What Is the Self?

Joseph Goldstein provides an uncommon sense view of selflessness to help us understand the often vexing notion of no-self and talks about how we can be free from the illusion of self.

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“Self is like the Big Dipper. It’s a name, it’s a designation for a constellation of experiences. So when we say there’s no Big Dipper, does anything change in the sky? Everything is as it always was. In exactly the same way, our realization of selflessness does not change anything. Our experience is as it always was and will be. We’re simply seeing it in a truer way, we’re seeing it not limited by the conceptual overlay. We’re seeing it as it is. Then we can use the concept when it’s useful, but we’re not imprisoned by it, and we’re not limited by it, and we don’t contract in our identification with it.” – Joseph Goldstein

This dharma talk from February 11, 2003, at the Insight Meditation Society, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

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