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I interpret the author’s difficulties and frustration as a byproduct of a particular misapprehension of Buddhist teachings in modern society. Many modern-day pr

I interpret the author’s difficulties and frustration as a byproduct of a particular misapprehension of Buddhist teachings in modern society. Many modern-day practitioners, both in the east and the west, are under the impression that simply by mechanically practicing mindfulness meditation they will eventually reach a state of enlightenment. Unfortunately, this is a misunderstanding that the Buddha himself addressed in the teachings. The Noble Eightfold Path is at the heart of Buddhist practice, and it’s structured such that “right view” comes in first place, while “right mindfulness” and “right concentration” come at the very end. According to these teachings, it’s impossible to attain the right kind of mindfulness conducive to the cessation of stress without first satisfying the precondition of right view. Without right view, the practitioner is essentially flying blind. The modern mindfulness movement in its zeal to secularize these practices is incapable of accepting the proposition that the right teaching has to be first grasped before embarking on the practice, as this contradicts the purely empiricist approach of mechanically practicing mindfulness with the expectation that this leads to enlightenment. The author’s comments such as “I thought awakening was right around the corner and now feel broken and betrayed” are indicative of such an expectation being broken. The Buddha explains the danger of misconceiving the teachings using the snake simile, in which the Buddha compares the teachings to a snake that has to be first grabbed by the head and then tail. Trying to grab the snake by the tail first will only result in being bitten. This simile can be applied quite literally to the structure of The Noble Eightfold Path, where right view can be interpreted as the head of the snake, and right mindfulness/concentration as the tail.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
> as this contradicts the purely empiricist approach of mechanically practicing mindfulness with the expectation that this leads to enlightenment. This isn't really an empiricist approach. Empiricists look at what works, and (from what you're saying) this doesn't. I'm not sure what to call it, but that's the wrong word.
- jessedhillon 5y ago
  In this sense, this person is talking about empiricism as the outlook that only what can be measured matters. Hours spent in meditation can be measured, but your embodiment of right view can't (or isn't, at least).
- sjayasinghe 5y ago
  I'm using the word here to mean a philosophical position which only accepts knowledge that can be gained via direct meditative experience and rejects everything else. I'm open to suggestions for a better word to describe this position.
  - lhorie 5y ago
    I think it can be summarized as "recklessness" (i.e. jumping the gun without proper understanding of/regard to foundational concepts)
    - kovyrin 5y ago
      > I think it can be summarized as "recklessness" (i.e. jumping the gun without proper understanding of/regard to foundational concepts) Well… I tried to approach it properly. You google or look up in wikipedia a bunch of info on Buddhism, then you find most popular authors writing on the topic. You end up with “Zen mind, beginner’s mind” and a few others. None of them tell you it may hurt you, none of them mention doing it on group settings or with teachers, they recommend you starting alone and doing it daily. One of those foundational books (don’t remember which one), recommended doing an hour a day… How is one supposed to know that it is dangerous?
      - arbitrage 5y ago
        Maybe getting your only information from a cursory grazing of wikipedia isn't approaching the topic properly? The article in question isn't about meditating once a day. It's about meditating aggressively for TWELVE hours a day two weeks straight, and how it negatively affected the author.
      - lhorie 5y ago
        > How is one supposed to know that it is dangerous? It isn't supposed to be dangerous, but if you dive head first into hardcore "retreats" with unrealistic expectations, that might end up badly, yes. For starters, if you have to seek recommendations on the Internet, you're probably already several steps detached from the original tradition. Buddhism has an insane amount of breadth: there are west asian flavors and east asian flavors, and there's literally thousands of years of history to go with them. Some forms of practice don't even focus on meditation (for example, as a child, I was largely exposed to ritualistic aspects of the japanese flavor). If you're interested in it as a westerner, it's likely because you've heard of mindfulness in the context of mental health benefits, but that's in large part a western concept bolted on top of the original tradition. It would be helpful to try to understand where stuff is getting lost in translation. Learning more about the original Buddhist philosophy and its roots can help give more context on things like what enlightenment is supposed to be about (coming to understand what it is is actually kind of the point) and how meditation and mindfulness are supposed to fit in.
- pphysch 5y ago
  You are describing what could be called pragmatism; "empiricism" has specific epistemological meaning.
jbgt 5y ago
I am very happy to read this. Most people in the west understand Mindfulness in isolation, and often only mindfulness of the breath as meditation. And the intention is to "feel calm" or "not think", or want the Headspace experience on steroids or believe they can brute force their way to "Englightement"... Without Right View and Right Intention, without the morality development of the Noble Eightfold Path, there is no wonder that they practice unskillfully, and develop unfulfilled expectations. I highly recommend reading / listening to the talks / going to retreat at (1) for a firm foundation for practice; for more in depth reading from one of the most important Theravadin monks who brings balance to the practice and emphasizes wisdom (2). A nice podcast (3) with also a good balance of teaching. I hope this helps people better understand meditation / mental development beyond mindfulness and concentration practice. 1 https://rosemary-steve.org/data/practice.htm https://rosemary-steve.org/data/practice.htm 2 https://www.watnyanaves.net/en/home https://www.watnyanaves.net/en/home 3 https://tunein.com/podcasts/Religion--Spirituality-Podcasts/Dhammagiri-Buddhist-Podcasts-p1315533/ https://tunein.com/podcasts/Religion--Spirituality-Podcasts/...
nineplay 5y ago
I've frequently seen "Buddhism" adopted by westerners from a secular or Judeo/Christian background and treated as though it's some sort of feel-good practice which lets them feel vaguely superior to other religions without any serious changes in beliefs or practices. I saw a well regarded movie recently where the main characterized Buddhism as "a philosophy rather than a religion" which made it clear that no Asians had been involved in the making of that film. I was with a friend at a Asian market and he looked snottily at some of the Buddha statues and said "Those don't have any relationship with _my_ religion". I wanted to ask if they'd ever been in a Thai restaurant. It's such a dismissal of the way Buddhism has been practiced in cultures for a couple thousand years - but this white American clearly knows better.
- potatoman22 5y ago
  Why villainize the "white American", portraying them as "knowing better"? Yes, the mischaracterization of Buddhism is disrespectful, but it comes from ignorance, not malice.
  - copio 5y ago
    How can you pick and choose without on some level being aware of what you are excluding?
  - nineplay 5y ago
    It is ignorance that borders on arrogance. They must know that Buddhism is over two thousand years old. They must know that it is central to many cultures all over the world. Yet they somehow are confident that their way is the 'right' way.
    - medstrom 5y ago
      Ah, the amorphous "they". Like the amorphous "many". I'm not sure there's all that many that do this.
      - mcguire 5y ago
mtalantikite 5y ago
Came here to say something similar. When I was about 20 some close friends of mine started practicing (and eventually ordained) with the American Theravadin monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu, which got my meditation practice started. Unfortunately I made the mistake of doing a lot of sitting and not a lot of learning of the Buddha's teachings at that time, other than reading some Pali translations and listening to Thanissaro Bhikkhu's dharma talks here and there. It got to the place where I didn't have the proper view to make sense of things that were happening and it felt like sitting was making life harder, so I gave up daily practice. About 10 years later I encountered the Diamond and Heart sutras from the Mahayana traditions and things made a whole lot more sense. It allowed me to get back to daily practice, which I'm very thankful for. It's not a teaching emphasized in the Theravada traditions that many of these American "mindfulness" movements draw from - although it's there - but the teachings on emptiness (śūnyatā) I found to be transformative for my practice. When the author writes things like "...elements of my sense of self became separated in a way that impaired my ability to function", it makes me think he'd benefit from learning the teachings on emptiness and the doctrine of the two truths. This is all to say that I find it pretty irresponsible and potentially dangerous to have people with very little understanding of the Buddha's teachings get thrown into 10-day silent meditation retreats where you're sitting for 10 hours per day as often seems to happen. Or to divorce the practice of meditation from the teachings as is common in lots of modern western "mindfulness" spaces. Many traditions teach these things slowly, over the course of months and years, while moving you along as your understanding deepens for a reason. I'd recommend taking your practice slowly, preferably with a skilled Buddhist monk to guide you. Read the sutras. Find a tradition that resonates with you personally. Know that there are risks involved and often times the practice will be difficult and confusing. It's not a magic pill to make you a better worker under capitalism.
- lazide 5y ago
  Amen (hah) - I doubt (up until recently with these getting more visibility) it was ever a problem enough that retreats are screening for this. Additionally, retreats taught in 'weight loss' fashion are only going to make this worse, as there may be no one with a comprehensive grounding or experience even present on the retreat. This is one area where years of experience (and depth) and accuracy/correctness matter a lot. Which is hard. And expensive. And hard to scale.
crazydoggers 5y ago
> I interpret the author’s difficulties and frustration as a byproduct of a particular misapprehension of Buddhist teachings in modern society. I interpret his difficulties as an experience of how the brain is an organ and has physiological responses we’re not often prepared for. Most people would agree that going on a retreat where you run 20 miles a day would have adverse consequences for your body. Yet the same kind of workout for your brain doesn’t garner the same respect or caution. Perhaps the dogma/teachings of Buddhism prepare people for these things better than Western adoption of mediation practices, but to me they don’t get to the heart of the matter, which is true understanding of the brain. Just like kosher practices protected people from disease before the germ theory was understood. Ultimately until we accept that our brain is a physical organ, that self does not stand apart from body, our mental health as a society is going suffer.
- lazide 5y ago
  The brain as an organ analogy doesn't also reflect the self-reflective, self-influencing, learning side of it well. A kidney doesn't remember the last time someone abused it and react reflexively when they see that person. It also doesn't tend to go into tight loops of racing thoughts about that person randomly either. If you treat it like it is a simple organ (x thing happens, give drug y), it can lead to some really toxic long term effects with avoidance of environmental or self regulatory issues, lack of awareness of what is going on and how to correct it, etc. I've seen it personally, and lost friends and loved ones to the effects a naive 'medical' approach can have. The reality, near as we can tell, is the brain is an organ, that in ways we don't understand is also part of what we call 'self', which is also part of the system of our body, which is also part of larger systems that we interact with and influence us. I don't know of any monks that, if you broke a leg, would say 'Meditate and your leg will be healed'. Most monks, if you had not yet gone to a Doctor to have it fixed, would ask you something along the lines of 'How can I help you?' to help you see the need and get you there, or ask you to sit with them so you could see the need yourself.
  - crazydoggers 5y ago
    > The brain as an organ analogy doesn't also reflect the self-reflective, self-influencing, learning side of it well. Except it’s not an analogy… it’s literally an organ. Software happens to run on top of it… and when there are bugs in on, we call those functional diseases. But understand that the physical organ and system underlies all if it. If your cpu or memory are broken.. no software or software fixes can fix that. And I’m not suggesting that the complexity of the neural network isn’t important to mental health. It is. But it’s based in physical and chemical processes. Your immune system for instance is a complex system with emergent properties. You could say it “understands” or is aware when the body is being attacked. But at each individual level, it’s a process of chemical physical reactions. It’s fine to work at the level of the “self”, but if we assume it stands apart or is fundamentally different than the brain itself, that’s when we get into trouble. Buddhist philosophy can encapsulate accumulated folk knowledge of how the mind works, which can be incredibly insightful. However there’s danger in assuming it explains everything.
exo-pla-net 5y ago
The author wasn't ignorant: "I’m extremely knowledgeable of both Buddhist and secular frameworks of meditation, have read countless books on the subject."
- arbitrage 5y ago
  The author obviously isn't ignorant. The comment you failed to respond to directly is talking about "a particular misapprehension of Buddhist teachings in modern society." This is not about ignorance, and framing it as such is directly supporting the thesis of the original article.
  - exo-pla-net 5y ago
    Misapprehension is a function of ignorance. If you're free of trapped priors, you'll eventually sort out your misconceptions, as you learn more. Regarding this particular slice of turkey on the table, since you insist: "[T]his is a misunderstanding that the Buddha himself addressed in the teachings." The teachings? The teachings a person would likely be exposed to and eventually come up understand, if they've read countless books on the non-secular/Buddhist practice of meditation? Regardless, if failing to "correctly" understand a bit of squishy woo-woo in Buddhist religion is the difference between safe meditation practice and psychosis/nervous breakdown, then that's all the more alarming.
    - kjaftaedi 5y ago
      Regardless of whether the author understood the teachings, he clearly ignored them with the drinking, drugs, and coffee.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Sawamara 5y ago
  The author was not ignorant. He was also nowhere near close to any sort of enlightment, or else he would not have thought things like that. This is, however, a moot point. The article is important and a warning to a lot of people. The current state we live creates such a tense situation for most people that these hardcore retreat-size meditation doses can literally act like shocks to both the trained and the untrained.
blastro 5y ago
amen.
vinceguidry 5y ago
Americans are in the habit of treating all goals as achievable in a systematic manner and to break down all obstacles into simply more things to learn and apply. With materialistic and worldly goals this works very well. However by ignoring the soft needs of self in favor of the hard needs of ego, one applies the above methodology right up until their psyche falls apart because there's nothing left holding it together. The ouroboros runs out of tail to eat. And Buddhist tenets, as understood by Westerners, don't help. Anatta, the doctrine of no-self, does not mean you can just ignore the needs of your psyche! It means your self is illusory, constantly changing. Illusions, have rules! They're durable, they don't just go away because you naively decided they don't matter anymore.

wizzwizz4 5y ago

> as this contradicts the purely empiricist approach of mechanically practicing mindfulness with the expectation that this leads to enlightenment. This isn't really an empiricist approach. Empiricists look at what works, and (from what you're saying) this doesn't. I'm not sure what to call it, but that's the wrong word.

jessedhillon 5y ago
In this sense, this person is talking about empiricism as the outlook that only what can be measured matters. Hours spent in meditation can be measured, but your embodiment of right view can't (or isn't, at least).
sjayasinghe 5y ago
I'm using the word here to mean a philosophical position which only accepts knowledge that can be gained via direct meditative experience and rejects everything else. I'm open to suggestions for a better word to describe this position.
- lhorie 5y ago
  I think it can be summarized as "recklessness" (i.e. jumping the gun without proper understanding of/regard to foundational concepts)
  - kovyrin 5y ago
    > I think it can be summarized as "recklessness" (i.e. jumping the gun without proper understanding of/regard to foundational concepts) Well… I tried to approach it properly. You google or look up in wikipedia a bunch of info on Buddhism, then you find most popular authors writing on the topic. You end up with “Zen mind, beginner’s mind” and a few others. None of them tell you it may hurt you, none of them mention doing it on group settings or with teachers, they recommend you starting alone and doing it daily. One of those foundational books (don’t remember which one), recommended doing an hour a day… How is one supposed to know that it is dangerous?
    - arbitrage 5y ago
      Maybe getting your only information from a cursory grazing of wikipedia isn't approaching the topic properly? The article in question isn't about meditating once a day. It's about meditating aggressively for TWELVE hours a day two weeks straight, and how it negatively affected the author.
    - lhorie 5y ago
      > How is one supposed to know that it is dangerous? It isn't supposed to be dangerous, but if you dive head first into hardcore "retreats" with unrealistic expectations, that might end up badly, yes. For starters, if you have to seek recommendations on the Internet, you're probably already several steps detached from the original tradition. Buddhism has an insane amount of breadth: there are west asian flavors and east asian flavors, and there's literally thousands of years of history to go with them. Some forms of practice don't even focus on meditation (for example, as a child, I was largely exposed to ritualistic aspects of the japanese flavor). If you're interested in it as a westerner, it's likely because you've heard of mindfulness in the context of mental health benefits, but that's in large part a western concept bolted on top of the original tradition. It would be helpful to try to understand where stuff is getting lost in translation. Learning more about the original Buddhist philosophy and its roots can help give more context on things like what enlightenment is supposed to be about (coming to understand what it is is actually kind of the point) and how meditation and mindfulness are supposed to fit in.
pphysch 5y ago
You are describing what could be called pragmatism; "empiricism" has specific epistemological meaning.

jbgt 5y ago

I am very happy to read this. Most people in the west understand Mindfulness in isolation, and often only mindfulness of the breath as meditation. And the intention is to "feel calm" or "not think", or want the Headspace experience on steroids or believe they can brute force their way to "Englightement"... Without Right View and Right Intention, without the morality development of the Noble Eightfold Path, there is no wonder that they practice unskillfully, and develop unfulfilled expectations. I highly recommend reading / listening to the talks / going to retreat at (1) for a firm foundation for practice; for more in depth reading from one of the most important Theravadin monks who brings balance to the practice and emphasizes wisdom (2). A nice podcast (3) with also a good balance of teaching. I hope this helps people better understand meditation / mental development beyond mindfulness and concentration practice. 1 https://rosemary-steve.org/data/practice.htm https://rosemary-steve.org/data/practice.htm 2 https://www.watnyanaves.net/en/home https://www.watnyanaves.net/en/home 3 https://tunein.com/podcasts/Religion--Spirituality-Podcasts/Dhammagiri-Buddhist-Podcasts-p1315533/ https://tunein.com/podcasts/Religion--Spirituality-Podcasts/...

nineplay 5y ago

I've frequently seen "Buddhism" adopted by westerners from a secular or Judeo/Christian background and treated as though it's some sort of feel-good practice which lets them feel vaguely superior to other religions without any serious changes in beliefs or practices. I saw a well regarded movie recently where the main characterized Buddhism as "a philosophy rather than a religion" which made it clear that no Asians had been involved in the making of that film. I was with a friend at a Asian market and he looked snottily at some of the Buddha statues and said "Those don't have any relationship with _my_ religion". I wanted to ask if they'd ever been in a Thai restaurant. It's such a dismissal of the way Buddhism has been practiced in cultures for a couple thousand years - but this white American clearly knows better.

potatoman22 5y ago
Why villainize the "white American", portraying them as "knowing better"? Yes, the mischaracterization of Buddhism is disrespectful, but it comes from ignorance, not malice.
- copio 5y ago
  How can you pick and choose without on some level being aware of what you are excluding?
- nineplay 5y ago
  It is ignorance that borders on arrogance. They must know that Buddhism is over two thousand years old. They must know that it is central to many cultures all over the world. Yet they somehow are confident that their way is the 'right' way.
  - medstrom 5y ago
    Ah, the amorphous "they". Like the amorphous "many". I'm not sure there's all that many that do this.
    - mcguire 5y ago

mtalantikite 5y ago

Came here to say something similar. When I was about 20 some close friends of mine started practicing (and eventually ordained) with the American Theravadin monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu, which got my meditation practice started. Unfortunately I made the mistake of doing a lot of sitting and not a lot of learning of the Buddha's teachings at that time, other than reading some Pali translations and listening to Thanissaro Bhikkhu's dharma talks here and there. It got to the place where I didn't have the proper view to make sense of things that were happening and it felt like sitting was making life harder, so I gave up daily practice. About 10 years later I encountered the Diamond and Heart sutras from the Mahayana traditions and things made a whole lot more sense. It allowed me to get back to daily practice, which I'm very thankful for. It's not a teaching emphasized in the Theravada traditions that many of these American "mindfulness" movements draw from - although it's there - but the teachings on emptiness (śūnyatā) I found to be transformative for my practice. When the author writes things like "...elements of my sense of self became separated in a way that impaired my ability to function", it makes me think he'd benefit from learning the teachings on emptiness and the doctrine of the two truths. This is all to say that I find it pretty irresponsible and potentially dangerous to have people with very little understanding of the Buddha's teachings get thrown into 10-day silent meditation retreats where you're sitting for 10 hours per day as often seems to happen. Or to divorce the practice of meditation from the teachings as is common in lots of modern western "mindfulness" spaces. Many traditions teach these things slowly, over the course of months and years, while moving you along as your understanding deepens for a reason. I'd recommend taking your practice slowly, preferably with a skilled Buddhist monk to guide you. Read the sutras. Find a tradition that resonates with you personally. Know that there are risks involved and often times the practice will be difficult and confusing. It's not a magic pill to make you a better worker under capitalism.

lazide 5y ago
Amen (hah) - I doubt (up until recently with these getting more visibility) it was ever a problem enough that retreats are screening for this. Additionally, retreats taught in 'weight loss' fashion are only going to make this worse, as there may be no one with a comprehensive grounding or experience even present on the retreat. This is one area where years of experience (and depth) and accuracy/correctness matter a lot. Which is hard. And expensive. And hard to scale.

crazydoggers 5y ago

> I interpret the author’s difficulties and frustration as a byproduct of a particular misapprehension of Buddhist teachings in modern society. I interpret his difficulties as an experience of how the brain is an organ and has physiological responses we’re not often prepared for. Most people would agree that going on a retreat where you run 20 miles a day would have adverse consequences for your body. Yet the same kind of workout for your brain doesn’t garner the same respect or caution. Perhaps the dogma/teachings of Buddhism prepare people for these things better than Western adoption of mediation practices, but to me they don’t get to the heart of the matter, which is true understanding of the brain. Just like kosher practices protected people from disease before the germ theory was understood. Ultimately until we accept that our brain is a physical organ, that self does not stand apart from body, our mental health as a society is going suffer.

lazide 5y ago
The brain as an organ analogy doesn't also reflect the self-reflective, self-influencing, learning side of it well. A kidney doesn't remember the last time someone abused it and react reflexively when they see that person. It also doesn't tend to go into tight loops of racing thoughts about that person randomly either. If you treat it like it is a simple organ (x thing happens, give drug y), it can lead to some really toxic long term effects with avoidance of environmental or self regulatory issues, lack of awareness of what is going on and how to correct it, etc. I've seen it personally, and lost friends and loved ones to the effects a naive 'medical' approach can have. The reality, near as we can tell, is the brain is an organ, that in ways we don't understand is also part of what we call 'self', which is also part of the system of our body, which is also part of larger systems that we interact with and influence us. I don't know of any monks that, if you broke a leg, would say 'Meditate and your leg will be healed'. Most monks, if you had not yet gone to a Doctor to have it fixed, would ask you something along the lines of 'How can I help you?' to help you see the need and get you there, or ask you to sit with them so you could see the need yourself.
- crazydoggers 5y ago
  > The brain as an organ analogy doesn't also reflect the self-reflective, self-influencing, learning side of it well. Except it’s not an analogy… it’s literally an organ. Software happens to run on top of it… and when there are bugs in on, we call those functional diseases. But understand that the physical organ and system underlies all if it. If your cpu or memory are broken.. no software or software fixes can fix that. And I’m not suggesting that the complexity of the neural network isn’t important to mental health. It is. But it’s based in physical and chemical processes. Your immune system for instance is a complex system with emergent properties. You could say it “understands” or is aware when the body is being attacked. But at each individual level, it’s a process of chemical physical reactions. It’s fine to work at the level of the “self”, but if we assume it stands apart or is fundamentally different than the brain itself, that’s when we get into trouble. Buddhist philosophy can encapsulate accumulated folk knowledge of how the mind works, which can be incredibly insightful. However there’s danger in assuming it explains everything.

exo-pla-net 5y ago

The author wasn't ignorant: "I’m extremely knowledgeable of both Buddhist and secular frameworks of meditation, have read countless books on the subject."

arbitrage 5y ago
The author obviously isn't ignorant. The comment you failed to respond to directly is talking about "a particular misapprehension of Buddhist teachings in modern society." This is not about ignorance, and framing it as such is directly supporting the thesis of the original article.
- exo-pla-net 5y ago
  Misapprehension is a function of ignorance. If you're free of trapped priors, you'll eventually sort out your misconceptions, as you learn more. Regarding this particular slice of turkey on the table, since you insist: "[T]his is a misunderstanding that the Buddha himself addressed in the teachings." The teachings? The teachings a person would likely be exposed to and eventually come up understand, if they've read countless books on the non-secular/Buddhist practice of meditation? Regardless, if failing to "correctly" understand a bit of squishy woo-woo in Buddhist religion is the difference between safe meditation practice and psychosis/nervous breakdown, then that's all the more alarming.
  - kjaftaedi 5y ago
    Regardless of whether the author understood the teachings, he clearly ignored them with the drinking, drugs, and coffee.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Sawamara 5y ago
The author was not ignorant. He was also nowhere near close to any sort of enlightment, or else he would not have thought things like that. This is, however, a moot point. The article is important and a warning to a lot of people. The current state we live creates such a tense situation for most people that these hardcore retreat-size meditation doses can literally act like shocks to both the trained and the untrained.

blastro 5y ago

amen.

vinceguidry 5y ago

Americans are in the habit of treating all goals as achievable in a systematic manner and to break down all obstacles into simply more things to learn and apply. With materialistic and worldly goals this works very well. However by ignoring the soft needs of self in favor of the hard needs of ego, one applies the above methodology right up until their psyche falls apart because there's nothing left holding it together. The ouroboros runs out of tail to eat. And Buddhist tenets, as understood by Westerners, don't help. Anatta, the doctrine of no-self, does not mean you can just ignore the needs of your psyche! It means your self is illusory, constantly changing. Illusions, have rules! They're durable, they don't just go away because you naively decided they don't matter anymore.