Is it the thinker who is thinking the thoughts or is it the thoughts that has created the thinker?
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When I think of "my".. "self?"
Who's thinking, & who's being thought of?
It's a slippery little roomful of mirrors inside a vastly larger one, & one day the lights'll go out in the little one ("I" say to "my self." LOL)
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If "the little one" is merely a product of thought, then nothing really happens to it
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There's SOME kind of entity, though..because if that "nothing" doesn't pay its taxes (and it's not rich enough to do so with impunity, legally), it finds itself in a situation where it feels quite tangible. It's hard to un-think your way out of a prison cell with Big Andre. No?
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Yes, sir. There'll be suffering and pain and death. But to whom? An abstraction?
The ego is a slippery thing... a kind of will 'o the wisp... a mirage... as soon as you get right up on it, it disappears...
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Oh, Yeah, in the long run, we're a fart in a whirlwind...BUT, I tore my rotator cuff & this "will 'o the whisp" felt like a flaming charcoal briquet full of searing nerve cells, & there was no 'disappearing.' U R what U R.. WHEN U R..& no longer. Right?
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There is pain but there is no one who is having it. No one owns it. Pain just happens. The "you" is added on to the pain after the fact via the narrative, the story about the pain.
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So, who has to drive to the pharmacy, wait in line & show their ID, which doesn't say "nobody" - drive home, make sure you have something in the stomach, etc. etc.?
As the old student asked the master, "Master, if there is no self, whose arthritis IS this?" LOL
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There is no one doing all of that stuff, except in the story about it.
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Next time "you" have to take a dump? Why bother? There won't be anyone sitting in the crap & the one after that. Kidding aside, I get your point, but things are as 'real' as they are, while they are. 'You' may be a whisp-y illusion, but isn't food, clothing & shelter involved?
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There will be feeding, clothing, sheltering and dumping. But there is no one doing it. Shit happens.
The "you" & "me" exists only in thought. If thinking stops, what is it? It is what it is, is what.
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Yes, It is what it is..now we're in 100% agreement. We can apply lots of adjectives: real, unreal, whisp-y, illusory...& then we can ask the inevitable: "Compared to WHAT?
Yes, we can tell the person hanging from a meat hook in a torture cell that it's all just thought. &, So?
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What was meant is the "you" & "me" are mere fictions. The pain is real.
It's a highly nuanced subject & I don't expect anyone to get it, because there is no one to get it...
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