https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/1ircxqr/experience_of_duality_and_self_during_meditation/
created by flyingaxe on 17/02/2025 at 05:50 UTC
11 upvotes, 11 top-level comments (showing 11)
I had an interesting experience today. First, I normally go to a local Rinzai place, but today I went to a different non-Rinzai place. One difference was that in that location they sit longer. I was told ahead of time how much they were going to sit but actually thought they would get up in the middle and do a walking meditation — but they didn't. Still, I anticipated that even if they weren't going to, it wouldn't kill me.
As it turned out, my lower back and my left leg and knee were in a lot of pain in the end. I really wanted to get up, but I thought it would be embarrassing; plus, I wanted to push myself as much as possible (probably unwisely*), so I didn't.
What I experienced as I was sitting through the searing pain in my left leg was very interesting. My experience can be described as anti–Sam-Harris :). I experienced: 1) having free will, 2) having a core self, 3) having duality.
In that moment, when my body/brain was screaming at myself to get up and stop the pain, I kept forcing myself to sit down. And I very acutely experienced that it was an *I* that was doing it, volitionally. I experienced my freedom of will, and I experienced my self as the source of that freedom of will. It was as if there was some shining core me, and that shining core me was expressing itself in the volitional act of resisting the urge to get up. I also realized that I was experiencing duality between my actual "self" and my body/brain.
So, I don't know if this was an anti-Buddhist experience in a way. I always hear and read in the Buddhist circles that one has to "experience for yourself". Well, today I did, and it was the opposite of intended and expected, but that's what it was.
Any comments welcome.
Comment by ChanCakes at 17/02/2025 at 06:03 UTC*
17 upvotes, 0 direct replies
What you have described is exactly the Buddhism analysis of experience: we are unable to apprehend the reality of the world and engage with it through delusion, in this delusion we cannot but experience it as a self that believes it has mastery over objects of the self, and that such a duality is real.
Comment by Proud_Professional93 at 17/02/2025 at 07:19 UTC
10 upvotes, 2 direct replies
This is an experience of delusion based on inexperience and lack of wisdom. The five skandhas are body, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. These things you perceive as a self willing these things to happen are also conditioned and subject to arising and ceasing and inherently have no self.
This self you felt that you experienced is based on your experiences throughout your life and is completely different from one moment to the next. It is easy to see that there is no "core self". The conditions in this life that have led to the conventional self you currently experience are also due to past karma, as this is what led you to be born into the life you have now.
When it is said that you experience things yourself, it is meant that if one has a proper understanding of the Dharma, the things that are taught are always replicable and can be experientially verified. If one has received wrong teachings, it is very easy to have an experience based on delusion that appears to be something it is not.
You mention Sam Harris which leads me to believe that you are following western non-buddhist grifters. If you want to make even a millimeter of progress, you must have a willingness to follow authentic monastic teachers who live the Right Dharma and attain the fruition of the path.
The only way to make any progress at all in Buddhism is to leave all preconceived notions at the door, be open to listening to legitimate monastic teachers, and to leave pride and ego at the door.
The first point of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right View. Without Right View, refuge in Buddha Dharma and Sangha, which is belief in what the Buddha taught, the only thing you will achieve from meditation is delusion.
Following the Right Buddhadharma leads to the attainment of buddhahood. Following the dharma of maras leads to nothing but the hells.
Comment by chelseafc13 at 17/02/2025 at 07:14 UTC
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
you’ve got about six different I’s here and you are claiming to have found one real self?
if that shining core is the real you then what is the body-mind?
Comment by chintokkong at 17/02/2025 at 10:27 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
And I very acutely experienced that it was an *I* that was doing it, volitionally.
So there is an experiencer “I” apart from a doer “I”. Which of these is the one you identified as the “shining core me”?
.
I experienced my freedom of will, and I experienced my self as the source of that freedom of will. It was as if there was some shining core me, and that shining core me was expressing itself in the volitional act of resisting the urge to get up.
Why not express the freedom to will the pain away instead of resisting an urge? Do you have the freedom to do that instead?
.
——
.
It’s actually great that you are noticing these things in meditation. Part of the point of meditation is to investigate these phenomena.
If there’s enough stability of concentration, might want to observe how personal identification shifts from the various “I” and “me”.
Can also examine how the sense of agency works with regards to the supposed “doer”. What is the extent and limit, and how much of it is a conceptual sense applied retroactively through afterthought.
Comment by MolhCD at 17/02/2025 at 12:48 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
My experience can be described as anti–Sam-Harris
He didn't make it up lmaos. he's rather talking about anatta, no-self.
What you mean is non-nonself. i.e. in your pain you solidified your sense of self on the double so you could resist it
If you went the other direction I suppose you could have merged with the pain. Or you could have suffered it completely through and let it be.
Reminds me of the work colleague in the same team as me, who was getting so stressed as our work piled up that she dreamt of a pack of lions chasing after her, and as they caught up she fought and kicked at them with all her might, until she physically started kicking in the non-dream world and woke herself up.
Funny enough, those weren't realistic African lions, but lion dance lions (舞獅 in mandarin) — another colleague googled dream omens and confirmed those were actually *auspicious* omens. At that point I just was like, look. Stop fighting. Just let yourself get caught, they're trying to bless you. But you keep fighting and kicking and resisting.
Stop resisting lmaos. Not that you are supposed to bear pain, or damage your body or anything — do your part to ensure you actually protect and take care of yourself. Commonsense comes first before uncommon sense, before any supernormal wisdom. But after that? Stop resisting. Stop fighting. No one ever heard of a meditation where your main practice is to resist until you got a shining invincible core inside you that can supposedly resist everything — even if you succeed in that and feel impervious, when you die it will fall through anyways and then you will be in trouble.
Comment by [deleted] at 17/02/2025 at 06:12 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
If you had free will, why not get up?
Why continue to suffer?
You mean, you experienced an emotion (embarrassment) that was so powerful, it controlled your actions including self-harm?
Comment by xtraa at 17/02/2025 at 16:19 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
No-Self does not mean that there is nothing, it means that we don't experience anything as it really is. Instead, there are countless phenomena and illusions. Like you described the pain: There is no life-threatening situation or something so important, that it would justify the amount of pain in this moment. Nevertheless, it's there. So it's all about perspective and valuing these phenomena, or to use a Beatles-Quote "It's all in your mind".
Comment by Boycat89 at 17/02/2025 at 19:47 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
From my lens, what you experienced was a particular *way* selfhood organizes under pressure rather than proof that self is some fixed, separate thing. From one point of view, the self isn’t something you have but it’s something you do. And what you did (enduring, choosing, meaning-making) was selfhood in action.
Comment by hongyeongsoo at 18/02/2025 at 15:17 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Talking with a teacher at that school about how bad your pain was will either quell your fear of damage or help them to show you form or exercises to help you sit more properly. There are teachers for a reason, be humble. The aim is waking up, not how long you can sit uncomfortably. Meditation teachers are there to answer these types of questions.
()
Comment by justawhistlestop at 20/02/2025 at 19:00 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Congratulations! Any experience of duality means eventually you’ll be able to identify it, isolate it then see it pass into non-duality. I still struggle with even seeing duality in my way of perceiving objects.
Comment by Fate27 at 17/02/2025 at 06:33 UTC
-1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Sounds like a normal, Its painful, but I push through it with willpower with awareness that Im doing it.