Can meditation strengthen the sense of self?

Question

When I practice mindfulness meditation I can sometimes become acutely aware of my sense of self. It seems to go from a dull background awareness of self to a feeling that the sense of self is very pervasive and almost invasive into all aspects of experience. Naively I would expect that meditation would have the opposite affect and weaken the sense of self. In fairness sometimes it does but sometimes it appears to have this opposite effect.

Is that a documented result of meditation. Is there advice out there from established teachers (of any schools) about working with this? Is it just me? Has anyone got advice based on their own experience?

Answer 1

Just do what you're doing. When you notice your self, don't fight it. Your sense of self is there for a purpose. The purpose is to find out the cause. Once the cause of self is found, the cause is removed. When the cause is removed, self ceases.

When meditation is done gently, spontaneously, peacefully, one becomes absorbed in meditation. When one is absorbed in meditation, thinking ceases. When thinking ceases, self ceases.

Answer 2

This is because you don't notice the senses at their unadulterated state. Seeing is just seeing, hearing is just hearing, feeling is just feeling and so on. Your mind already has Sakkayaditti(the false view of taking the senses as self) which jumps the gun as soon as the sense doors receive Rupa. This is what's meant by Pamada. You have to be Appamada and catch the sense before Sakkayadhitti spoils it and turns you into Alice in the wonderland.:)

Answer 3

When your sense of self arises it means you're holding on to something. So it's either a craving you're holding onto or a view. Either way your meditation has made you more aware of your sense of self; and that is good!

Answer 4

If one practices insight meditation correctly then the practice will actually weaken the sense of Self. One will come to realize that the idea/sense of self is merely a mental formation belonging to the 4th aggregate. By diligent and repeated practice one will come to see the 3 signs of existence, i.e. the mental formation is both impermanent, unsatisfactory and uncontrollable/ungovernable meaning it cannot be a Self.

If a Self could exist it would be something that one is in control of, something that is amenable to ones will. Through insight meditation we find that nothing in the conditioned realm is really like that.

Here is a great quote by Mahasi Sayadaw. Unfortunately i cannot find where he said it so there is no reference.

"There is deeds, but no doer.

There is movement, but no mover.

There is no unmoving mover behind the movement."

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Ajahn Punnadhammo told in an audio dhamma talk that when he became a monk and did extensive walking meditation he would sometimes get caught up in phenomena and identifying with them. So what he did was to put up a sign at the end of his walking path.

The sign said: NOT ME, NOT MINE. He looked at that everytime he got caught up in phenomena.

Here is an audio dhamma talk on Anatta by Ajahn Punnadhammo. In here he talks about how the Buddha explained the 4 four ways in which we create a Self and the 3 levels of which we create a Self. The talk is highly recommendable.

Answer 5

Continue your meditation practice and eventually you will come to realise the 3 universal characteristics of impermanance, suffering and non-self, then you will realise the difference between self- ignorance- and non-self- wisdom.

Metta.

Answer 6

Satipatthana Sutta helps here.

[5] "Furthermore...just as a skilled butcher or his apprentice, having killed a cow, would sit at a crossroads cutting it up into pieces, the monk contemplates this very body — however it stands, however it is disposed — in terms of properties: 'In this body there is the earth property, the liquid property, the fire property, & the wind property.'

"In this way he remains focused internally on the body in & of itself, or focused externally... unsustained by anything in the world. This is how a monk remains focused on the body in & of itself.

[6] "Furthermore, as if he were to see a corpse cast away in a charnel ground — one day, two days, three days dead — bloated, livid, & festering, he applies it to this very body, 'This body, too: Such is its nature, such is its future, such its unavoidable fate'...

"Or again, as if he were to see a corpse cast away in a charnel ground, picked at by crows, vultures, & hawks, by dogs, hyenas, & various other creatures... a skeleton smeared with flesh & blood, connected with tendons... a fleshless skeleton smeared with blood, connected with tendons... a skeleton without flesh or blood, connected with tendons... bones detached from their tendons, scattered in all directions — here a hand bone, there a foot bone, here a shin bone, there a thigh bone, here a hip bone, there a back bone, here a rib, there a breast bone, here a shoulder bone, there a neck bone, here a jaw bone, there a tooth, here a skull... the bones whitened, somewhat like the color of shells... piled up, more than a year old... decomposed into a powder: He applies it to this very body, 'This body, too: Such is its nature, such is its future, such its unavoidable fate.'

"In this way he remains focused internally on the body in & of itself, or externally on the body in & of itself, or both internally & externally on the body in & of itself. Or he remains focused on the phenomenon of origination with regard to the body, on the phenomenon of passing away with regard to the body, or on the phenomenon of origination & passing away with regard to the body. Or his mindfulness that 'There is a body' is maintained to the extent of knowledge & remembrance. And he remains independent, unsustained by (not clinging to) anything in the world. This is how a monk remains focused on the body in & of itself.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.than.html