most often it's not even that. Instead, it's just not there.
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Whatever thought to be you turns out to be just a sensation. Tension, itching, whatever...
Then suddenly you realize something else has taken its place and is now "you", until you observe it isn't.
Etc.
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Yeah, good point. That is a slightly different kind of insight I think. I am talking more about the gross sense of self. But of course, as it is observed we realize that it is merely a cluster of body sensations and thought blips, impermanent.
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I'm curious as to what you mean by a "gross sense of self". Do you mean something along the lines of what I just described as "the center"?
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Because in any other sense than "temporary center of attention", I'm not sure I recognize the existence of such a thing, experientially speaking.
(None of this is an attempt at a rhetorical trap, btw - genuinely curious as to what you're referring to.)
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That's interesting. Then in your case maybe it's more about observing the sense of the center, which is also something that eventually dissolves, along with inside and outside, etc.