Why is it important to practice seeing the absence of self?
We can look and look for self, but we can not find it. "Self" is nothing but a temporary coming together of bits and pieces, nothing but a label for an entity that cannot be pointed at, let alone grasped. It appears, but it has no substance. Thoughts arise, but there is no thinker.
Yet, we spend our lives grasping at just this illusion. We think of our "self" as separate from others, and somehow very, very important. We feel we need to defend ourselves, prove ourselves, find ourselves, be ourselves. This puts us in a position where enormous amounts of energy are wasted on all our various desires and aversions, just trying to satisfy something that can not only not be satisfied, but does not even exist as such. Imagine the possibilities for increasing positive actions, if we sustained this recognition!
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