The Buddha Project Reply To: The self-sufficient substantially existent self
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When I explore this topic, I always end up wishing that language wasn’t so limited, especially regarding what the verbs “to be” and “to have” do to the psychology of humans. The subject / verb / object structure of our language actually causes me to feel like I am lying in a certain sense, because it doesn’t reflect the truth of impermanence. It solidifies and “freezes” my conceptuality, and I find this to be a huge obstacle in having any sort of realizations of impermanence and emptiness. It also generates feelings of wanting to go into a deep retreat, or to give up speaking and writing all together because I’d like to know things, including myself, as verbs, not nouns. But even that wouldn’t be the ultimate fix, because my thoughts are still in the format of the language with which I was raised. I agree with Ven. Gendun- it is deeply confusing. I feel like I need lifetimes of meditation in order to change my mind about this. Being free of this constraint would feel like the ultimate freedom and an ultimate truth. If I could just realize it and then show others how to realize it! Imagine!