Genius hour - Not-Self

Now this may be hard to wrap your heads around, but this week I have learned a new theory that might help enlighten the way our minds work. We all have heard of the self, but the matter of fact is that it does not exist the way we think. Instead Buddhism would rather you reach your not self by looking at these five aggregates:

• Consciousness
• Form (body)
• Feeling
• Perception
• Mental Formations

Now if you look at these five aspects of ourselves one might realize that these are connecting to the Four Noble Truths as they can be referred to five aggregates of clinging. In reality we want what's best for ourselves and thrive on the good things. However this obsession can turn to wanting happiness for pleasure. We should not feel any pleasure from certain feeling, or the way we look. We have to concentrate on understanding why we feel it. If not we will never be satisfied. Although the five aggregates are what make a person, it is our goal to let them go. That is how we achieve the form of the not-self.

This is a strange concept for me to grasp, because to me it seems we are trying to liberate ourselves from our self. It almost sounds as though we should be least existent as possible. If we are not supposed to feel, or have opinions what kind of freedom do we achieve? This seems more a quest to nothingness then Nirvana. Nirvana is also somewhere you want to go when you pass away, so why achieve it when you are living? It seems wrong for a living being to want to go to a place that can lead to absolute nothing. Although I agree with some aspects of Buddhism, this one is just too extreme.

Maybe we are unhappy because we like the aspects of life and we gain pleasure from it, but is that not what we are taught to do. How can we erase our being so early in our lives? I bet the more happiness I acquire the more I yearn for more. It seems Buddhism is telling me to stop my quest from happiness and embrace whatever I am feeling. No need to be sad about being sad, just think about it. The more mindful you are the more you can control yourself. This requires a lot of discipline of our minds. All the urges you might have need to be suppressed in order to reach a form of not-self. This is not something the majority of people in western societies are ready to do. Buddhism is complicated, and it takes devotion to master it.