Him: What is your take on Zazen?

Me: meditation puts you in a peaceful state for a little while, then it fades away
it does not work long term, or to 'see' and become liberated, because fundamentally, we meditate to feel a certain way
we're trying to make that feeling of peace stick to ourselves
we might do it every day, every hour even, but it always fades away
this is because there is nothing for zazen to stick to - the "you" which you want to become more peaceful is not
whether we're silent or not, we're trying to make a state of ourselves - to attain a feeling or pleasure, and keep it in our grasp
nothing stays
there is no ground for it to stand on
we meditate and say "i will become enlightened"
there is no you to become enlightened - there is no you to become peaceful
there is just peace, there is just enlightenment

Him: But what about detatchment, or just to reflect on ourselves to learn about ourselves? even if we aren't necessarily "real" we have a brain that functions a certain way to each individual 
Because right now i have this feeling of that i dont even know who i am and that ive lost touch with myself if that makes sense

Me: there is nobody to detach from
there's just a feeling of detachment
hold on just a sec
http://www.wbs.ac.uk/news/opinions/2011 ... he/mind/is
when you self-reflect, there's this idea that you're looking at the cumulative total of all your past experience at once
i can tell you that the mind is not wired to consider every memory you have simultaneously - it just generates an idea of self based off of the current emotion you're feeling, and you have the illusion of "looking deeply into yourself"
"i" is being constantly generated - when you "look into self", it's just the mind looking
there is no you involved
it's kind of like this
there's this idea, "i exist"
when you look at that idea, and ask for proof, more ideas pop up and say "this is why i exist"
but they're just that
ideas
there is no you actually generating those ideas, just ideas coming into being, talking about "i"
there is no you that is generating those ideas - because you is BEING generated by those ideas
those ideas are the only concept of self that exists
but don't bother believing me, or agreeing/disagreeing with me
look at your own mind
try to find the self to which "i" refers
or moreover, try to find self! period, don't even worry about what it "does", because it doesn't do anything
just look for self in your experience
where is it?

Him: then shouldn't i be looking for my own idea of self? like what my brain finds as an ideal sense of self?
Do you personally meditate? What about all these zen masters and teachers who have claimed reaching enlightenment through meditation? do you believe its possible to use meditation as a tool to get enlightened?

Me: It is not your idea of self. There is no you. Look.
Patrick, meditation is irrelevant. "Tools" don't matter. You don't need tools. Just look.
Stop wondering about liberation as a "what if". It is not what if. It is the only way the universe is. You do not exist. Stop fucking around - look.
Ideas arise and "you" is attributed to the ideas. 
To say that you exist because there is a thought that says you is like saying that there's a unicorn in your room because you think "there is a unicorn in my room." 
Right now, you're hearing the thought that there is a unicorn in your room, and you're not questioning it. But look around dude - there is no fucking unicorn.
You're hearing the thought that there is a self, and you're not questioning it. But look around - you can't fucking see it, because it's not fucking there. Think about it. This is SELF we're talking about. It's YOU. How can YOU not see YOU? Because THERE IS NO YOU FOR YOU TO SEE.
THERE IS NO YOU.

Him: I can't see my "self" im talking about, but it's in my brain, these thoughts and feelings arise from things and experiences happening in throughout my life , which my brain is assigning as myself because that's what i know, so in a sense i do exist? this is so confusing.
Since there is no me, then what is my life? We've talked about the movie and no audience, but still this body has all these emotions and thoughts and feelings, and it affects me, but i dont exist, so how can it still affect me? because i haven't realized this yet?

Me: If it exists, then you can find it. If you cannot find it, and can instead only find things that refer to it, then it is an assumption. 
There is no you that is reading these words. There is just the reading of words. There is no you that is feeling, there is only feeling. It is not your body, it is just a body. There are thoughts which say "I am thinking, therefore I must exist." These are thoughts. Not you.
There is no you. In nothing you do is there a you that is involved. Look. Don't look to see if you exist or don't exist. Look to see if a you is actually necessary or occurring in anything that happens anywhere in your reality.
Look at what the body is doing. There is no you involved! It's not your body. It's just a body.
Look at your breathing. There is no you involved! It's not your breathing. It's just breathing.
Look at your feelings. There is no you involved! They're not your feelings. They're just feelings.
Look at your thoughts. There is no fucking you involved, because they are not your thoughts. 
They're just thoughts.
Now LOOK, man. LOOK. I can't explain you into liberation, you need to look! This is all this takes, just look! Look once to see if you are involved in anything that is happening in reality.
There is no fucking you! Just LOOK!

Him: How long did it take you to come to this conclusion? I keep looking and trying and i feel like im so close, but i lose it.
How do you know that everything going on right now isnt a lie?
you can't really prove that one either can you?
i feel like i'm so close to trying to grasp it and then it fades away

Me: You don't lose it. There no you to lose or gain. There's just no you. You don't "come back into being". You do not exist. There is the illusion of self; the thought which says "Shit, I lost it, I exist again." This is a thought. This is not you. 
There is no you. Look. In fact, I want to see you looking. I want you to describe exactly what it is that you are doing right now. Exactly what it is. Leave nothing out. You are so close. Now LOOK.

Me: >How do you know that everything going on right now isnt a lie?
It is existing. You can see it all happening. The only lie is you.

Him: i see my keyboard, watching my fingers type words, but theres no me its just finger typing words. i'm breathing,but i'm not, my body is. my phone just got a text and its from someone i really care about, but "i" dont really care? then what cares? there has to be a me. <-- the thought process
I get to this point from thinking, that i'm just an object. Not me. but this body. i'm not really happening right now. life is happening but i'm not.
thre has to be more to it
So the person i love is just a machine?

Me: Spot on. You are not real. Body is real, thoughts are real, but you are an illusion.
No. There is no you that is loving, there is no person that is loved. There is just love happening.

Him: I still don't feel i have it. because if i did, it shouldnt be affecting me. what i'm saying is. Whats the point of knowing this. I still will have shitty days and harmonious days, and even though i dont actually exist this body is still experiencing it

Me: Yes. Enlightenment doesn't put you into a state where you no longer feel pain. You have a brain, and that brain reacts to its environment in such a way that a lot of the time, we're in pain. Enlightenment doesn't mean you no longer have a brain and will be in cosmic bliss forever - just recognizing that despite the pain, there's no you experiencing it. There's the experience of pleasure, and the experience of pain, but no you involved.

Him: if the world was void of any things that could see or perceive then would it not be existing? if nothing is there to percieve it?

Me: There is no perceiver - but there is perception. Everything that is experienced is perception. There's just no one behind it, doing the perceiving. Perceiver is perceived. 
As it turns out, the presence of a perceiver is an unnecessary element in the existence of the universe. This is what zen masters referred to when they say, "everything is consciousness." Everything is perception - there is no one outside of perception doing the perceiving.

It is logically completely obvious. Life has raised an animal, a human, to be as fit as possible to its environment. It has yielded a body through evolution, and a mind through billions of years of conditioning. Everything which this organism encounters, is reacts to. These are my thoughts. Every flash of thought through the brain - every reaction I have, is executed through my body. Only, the thoughts and the body are not me.

The body and mind are machines. There is no conscious action. There is only cause and effect; I have no control. What is perceived as "self", as "Casey", as the complete identity believed to exist, is not real. It is a trick by a very advanced brain, fooling itself into thinking it's conscious. The body and the mind are not conscious. "I am" is not conscious. There are only thoughts, and a body.

I am nowhere; there can be no identity; I do not exist.


All of the achievements I had thought were mine, something I had done, are nothing. Some things are perceived as "gained" in life, some things are perceived as "lost." But the identity is a lie. Nothing can be gained. Nothing can be lost. There is no one to gain or lose it.