Not Self
This is what I heard.
One time the Buddha was with five seekers at Isipatana Deer Park, near Benares. He said,
“Form is not self, if it was, it wouldn’t cause trouble or pain, and you could make it do whatever you wanted. You could decide, ‘I wish my form was like this’, and it would happen. But since you can’t just change your body at will, and form does cause all sorts of issues, it is not self.
Feeling tones are not self, you can’t just choose not to feel something that you’re in contact with.
The same is true for your perceptions, decisions and awareness.
You can’t just choose to see things differently and change the way you experience things on a whim. You can try to alter these things, but they still cause grief and misery.”
Then the Buddha asked them, “Is form stable or unstable?”
“Unstable”, they said
“Are unstable things suffering or happiness?”
“Suffering”
“Would you say ‘these things which are unstable and suffering are my self, they are me, they are mine?’”
“No sir”
“What about feeling tones, perceptions, decisions and awareness? Are they stable or unstable? Suffering or happiness?”
“They are the same as form”
“Therefore, you should see all of these things like this ‘it is not mine, not me, not my self’.
Whether it is your physical form or another, whether they are close or far away, whether nice or gross, better or worse.
‘This is not mine, not me, not my self’, this is how you should view all feeling tones, all perceptions, all decisions and all forms of consciousness too.
When they see like this, a well-trained student gets disenchanted with form, they don’t care for feeling tones, perceptions, decisions and awareness.
When this happens they become dispassionate and then they are free.
When they feel this freedom, they know that birth has ended. Their spiritual journey is over. They did what they had to do and there is no going back.”
This is what the Buddha said. The five seekers approved and during the talk their hearts were freed of the poisons by letting go of grasping.
One time the Buddha was with five seekers at Isipatana Deer Park, near Benares. He said,
“Form is not self, if it was, it wouldn’t cause trouble or pain, and you could make it do whatever you wanted. You could decide, ‘I wish my form was like this’, and it would happen. But since you can’t just change your body at will, and form does cause all sorts of issues, it is not self.
Feeling tones are not self, you can’t just choose not to feel something that you’re in contact with.
The same is true for your perceptions, decisions and awareness.
You can’t just choose to see things differently and change the way you experience things on a whim. You can try to alter these things, but they still cause grief and misery.”
Then the Buddha asked them, “Is form stable or unstable?”
“Unstable”, they said
“Are unstable things suffering or happiness?”
“Suffering”
“Would you say ‘these things which are unstable and suffering are my self, they are me, they are mine?’”
“No sir”
“What about feeling tones, perceptions, decisions and awareness? Are they stable or unstable? Suffering or happiness?”
“They are the same as form”
“Therefore, you should see all of these things like this ‘it is not mine, not me, not my self’.
Whether it is your physical form or another, whether they are close or far away, whether nice or gross, better or worse.
‘This is not mine, not me, not my self’, this is how you should view all feeling tones, all perceptions, all decisions and all forms of consciousness too.
When they see like this, a well-trained student gets disenchanted with form, they don’t care for feeling tones, perceptions, decisions and awareness.
When this happens they become dispassionate and then they are free.
When they feel this freedom, they know that birth has ended. Their spiritual journey is over. They did what they had to do and there is no going back.”
This is what the Buddha said. The five seekers approved and during the talk their hearts were freed of the poisons by letting go of grasping.