"no Self" Definition

[Debil]

 This term is quite confusing to me, because  it can be understood as "I don't exist",  but that doesn't seem right because I know something exists with a subjective experience.

so I've been wondering if the "no self" term refers to having no identity stories in my mind, being without having any definition as to what I am?

[Trond]

Correct. 

You know one thing for sure, and one thing only; "I am". Nothing more. You as in the identity you think you are(name, gender, family etc), is basically nothing = no-self. 

When those false identifications are gone you are left with "I am", no-self, emptiness, whatever. 

[Christian]

No self means -- as far as I know -- means that the ego (self) is an illusion.  It does not exist as an object in reality.  You can verify this for yourself in direct experience. Just ask: where is the self? You should notice you cannot find it simply because it never existed in the first place. Ever! 

But then again, there is a true self. The true self is totally different from the ego. The best representation I can give is that it is nothing and everything simultaneously. But you can only see the true self once that ego is broken down. Stories and representations are like pointers to the true self, but not the actual thing. The true self can only be experienced, not intellectualized. 

[Leo Gura]

@Debil It's tricky. There are various degrees of this insight.

At the deepest level of it, all of reality will cease to exist. There will nothing: no body, no mind, no experience, no world. Nothing.

At the shallow levels, it will be like you existing as an infinite field of awareness. Sorta like becoming space itself.

Either way, the "you" you know and love is gonna be gone. Well... it's not there to begin with. There's no you there right now as "you" read this sentence. There's just the sentence. And even the sentence is nothing.

So you're in for some epic mindfuckery.

[Deep]

40 minutes ago, Maorice said:

 A self doesn't exist in a way most people think of it. It is not an experiencer in the body, a subject in the body-mind-organism, which is in control. It is not something permanent, and it is not solid. And it doesn't have an existence on it's own. It doesn't exist in time. It does not come and go. It has no substance or form or size. It is very difficult to talk about or to give attributes to. What Buddhists generally agree on is that it is empty. They call this emptiness Sunyata. It is not an emptiness that can be imagined personally, because it has no form, no inside or outside. It can't even be described symbolically.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but what you describe here is what Brahman is. The Buddhists just use different terminology. 

[Will Bigger]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

At the deepest level of it, all of reality will cease to exist. There will nothing: no body, no mind, no experience, no world. Nothing.

Death?

[Prabhaker]

4 hours ago, Debil said:

"no Self" Definition

Buddha does not use the words atma, atta - "self". He uses just the opposite words: “no-self” - anatma, anatta. He says that when mind ceases, there is no self left. You have become universal, you have overflowed the boundaries of the ego. You are pure space, uncontaminated by anything. You are just a mirror reflecting nothing.

When thoughts cease, who are you? An utter emptiness, nothingness, no-thingness. It is because of this that Buddha has used a strange word. Nobody has ever done such a concept before, or since. The mystics have always used the word “self” for the interior-most core of your being. Buddha uses the word “no-self.”

[Shin]

4 hours ago, Will Bigger said:

Death?

There is no death if nothing exist, and there is no death if you live as everything.

 

Edited February 19, 2017 by Shin

[Leo Gura]

9 hours ago, Will Bigger said:

Death?

No, enlightenment.

[PureExp]

10 hours ago, Will Bigger said:

Death?

Death is a belief, an assumption.

When there is no-self, who is there to die?

[WorthyBird]

It may helpful to contemplate specifically whether there is an experiencer. (or to consider the possibility that there is no experiencer)

[WorthyBird]

"Ugh no, dad. It's not that you don't exist. It's just that what you currently think you are doesn't exist, and what you actually are is eternal nothingness, which is infinite God consciousness." - Thanksgiving 2017

[Nahm]

On 2/19/2017 at 5:24 AM, Debil said:

 This term is quite confusing to me, because  it can be understood as "I don't exist",  but that doesn't seem right because I know something exists with a subjective experience.

so I've been wondering if the "no self" term refers to having no identity stories in my mind, being without having any definition as to what I am?

The grand unified field experiencing itself. You are trillions of cells going by the name "you". Those cells are all atoms. All the same atoms everything else has been and is and will be made of. Those atoms are all leptons, quarks & bosons. Those subatomic particles are all fields. Those fields are all the grand unified field. The "awareness" is the field aware of itself. The solution of the field and the awareness is "experience".