[Buddha-l] What is direct experience?

[Stefan Detrez]

2010/12/2 lemmett at talk21.com <lemmett at talk21.com>

> > Suppose we couple this ontological awareness to what
> > Collins in his
> > aforementioned book would call 'a taboo on the self.'
> > Can direct knowledge
> > then be called knowledge attained through  'deselved'
> > perception?
> >
> > Stefan
>
> Well for what it's worth I don't know. I can understand that might not be
> helpful to cherish or hate the I, or to selfishly desire things.
>
> And thinking things through in terms of some Brahmanical self that does not
> exist looks like it could be damaging in the same way as any myth but if
> there is a conventional self why would concepts that take that into account
> be incorrigible? I would expect a taboo on the self to lead to e.g.
> confusion by way of not trusting our own experiences before the (potentially
> less sincere) reports of others. Or inversely to miss the relative authority
> of someone else's advice. These examples would be less relevant in non
> rational endeavor, like karate.
>
> I would be interested in any reply.
>
>
>  What you call a conventional self is what I call a working self. I have no
problem with the idea that I have a self image, however volatile it is and
prone to change, even if I believe it to have an albeit fictional core, it
serves me fine that this 'Self' of mine is a cherished abode for me. Change
is immanent, but as an impermanent essence - a 'dhamma' in one of its
meanings - it gives meaning to my life and is not causing me suffering
because it is attached to things, it causes suffering because I am supposed
to disregard it as something valuable, like 'I'm supposed not to feel bad,
because it's just my Me and my I is not worth it.' What life experience can
one gain if suffering is regarded as illusory and a sign of weakness? The
taboo on the self as a rhetorical device is for me a deal breaker in
Buddhism, but I understand that as an instrument to inner quiet is serves
well. If we consider the Self as a consistent and integrated whole of tested
perceptions and presumptions (a paradigm of selfperceived wisdom), than I
see nothing wrong in it and laying a taboo on such a self resembles an
obsessive denial of trusting one's own life experiences as embodied in a
personality.

Stefan