Greetings,

This month we are going to explore the last aspect of the three characteristics, Anatta, which has been translated as "not-self" or "non-self." Back in April I noted that "[o]ne of the most easily comprehensible way to remember these characteristics comes from Ruth King. Her framing them as, "it ain't perfect, personal, or permanent," is a powerful mantra to remember and reflect upon as you move through your daily activities."

Generally speaking, any talk or exploration of Anatta brings with it a lot of complications and confusion and intellectual discourse. This is mostly because we struggle with the idea of concepts like emptiness, void, and duality, all of which are contained in the idea of Anatta. A lot of the confusion arises because we all know definitively that there is a self! I am sitting here typing this! I have a name. I have an apartment in a city. I am very much real and alive. How then can I practice with a concept that says there's no self?

What we are exploring this month is not whether you or I exist, of course we exist. We are questioning two things. First, whether the experience exists separate from us, for instance if we go on a camping trip are we in nature or are we an equal part of nature? And second, whether the experiences in our lives are in fact personal. For instance, is is about me if I lost my job during the big Microsoft layoff but my friend didn't?

What Anatta is pointing to is that experience is not personal. It's conditional and it involves way more than just us. Anatta represents the non personal aspect of existence. This characteristic is a necessary aspect for liberation. Fundamentally, the mind cannot liberate itself until we are willing to understand and appreciate the fact that life exists in a non personal way. Life impacts us on a personal level, but our freedom lies in our choice around how we respond to that impact rather than whether we have the ability to prevent the impact. When we take things personally we delude ourselves into believing that we can prevent the impact of life. In other words, we can prevent the impact of the other two characteristics of existence, Anicca (impermanence) and Dukkha (unsatisfactoriness).

Saying that something is not personal or Anatta doesn't mean that it doesn't affect you or you don't have any opinion about it. It means you recognize it's not all or only about you. You understand that situations involve you and other people who have their views, opinions and conditioning. Anatta points to living one's life in the present moment as best we are able, rather than living our lives out of unseen conclusions and assumptions. In the present moment is when you have the greatest amount of access to your current capacities or skills that you have been developing over and over again through practice.

This is why I chose the above picture. It's a recognition that there is a person who is alive and having an experience. We know this because of consciousness, perceptions through the six sense doors, mental formations/memories/thoughts, feeling tones and the knowing of form. These are the five aggregates and while they are all interacting with the moments of our lives, we are not any one of them, nor are we the sum total of them. We have no control over them and how they show up. We have choice in how we respond and that choice is liberating when we don't take the aggregates personally.

Finally, liberation exists only in the present moment. Thousands of conditions come together in any moment in time. Although we are a part of the moment, very little of the moment has to do with us. When we take experiences personally, we mistakenly believe that we are separate from the experience and can therefore control the conditions, thereby controlling the moment. Honestly, sometimes we can influence and control various moments in our lives, but even that level of control is limited. For instance, we can eat healthy, exercise regularly, get good sleep and still die young. On the other hand, I have family members who smoked their whole lives, drank themselves into a regular stupor, ate whatever the heck they wanted to eat (and mostly too much) and still lived well into their 80s. We don't have any control over how long we live. No matter what science tells you, your life span has more to do with your ancestral history, and the nature of the genes, germs and bacteria in your body than it does how well you take care of those genes, germs and bacteria. This doesn't mean you don't eat well, get exercise and take care of your body, it just means that you do it because you want to and you enjoy it. You don't take a subsequent illness or physical limitation personally.

During the weeks we'll look at ways to practice with Anatta.

With a deep bow...

Tuere