The Legs of the Table
Las patas de la mesa
A question about what can be done with uncomfortable sensations, leading to an examination of the false self and its core attributes.
The Legs of the Table
A question about what can be done with uncomfortable sensations, leading to an examination of the false self and its core attributes.
But there's something you can do about it again.
By believing, for example, as I just read in your message, that there are uncomfortable sensations in the chest, the thought arises: "I don't want this." That's a thought. And there could be an emotional experience, which I also describe as mind activity, because emotions are imagined sensation.
Then there could be a belief that the "I" who doesn't want that is real, and that by believing "I don't want that," I'm going to get somewhere.
Or that there is a path to not having it. That there is a path somewhere where it doesn't exist.
There is time, there is agency, and something moving in time that has control. These are the attributes of this false self, the legs of the table.
The core attributes of the false self
It's not a definite, fixed list, but there are several that are core. One of them is a separate, independent agency: that choosing and power originate in "me," with "me" being separate from her, from you, from everyone else. That "I" is separate, and the choices and power of agency are born within that "I," which is separate from others.
So I have to define this false "I." It is located here, where this body is, not over there. And it is moving through time.