The Buddha describes five categories of experience: Form, Feeling, Perception, Mental Formations, and Consciousness. These are called the Five Aggregates. We have the tendency to cling to these and identify with them. For example if a pleasant or unpleasant feeling arises it is common to believe "this feeling is me, this feeling is mine, this feeling is myself." This is called wrong view, and is, along with desire, the root of our suffering. There are three characteristics which define all phenomena. All things are unsatisfactory, or in other words nothing can permanently satisfy us. All things are unsatisfactory because all things are impermanent. Everything changes, each of the Five Aggregates is in a constant state of flux, arising and ceasing, arising and ceasing. Thus, because everything is unsatisfying and impermanent there is nothing suitable to call me, mine, or myself.
Another way to think about it like this. Imagine a tree. Remove the branches, are these branches the tree? No. Remove the leaves, are these leaves the tree? No. Remove the bark, is this bark the tree? No. Remove the roots, are these roots the tree? No. Now you have nothing, so where is the tree? You can do the same to a person, removing the various parts of the body...Am I a liver? No. Am I a spleen? No...Then onto the mind...Am I a thought? No. Am I a feeling? No. Eventually it becomes clear the "I" is just an empty label used to describe an indefinable bundle of phenomena, none of which actually belongs to anyone. If I say "point to yourself" where are you going to point?
Of course this is just a shallow, intellectual understanding of non-self. It is my opinion that the "ego-death" experience is a momentary recognition of something that is always present. Just like how when the mud settles in a pond the bottom becomes clear, I believe that ego death occurs when the mind settles and for that brief moment the self view drops and we are able to seeing things clearly, as they are. The problem with the psychedelic experience, however, is that its impermanent and that more often than not we are not entirely sure what is actually going on. Hence one can turn the experience of non-self into its opposite, a sort of megalomania. Instead of realizing that nothing is self, one may believe everything is self, thinking something along the lines of 'I am everything and everything is me.'
Anyway, just some thoughts. If you are interested in this I recommend looking into the Buddha's teachings on anatta, or non-self. For a wise psychedelic user, the Buddha's teachings are the end of the rabbit role. The problem is that there is a lot of misinterpretation and misrepresentation out there. I recommend the original teachings of the Buddha, i.e the Four Noble Truths, Dependant Origination, etc. These can be found on the website Access to Insight, which is a transcription of the original texts. I also recommend the Buddha's description of the meditative stages, which he calls Jhanas. It's basically an ascension from the coarse states of mind to the most refined. These are not to be confused with Enlightenment, which is something else entirely.
Form Jhanas
1st - Quite secluded from sense pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states of mind, he enters and dwells in the first jhana, which is accompanied by applied thought and sustained thought with rapture and happiness born of seclusion.
2nd - With the subsiding of applied thought and sustained thought he enters and dwells in the second jhana, which has internal confidence and unification of mind, is without applied thought and sustained thought, and is filled with rapture and happiness born of concentration (M.i,181; Vbh. 245)
3rd - With the fading away of rapture, he dwells in equanimity, mindful and discerning; and he experiences in his own person that happiness of which the noble ones say: 'Happily lives he who is equanimous and mindful'
4th - With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, he enters and dwells in the fourth jhana, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure and has purity of mindfulness due to equanimity.
Formless Jhanas
5th - The base of infinite space
6th - The base of infinite consciousness
7th - The base of infinite nothingness
8th - The base of neither perception nor non-perception
Another way to think about it like this. Imagine a tree. Remove the branches, are these branches the tree? No. Remove the leaves, are these leaves the tree? No. Remove the bark, is this bark the tree? No. Remove the roots, are these roots the tree? No. Now you have nothing, so where is the tree? You can do the same to a person, removing the various parts of the body...Am I a liver? No. Am I a spleen? No...Then onto the mind...Am I a thought? No. Am I a feeling? No. Eventually it becomes clear the "I" is just an empty label used to describe an indefinable bundle of phenomena, none of which actually belongs to anyone. If I say "point to yourself" where are you going to point?
Of course this is just a shallow, intellectual understanding of non-self. It is my opinion that the "ego-death" experience is a momentary recognition of something that is always present. Just like how when the mud settles in a pond the bottom becomes clear, I believe that ego death occurs when the mind settles and for that brief moment the self view drops and we are able to seeing things clearly, as they are. The problem with the psychedelic experience, however, is that its impermanent and that more often than not we are not entirely sure what is actually going on. Hence one can turn the experience of non-self into its opposite, a sort of megalomania. Instead of realizing that nothing is self, one may believe everything is self, thinking something along the lines of 'I am everything and everything is me.'
Anyway, just some thoughts. If you are interested in this I recommend looking into the Buddha's teachings on anatta, or non-self. For a wise psychedelic user, the Buddha's teachings are the end of the rabbit role. The problem is that there is a lot of misinterpretation and misrepresentation out there. I recommend the original teachings of the Buddha, i.e the Four Noble Truths, Dependant Origination, etc. These can be found on the website Access to Insight, which is a transcription of the original texts. I also recommend the Buddha's description of the meditative stages, which he calls Jhanas. It's basically an ascension from the coarse states of mind to the most refined. These are not to be confused with Enlightenment, which is something else entirely.
Form Jhanas
1st - Quite secluded from sense pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states of mind, he enters and dwells in the first jhana, which is accompanied by applied thought and sustained thought with rapture and happiness born of seclusion.
2nd - With the subsiding of applied thought and sustained thought he enters and dwells in the second jhana, which has internal confidence and unification of mind, is without applied thought and sustained thought, and is filled with rapture and happiness born of concentration (M.i,181; Vbh. 245)
3rd - With the fading away of rapture, he dwells in equanimity, mindful and discerning; and he experiences in his own person that happiness of which the noble ones say: 'Happily lives he who is equanimous and mindful'
4th - With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, he enters and dwells in the fourth jhana, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure and has purity of mindfulness due to equanimity.
Formless Jhanas
5th - The base of infinite space
6th - The base of infinite consciousness
7th - The base of infinite nothingness
8th - The base of neither perception nor non-perception
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