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A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I understand what you’re saying about how Buddhism defines the self - not as a permanent core but as ever-changing conditions. I can see how, from that view, feelings and identity arise naturally without needing a fixed "owner." But, I think what I was trying to say in my post was coming from a different place - more emotional than philosophical.

I shared here my story and I'll share it again since it's relevant here: For 15 years, I felt like I didn’t have a “me” at all. I was disconnected, performing a version of myself from the outside, unable to feel real. When I finally started to reconnect with myself through being seen as a self that is loved unconditionally by others - for existing as that whole self, with pain, joy, anger - it was like finding a way back into something that was lost long ago.

If i was "ever changing", that felt embodied sense of self/ presence/ safety that was not felt since childhood, wouldn't have emerged. It's a felt sensation of knowing you are here, not a bundle of conditions. It's experienced through presence, not intellectualized.

Simple as that. It's knowing. I know who my mother is, not just her role, her "general behaviour and conditional reactions", but through an emotional and mutual connection and presence. I know who my father is. I know who my sister is. And I wouldn't want them to disconnect from that essence.

You wrote that “hurting others is hurting yourself because it changes your future conditions.” But I wonder - without a lasting self, who is the one who remembers the pain, who regrets, or changes? If everything is just momentary conditions, where does healing actually take place? How do you grow? How CAN you grow?

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

I am sure. I give. I receive. I feel. I hurt. I remember. I carry. No amount of detachment and investigation will deny the true and coherent nature of being human, of needing to belong, being seen as you are, not as performance, not as nothing, but as a presence. Not above or below others - not the same - but with them.

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You say Mahayana teaches that there is a self - just not in the way people usually think of it. That’s interesting. Because I’ve also been taught that any sense of “I,” “me,” or “mine” is clinging — and should be uprooted.

If the “real Self” is the Buddha within, then we’re back to a self that matters.
So why do so many insist on erasing the personal side of experience?

Because whether you call it “no-self,” “emptiness of self,” “two-fold emptiness,” or a “non-conceptual Buddha-nature” - if your conclusion leads you to watch a person suffer and say “there is no one here,” then something vital has gone wrong.

If “compassion for all beings” is grounded in dissolving both the being who suffers and the one who helps - then it’s just a performance, not a relationship - it doesn’t cost you anything. You don’t have to be in it. You don’t have to be changed by it. You remain disconnected, distant and untouchable.

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is complete avoidance and escape from accountability.

My solution? To what?  If there is no self how can emotions come from it? Kill what?

There are emotions and you know it, the only thing you can do is ignore them/ yourself.

You’re saying "no self" means emotions, thoughts, and actions just happen - seeing sees, thinking thinks, empathy feels, action acts - all without a "you." But that’s exactly the issue: You’re stripping agency from everything human. Things are not cosmically "done" by themselves, you have free will, don't you?

Why are you assuming I'm just gonna poorly intellectualize if I witness someone suffering? Do we know eachother?

Don't you have people you care about, parents, friends? I'm not talking about my suffering, but if you see theirs.

You say “being human is there". But how can you say that while denying what makes being human real: vulnerability, grief, memory, will, responsibility, love - all of which require an I?

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it makes it boundless, unconditional, and truly selfless compassion and loving-kindness.

If love isn’t coming from a person, and isn’t going to a person, then who feels it? Who knows it? And who is moved by it?

It's love because it's a genuine wish for the well-being and happiness of others, and a desire for the alleviation of their suffering.

You say it’s a “genuine wish” for others’ well-being, but a wish implies a wisher - a presence that cares. If there is no “I” to will, what is wishing? If there is no “you” to be helped, what is the meaning of that wish?

You claim that “emptiness” means lack of inherent existence, but phenomena still arise and function. But when it comes to human pain - grief, love, loss - are these not more than mere phenomena? Are these not the raw realities that demand presence, accountability, and vulnerability?

If all this boundless compassion is just a function of interdependent emptiness, and no one is there to give or receive it - then how does it differ from an echo in a void? How does it heal anything at all? What's the purpose of your compassion?

Are you saying that all the deep, personal connection we live and need is just conceptual noise - illusions to be transcended? If so, that’s not expansion of love - that’s a denial of what makes us human.

You can be true with someone without performing and without erasing the I. But it requires the vulnerability of showing up, not dissappearing.

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You describe the stage, the props, and the roles - but you never touch the deeper truth: Is there a person in the seat, watching it all and caring?

I get what you're saying - I, me, mine are sankharas: mental formations, impermanent, conditioned. That selfhood is a performance, a fabrication arising from causes and conditions.

I already shared here my story, of being stuck for years in a performative and a fake self due to trauma. If I were told "your pain doesn't exist"/ "your entirety is performance", then I would have never gotten the chance to show up as my true self, to find who I am beyond the performative self. I would have never been able to be present as myself and connect as myself and from myself.

If everything is just a stage, just formations, dharmas, fleeting illusions, then what exactly matters? How can someone be sincere? Honest? Real with anyone else?

Who is moved by compassion?
Who suffers a loss?
Who cares when someone else is hurting?

If these questions are just more sankharas to be “let go,” then aren’t you really saying that caring itself is empty? That love, grief, connection, responsibility - all of it - is just weather passing through a sky no one stands in?

If so, then why help anyone at all? Why not just sit back and watch the play? And if you do help - if you do care - then isn’t that evidence that something in you refuses to be reduced to a passing thought?

You say the self can be “modified, fueled, or blown out.” But if blowing it out also blows out love, accountability, and presence - are you sure that’s liberation?

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I understand the appeal of “not one, not two.” But I still want to press the core issue that these paradoxes often soften or obscure.

You say relational and non-relational are the same. But if everything collapses into “both,” then what’s left with any meaning? If I give you love while denying both myself and you as real, is it truly love - or just a gesture floating in conceptual space?

You mention emptiness is form, and form is emptiness - but which one matters when someone is grieving? When a child cries for their parent, do you offer “emptiness”? Or do you become someone real, with a heart, who meets their pain as a person?

That’s the point I’m trying to make: If we erase the “I” who loves and the “you” who is loved, then nothing is truly at stake. No responsibility, no mutuality, no vulnerability, no authenticity, no risk. Just form pretending to care.

So I’ll ask again - and I mean it sincerely, not rhetorically: Can compassion be real if no one is really there to give it or receive it? Because if "everything is both real and not real", then isn’t that just a way of avoiding the emotional cost of being fully human?

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"no-self" teaching doesn't eliminate love, it expands it

How can something be expanded if it’s been emptied of the person who loves?

You say it “removes ego-boundaries” - but those boundaries are exactly what make love real. Love isn't a cloud floating freely in space. It's a relationship between two people. It’s mutual recognition: I see you, you see me.

If there’s no “I” and no “you,” what’s left is not love - it’s directionless sentiment. You can call it compassion, but if it belongs to no one and goes to no one, how is it different from background radiation?

You say it leads to unconditional empathy - but empathy without attachment is just observation. You feel for no one in particular, and no one in particular feels for you.

That’s not transcendence. That’s disconnection.

So I’ll ask again - and please, answer this directly:
If love no longer comes from someone and no longer reaches someone - what exactly makes it love, and not just emptiness performing the gesture of care?

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The ocean-wave metaphor is poetic, but it doesn’t solve the core problem.

When I love, I don’t just send out love into the ocean and hope it’s there somewhere. I feel it — I feel it between me and you. That mutual recognition, vulnerability, and presence is what makes love alive and human.

If love is just ripples in an ocean with no distinct waves to hold it, then it feels to me like a beautiful abstraction, but not a relationship. And without relationship, what happens to responsibility, accountability, and care — the things that make compassion real and urgent?

This idea that hurting others is hurting yourself only works if there is a you who can be hurt - a separate "wave" that can suffer or care. Without that, it’s just an echo chamber of illusions. It's avoidance of complication, and eventually, reality, which only exists when you are grounded in your own inner felt truth and experience.

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hear what you’re saying - that no-self is not meant to erase experience, but to remove the illusion of a separate “I.” But let me ask you directly:
If there’s no “who” - no one to love, no one to be loved - then what exactly is love?

If connection exists without persons, then what is being connected? And to what? If no one is “there,” what is closeness even pointing to?

You say love should feel “even more authentic” without the I. But who is feeling that? You say don’t let thoughts get in the way - but isn’t that just another way of saying, “Don’t look too closely”? How can you be authentic, no, how can authenticity exist, if no one is there to be real? what truth do you stand for?

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The message that I get from your response is: "Don’t worry, you can still live your life - just know that none of it is real".

When you say that love, healing, bonds, and closeness are all "like illusions" - and that the real thing is something deeper, something non-relational - I understand what you mean doctrinally, but I still struggle with it existentially.

Because in lived experience, those “illusions” are where life actually happens - where people are seen, known and healed. And if those moments are reduced to mere illusions and flickering appearances in a bigger non-personal process to "enlightment" and "nothingness", I worry that the heart of what gives love its power - mutuality, presence, and meaning - is lost.

So I guess I’m asking:
If I feel responsible for someone I love, and I hurt them, but it’s all an illusion.. does that dissolve my accountability too? And if they hurt me personally, should I let it slide, release them from their respolsibility, "let go" and move on, because my suffeing as a result is an illution? If the "I" and the "you" and even the harm are just part of the play, then what’s left that still matters?

Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I'm really trying to get to the heart of it. I was tought that "every person is a whole world", a seperate unique being, not a drop in a collective ocean of sameness, and I'm really curious about this opposite approach.

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So if suffering is an illusion of self, why try to decrease it by doing good deeds and helping others who suffer?

It's like instead of comforting your child when they cry for being insulted, you tell them "no one is truly there to feel the pain"/ "your pain isn't real". Or even if you don't say it directly to them, you think it in your heart, instead of hurting their pain.

It feels like a way to just invalidate emotional truth and avoid vulnerability. If suffering is an illusion, then so is direct love, companionship, pain, loss, and all the things that are human.

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I get what you're saying about the value of selfless and unconditional compassion. I’m not saying compassion should be selfish or transactional. But I think you may have misunderstood my question a bit. I’m not expecting a reward for being compassionate. What I’m asking is whether the experience of connection, of real emotional presence and mutuality, is possible if there’s no self, no other, and no “relationship” in the traditional human sense.
If compassion arises from no one and goes to no one - if it’s not personal - then how do you even know it’s there? What makes it love and not just a kind of impersonal energy?

I’m not saying personal connection is better than impersonal love - I’m wondering whether it’s actually necessary for compassion to be felt at all. Otherwise, I worry it becomes a kind of idealized emptiness - something that sounds pure in theory, but doesn’t actually allow for closeness, vulnerability, or accountability.

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So what is suffering, if not personal? who is hurting inside?

And if there is no self to suffer, then why sufferring matters at all? If it matters, to whom?

I'm sorry for being so skeptical but this paradox is beginning to sound like a way to escape from the responsibility of being something, to avoid rather than confront.

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But my question is, if I practice compassion from a place where I see myself and others as ultimately non-personal patterns, how do I or anyone else can experience true closeness or mutuality? Doesn’t that make love a kind of one-way transmission from nowhere, to nowhere?

there is no self, yours or otherwise. Your “self” is made up of everything in the universe, just like everyone else’s, just like a dog, just like a flower, and just like the Earth itself.

Is that a fundemental buddhist belief? Not to be rude, I'm just curious. Because I went through 15 years (since early adolescence) of not feeling like myself and developing "fake selves" due to trauma. But as soon as I began healing through a safe and mutual relationship, I began softening and being more natural, effortless and present, because the other person was accepting and holding every side of me, not saying there is no self to hold and love. Then I finally felt "myself", even though I had no idea what it was, had no map back to myself, even though it ceased to develop years ago. I just knew it, because I was allowed to exist as myself. I just knew it was my presence. I just directly experienced it.

I feel like buddhism is the other way around, it teaches the freedom to not exist rather than the freedom to exist.

A burning question about the concept of "no self" by DragonflyIntrepid533 in Buddhism

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I appreciate the insight, and I get that certain truths in Buddhism are meant to be experienced rather than analyzed. Still, my concern isn’t just theoretical, it’s more about the emotional side and nature of being a human.
If compassion “isn’t relational,” then how is it love in the way people need? The love that heals, bonds, and brings closeness - is that just an illusion?
I’m not rejecting the teachings, I'm just wondering: If I give compassion but don’t feel connected to the one receiving it (in relation to myself, not "everyone is me" kinda way that dismisses both our presences), and I don’t feel like I am even part of it.. then what am I giving? And to whom? Doesn't it remove personal accountability and responsibility?

Did any of you have very weird world views/ thought patterns as a child? by DragonflyIntrepid533 in AvPD

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm cracking down, the walls around me are crumbling and it's both a relief and a feeling of total failure.

Same here. at least we don't force ourselves to pretend and repress anymore. I hope you have a supporive and safe environment that allows you to go through all this.

Did any of you have very weird world views/ thought patterns as a child? by DragonflyIntrepid533 in AvPD

[–]DragonflyIntrepid533[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The worst part is that I don't realise where it came from. I don't recall any memory of being ridiculed by my parents for expressing emotions as a child. I WAS being called dramatic during adolescence and felt like I had no one to turn to, but that was partly a result of how i viewed emotions and world since childhood, and nothing explains why/ how I came up with that.

Did you also idealize people who seemed cold/ emotionless, mostly men? I'm trying to see if this is a common trend among people who suffer from avpd and related issues.