' No Self, No Problem '...

“In Buddhism this is called no self. This is the only true awakening.”

“As we begin to rest and pay attention, we begin to see everything clearly. We see that the self has no basis or solidity. It is a complete mental fabrication. We also realize that everything we believe to be true about our life is nothing but stories, fabricated around false identifications.”

“Who is the one being angry or disappointed?” In such inquiry, inner serenity can effortlessly manifest.”

“When all the layers of false identity have been stripped off, there is no longer any version of that old self. What is left behind is pure consciousness.”

“... we come to this one powerful understanding, that ultimately there is no samsara to be rejected. There is no misery to be transcended. There is not even a self to be liberated. Everything is just our own concepts and nothing more.. My misery, my enemy, my life, they are all my concepts. That’s it.”

“We just get rid of all of our concepts, all of our painful concepts, whatever concepts we are having an affair with. We are always having an affair with concepts and there are plenty of them. Every concept has a story line. Think about it. “I am poor.” That is a concept. “I am stupid.” That is a concept. “I am a woman.” That is a concept. “I am a man.” That is a concept too. They are all concepts. “I don’t have enough money, but if I had a million dollars, then I would be happy.” That is a concept. They are all concepts. Get rid of them in a single moment without even taking the time to meditate, without taking the time to analyze them. Transcend all limiting concepts as soon as they arise.”

“When the self completely collapses, there is this inexpressible, simple yet profound and ecstatic, compassionate awareness. Nobody is there. “I” is completely nonexistent in that place.”

“The “I” who doesn’t like what is unfolding is completely gone and that is all that matters in the ultimate sense.”

“When we try to get rid of it, it doesn’t work. It backfires because who is trying to get rid of it? There is nobody there in the ultimate sense.”

“I remember a very short quote from a Buddhist teacher: “No self, no problem.” It is really short but true and very effective too.”

“My ego is struggling. “Well, I want to be enlightened. I want to have that bliss that he is talking about right now.. I want to feel good. I want to have rapture but it’s not there. Time is running out.”

“There is struggle when we are meditating and there is struggle when we are not meditating, as long as the self is being perceived as real. When the self goes away, then we are already in paradise and there is nothing to do.”

“Karma is actually nothing more than thought.”

“Buddha taught this wisdom, and in his tradition it is called anatman, or “no self.” “

“This old version of self is the sense of an “I” that believes that it is inextricably bound to conditions. For example, when we feel that “I am going to die, and it scares the daylights out of me,” that is the old version of self. We know that it seems real to all of us. It seems as real as the sun and moon in the sky, as real as the coffee table in front of us. But remember that we once believed in many things that we no longer believe are real. When we were children Santa Claus was real to many of us. How could anybody dare tell a child that Santa is not real? But one day we figured it out all by ourselves. We simply knew that Santa was not real and that he had never been real. When we realize that this old version of self is no longer real, then we are no longer bound to conditions. Death is no longer a terrorizing threat. We have literally transcended death. Our body might decay and collapse but that is not death to us. This deathlessness has nothing to do with the idea that our soul or mind keeps reincarnating again and again when we lose our body. Rather we know that our true nature is one with everything, so it goes beyond birth and death as well as beyond reincarnation. Does the sky die? Our true nature is one with the sky.”

“When we suffer it means that we are attached to a thought. When we feel happy that means that we are experiencing another thought. The very sense of “I” is a thought too. The “I” that I believe to be so real and concrete doesn’t exist in the ultimate sense. It is just a thought.”

“The only thing that we must transcend is our thoughts. Beyond our own thoughts there is no suffering. There is only thought. This is not simply theory. But what does it mean to transcend our thoughts? It simply means not to believe in our thoughts. When we don’t believe in our thoughts we are always awakened. When we believe in our thoughts we are unawakened.”

“Look. Who is searching for enlightenment? If we bring about awareness in our mind right now, we see that it is the same “I” who searches for everything. Who is searching for fame? Who is searching for pleasure? Who is searching for a way to arrive at the truth? It is the same “I.” The “I” who is searching for enlightenment is the same “I.” This “I” is sometimes very holy and sometimes extremely nasty. You see, this “I” has a big closet filled with all kinds of masks. There are masks of being holy and masks of being quite sinister. The “I” who wants to wring somebody’s neck is the same “I” who is searching for enlightenment. You see, it’s all the business of “I.” There is no good “I.” There is no bad “I.” There is only one “I” and it’s called the ego. Ego is a mental construct, a fabrication. It has nothing to do with who we really are.”

“In the ancient times, spiritual seekers used various methods to practice meditation. Yet, there is only one meditation. That is a state of nondoing. When we stop trying to get somewhere and let go of all of our inner exertions, surprisingly the ineffable truth reveals itself to us. Then that’s it. There is nothing else to be found. The realization of that truth sets us free from the prison of our imaginary self. When we go deeply into meditation, we always witness the dissolution of self. If the self is still sticking around, we have not gone deep enough.”

“Trying to acquire enlightenment from the outside, from a very impressive teacher or from an exotic practice, is also an illusion. These are simply other ways ego uses to sustain its illusory reality.”

“One of our biggest problems is the idea of death. Even that doesn’t exist because there has never been anybody there to die in the first place. This sense of “I” is a grand illusion. Life without this illusion is truly beautiful. Without this illusion we feel that we have much love and joy to share with everyone in the world.”


-Quotes of Tibetan Dzogchen teacher, Anam Thubten: