When I was in my final training to be a chaplain one of the supervisors of our unit would occasionally make a point of showing his ignorance of Buddhism by miss-quoting and miss-interpreting a common cliche expression of no-self. He would say things like “I thought you were supposed to be no-self” or such. Which in my mind is absurd and as I mentioned a misrepresentation, a convenient ignorance for him to hide behind.
The thing is it is not no-self it really is neither self nor no-self. In other words it is the space between self and no-self. I like to say that we as Buddhist wallow in the spaces in between, we romp in the grey areas.
So what exactly does this mean for us in our practice. Well here’s the way I see it. In the Four Lower Worlds of Hell, Hunger, Animality, Anger the primary focus of an individual is towards one’s self. There is suffering and the desire to eliminate the suffering however because self is the focus of those in the lower worlds the self misdiagnoses the causes and the solutions.
Remember earlier I said the greatest value of the Ten Worlds is its function as a GPS to navigate out of suffering. The quickest way is to approach the World of Humanity. And the most prominent characteristic of Humanity is thinking of others. It is the beginning of empathy, sympathy, connection, compassion, communication and it has space of the consideration of others.
So, humanity then becomes less self and more no-self in that it begins to turn the self towards others. The Buddha, when he first began his austerities after sampling all the various teachers available during his time, approached the goal of enlightenment as the total obliteration of self. By annihilating the self the Buddha thought it would allow enlightenment, yet what he discovered is that it quickly leads to death.
When he was completely emaciated and could hardly support his own skeleton, nearly falling in a lake and drowning he realized that these austerities were not the path to eliminating suffering and would not allow him to fulfill his goal of finding a path to teach others how to end their suffering.
Taking a bowl of gruel nourishment and sitting under the Bodhi tree the Buddha meditated and realized it is the middle path that leads to enlightenment and is a path which all humans are able to travel.
For us it begins with a little less self. Slowly as our life begins to change and we create space for the consideration of others we focus less on our self and more on others. As this increases we have more space for others and find that we need less space for self.
So it is neither self nor no-self it is the space between that has a self-others direction.
At first when we are moving into Humanity from the Four Lower Worlds it isn’t necessary to have great compassion or great empathy. It is enough to realize that others too are suffering and that there are solutions that lift not only self out of suffering but also provides a way for others.
Think of the banquet in the realm of Hunger. Each diner is seated in front of the most scrumptious meal imaginable, however the utensils are six feet long. As long as each person focuses on self they don’t get to eat. However, when we turn our attention outwards we can see that it is possible to feed each other say for example across the table. Thereby everyone gets to eat and every ends their hunger.
It doesn’t take much, just a little bit less self and a little bit others and life begins to change and the change keeps expanding as the skill and space is made to consider less self and more others.
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