Where does I end and not-I begin?

[Rick]

Per Buddhism, where does I end and no-I begin?

I'm talking about the physical I, not the psychological one (self/ego). The particular organism.

The standard response is: I ends at the outermost extent of the physical body.

But when you look deeper it gets kind of fuzzy:

- The body produces sweat that evaporates into the air outside the body. Is the mixture of evaporated sweat and air part of the body, or external to it? Likewise the body produces CO2 and heat, both of which mix with stuff outside the body. Where is the boundary?

- The lungs take in air, excrete carbon dioxide and other gases. Does the air that is taken into the sack of the lungs "belong" to the outside or inside of the body? Does the cloud of carbon dioxide the lungs excrete into the air stretch the body beyond its skin container?

- If you sneeze, at what point does the stuff you expel cease being you and start being not-you? Likewise for talking; are audio waves from your larynx not-you once they've left your mouth?

- The digestive system takes in solids and liquids, absorbs and transforms them, and excretes what's left over. Ayurvedic medicine says food going through the digestive tract is external to the body, because it is in a hollow tube open to the world at both ends. Are they right?

- Every day we do things in the world that change it. Is our I an independent entity that is changing other independent entities in the world? Or is it like a giant interconnected web? If so, where does one part of the web begin and another end?

- Quantum theory says that the wave function of every particle in the universe is infinite in size. (Though the probability that the particle "exists" falls exponentially with distance.) If this is true, then quite literally, everything overlaps, or at least the potential of everything.

- The Gaia theory says we are cells in the organism of Earth. If this is true, where does the individual cell end and the organism begin? Or an organ within the organism?

[Natan]

At the moment you see nothing is real.

[明安 Myoan]

Exactly, rachmiel, very fine posting

And in terms of sensations, the boundaries they denote are changing and imprecise. The only thing that seems stable about this body is an idea about it, and how stable is an idea? It's really astonishing that the appearance of solidity can arise at all, yet there it is. How deep our confusion.

[Kaccāni]

I'm talking about the physical I, not the psychological one (self/ego).

I have no clue what you mean with "physical I".

[Rick]

I'm talking about the physical I, not the psychological one (self/ego).

I have no clue what you mean with "physical I".

The physical organism that is named Gwenn Dana.

[Kaccāni]

The physical organism that is named Gwenn Dana.

At best that is "my", not "I".

[Rick]

Exactly, rachmiel, very fine posting

And in terms of sensations, the boundaries they denote are changing and imprecise. The only thing that seems stable about this body is an idea about it, and how stable is an idea?

Over a short period of time, the body and many other things in the world give every indication of being unchanging. Our senses cannot detect substantial change in them. Stare at your hand for 10 minutes. Does anything reveal to your senses that it is changing?

Over a longer period, most things can be observed to change. Via memory, you can detect a change between your hand now and when you were a younger (wo)man or a child.

[明安 Myoan]

Exactly, rachmiel, very fine posting

And in terms of sensations, the boundaries they denote are changing and imprecise. The only thing that seems stable about this body is an idea about it, and how stable is an idea?

Over a short period of time, the body and many other things in the world give every indication of being unchanging. Our senses cannot detect substantial change in them. Stare at your hand for 10 minutes. Does anything reveal to your senses that it is changing?

Yes, in my experience. You can perceive the ceaseless interplay of warmth, tingling, and the instability of your concentration and/or perception, anywhere in your body. It's not difficult to see such momentary impermanence, on the order of five or fifty or hundreds of changes per second, depending on your skill. Teachers such as Goenka make this their primary technique for insight into the Three Marks.

This explains in much more detail: http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/gue ... permanence

[Kim O'Hara]

Per Buddhism, where does I end and no-I begin?

I'm talking about the physical I, not the psychological one (self/ego). The particular organism.

The standard response is: I ends at the outermost extent of the physical body.

But when you look deeper it gets kind of fuzzy:

- The body produces sweat that evaporates into the air outside the body. Is the mixture of evaporated sweat and air part of the body, or external to it? Likewise the body produces CO2 and heat, both of which mix with stuff outside the body. Where is the boundary?

- The lungs take in air, excrete carbon dioxide and other gases. Does the air that is taken into the sack of the lungs "belong" to the outside or inside of the body? Does the cloud of carbon dioxide the lungs excrete into the air stretch the body beyond its skin container?

- If you sneeze, at what point does the stuff you expel cease being you and start being not-you? Likewise for talking; are audio waves from your larynx not-you once they've left your mouth?

- The digestive system takes in solids and liquids, absorbs and transforms them, and excretes what's left over. Ayurvedic medicine says food going through the digestive tract is external to the body, because it is in a hollow tube open to the world at both ends. Are they right?

- Every day we do things in the world that change it. Is our I an independent entity that is changing other independent entities in the world? Or is it like a giant interconnected web? If so, where does one part of the web begin and another end?

- Quantum theory says that the wave function of every particle in the universe is infinite in size. (Though the probability that the particle "exists" falls exponentially with distance.) If this is true, then quite literally, everything overlaps, or at least the potential of everything.

- The Gaia theory says we are cells in the organism of Earth. If this is true, where does the individual cell end and the organism begin? Or an organ within the organism?

A thought-provoking set of questions!

When you think about them, it becomes apparent that the boundary is either arbitrary (i.e. I choose to define X as "not-me" and Y as "me") and unstable (i.e. I may choose differently in an hour's time, or in a different context), or it doesn't really exist.
One way of thinking about the second case would be to think of the boundary as blurred, like the quantum probability you mention, such that X is almost certainly "not-me" nearly all the time and Y is equally "me" nearly all the time. Blur it a little more and what do you get? Just that everything is a little bit "me" and nothing is completely "me" ... which sounds awfully like what some bloke in India realised a couple of thousand years ago.


Kim

[Kaccāni]

It's not difficult to see such momentary impermanence, on the order of five or fifty or hundreds of changes per second, depending on your skill.

Estimating from the frequency of my tinnitus, I observe some 13.000 changes per second. Now let's not look into the visual snow or the numbers are going insane

[Rick]

Stare at your hand for 10 minutes. Does anything reveal to your senses that it is changing?

Yes, in my experience. You can perceive the ceaseless interplay of warmth, tingling, and the instability of your concentration and/or perception, anywhere in your body.

So on the micro level one can observe Brownian motion kinds of changes in the hand: subtle sensations. Good, that's helpful.

But what about observing a big old rock. One can notice other objects "collide" with the rock: sunlight, water, vision, a chipmunk. But can one notice the rock itself change? (Not unless one sits there for a looooooooooooooong time.) What you *can* observe is the mind of the observer change. So anicca is, in this case, an extrapolation or a belief based on experience and dharmic theory. You "know" everything changes all the time, so you impute this change to the rock.

I guess what I'm saying is that, for the human organism, it is utterly natural (effortless) to see much of the world as fixed and unchanging. Seeing everything in the world as anicca is an act of mind/thought, i.e. a concept.

[Kaccāni]

But can one notice the rock itself change? (Not unless one sits there for a looooooooooooooong time.)

Or you decide to take a decent measurement instrument.

[Andrew108]

I think it is clear that non-dualism is natural. Reality is pervasive. We are a part of that. Our energy and materiality are sourced externally. It is only experience that can be said to be internal and even that seems natural - authentic - not wrong - belonging to how things are.

[Vajraprajnakhadga]

I'm talking about the physical I, not the psychological one (self/ego). The particular organism.

Your question makes no sense from a Dharmic perspective since there is no actual "physical I".

[Andrew108]

I'm talking about the physical I, not the psychological one (self/ego). The particular organism.

Your question makes no sense from a Dharmic perspective since there is no actual "physical I".

OP means body. Individual body.

[明安 Myoan]

Stare at your hand for 10 minutes. Does anything reveal to your senses that it is changing?

Yes, in my experience. You can perceive the ceaseless interplay of warmth, tingling, and the instability of your concentration and/or perception, anywhere in your body.

So on the micro level one can observe Brownian motion kinds of changes in the hand: subtle sensations. Good, that's helpful.

But what about observing a big old rock. One can notice other objects "collide" with the rock: sunlight, water, vision, a chipmunk. But can one notice the rock itself change? (Not unless one sits there for a looooooooooooooong time.) What you *can* observe is the mind of the observer change. So anicca is, in this case, an extrapolation or a belief based on experience and dharmic theory. You "know" everything changes all the time, so you impute this change to the rock.

I guess what I'm saying is that, for the human organism, it is utterly natural (effortless) to see much of the world as fixed and unchanging. Seeing everything in the world as anicca is an act of mind/thought, i.e. a concept.

But the natural view of human beings is deluded, isn't it? Otherwise there would be no need for the Dharma. Ask any number of people what they naturally or effortlessly see in the world and you'll get quite a variety of answers.

I'm not much of a philosopher, but I'll try to explain my opinion of the thing, for discussion's sake

Relating to imputing qualities to the rock, I don't know. I try to avoid invariants, as Andrew helped me term in the other thread, i.e. idealist qualities outside our direct experience of them. That's because, as you rightly point out, there is our perception of a rock, and our mental proliferation of a rock, including whatever concepts hop on for the ride. That's all we have to work with as far as I can tell, and both of these are in constant flux. The only way to know anything about that rock is through sense gates that, when examined, display the Three Marks. I believe this is what Kosho Uchiyama Roshi meant when he said his world is born with him and dies with him.

You don't sit down to find impermanence then find it where you would have actually found permanence if only you had been "natural". Honestly, words don't do it justice. With the mind settled and not chasing after specific ideas, concentrated and directed to your own experience, you see fixity disintegrate in every quarter. Identity disintegrates as you can no longer find anything enduring to hang on. Even the appearance of cohesive continuum disintegrates, and what you're left with is a bizarre kaleidoscope of slightly dissimilar events that blend together when not directly observed. Isn't this also karma? There is no continuum or fixity, only conditioned appearances that, each one having similar causes/conditions as the previous one, does not suddenly and drastically appear differently. Is your experience of meditative observation exactly the opposite of this?

New theories of reality are not all that important to me, which is maybe my weakness on a forum like DM because I don't know many sutras or really sound Buddhist logic. But if the behavior of the majority of human beings is any indication, most of whom view the world as fixed, separate, unchanging, reliable, that may not be the avenue of exploration most conducive to liberation.

[Arjan Dirkse]

A body isn't one thing, it's a constantly changing collection of things and substances that is only held together by our perception. Something is part if our body because we believe it is, but the truth is, nothing is " mine". For a great part our body even consists of different organisms, namely bacteria and parasites. And there is also " dead" material like hair and keratin in our nails which we don't really feel, there are no nerves or blood flow in those parts.

[Derek]

It is utterly natural (effortless) to see much of the world as fixed and unchanging.

Only after the age of four months or so. Before object permanence, the mind doesn't symbolize experience as discrete objects.

Seeing everything in the world as anicca is an act of mind/thought, i.e. a concept.

On the contrary, it is permanence that is a concept fabricated by the mind.

[Rick]

This explains in much more detail: http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/gue ... permanence

I read this article. Interestingly, my experience when attempting to do vivid awareness meditation was very similar to what the author of the article describes: a very rapid jumping of awareness from thing to thing to thing. When I reported this to the forum, people told me I was doing it wrong, that this should not be the experience of vivid awareness. After reading the article, I'm wondering whether I'd in fact gotten vivid awareness right?

I spent about 20 minutes today observing subjective events in the manner prescribed by this article, and my initial finding is that there is a range of "granularity" that goes from very rapid flitting of awareness from sensed event to event (1-10 a second perhaps) to awareness staying with an event for a longer stretch (1-10 seconds perhaps). This is what comes naturally to me. To attempt to divide the longer awareness moments into arbitrarily short "frames" of experience doesn't feel right, rather forced and unnatural.

[Rick]

A body isn't one thing, it's a constantly changing collection of things and substances that is only held together by our perception. Something is part if our body because we believe it is, but the truth is, nothing is " mine". For a great part our body even consists of different organisms, namely bacteria and parasites. And there is also " dead" material like hair and keratin in our nails which we don't really feel, there are no nerves or blood flow in those parts.

The body is a process, yes. Or more accurately: A nesting of processes. Elementary particles to atoms to molecules to cells to organs to systems to body.

So, in those terms: Where does the process of the body end? What is its radius of connection with the physical world that lies outside its boundary of skin, hair, nails, etc.?