I've been applying Buddhist teachings to my life for the past 6+ years now. I don't meditate often, but I've noticed some extreme and what seem permanent changes in my mindset after constantly challenging and embracing Buddhist concepts. One of the traits my mind currently has, is not seeing people as fixed beings, but rather just playing out factors. I don't believe in good/evil anymore, and think anyone, no matter the disgusting or terrible things they do, deserve empathy. The drawback right now, is that it feels hard to connect to people, because I feel like I'm not on their level in a way... not in an egoistical way, but it just feels like I have a different approach to everything, at the fundamental level. It feels like I'm not real, they are not real, but they have not realised that, so I'm just watching their actions play-out whilst observing both my reactions and theirs, which I know are the result of conditions, and therefore have no real essence? It's really hard to put into words, but my question is basically: How do I reconnect with people at a human level. Is it possible at this level of understanding? Am I being deluded and potentially taking the practices too far?

First, I'm new to this forum so I don't know how to title my post or even write content. Sorry if I confuse you. Also, I'm a Vietnamese person living in Vietnam, male 27. I'm currently living in a hired room in Ho Chi Minh City and my parents are living in my hometown that's 3 hours away. I really need help or suggestions. I'll tell you about my journey but it is very long. My journey will include both psychological and spiritual problems. I'll divide it into different parts. ***Disclaimer: I think my journey is pretty hard-core in terms of existential philosophies and I'm pretty ruined at this point. If you're sensitive to such topics, please consider skipping this post.*** -------- **Part 1: DPDR-like symptoms** Around the end of 2021, I started experiencing symptoms similar to DPDR. Everything felt dreamlike or like a video game. My parents and familiar people seemed like strangers, and I often went into autopilot mode, as if watching myself from the outside. Despite feeling weird all the time, I convinced myself I was just sick and tried to live normally - having good times, bad times, and even crushes to keep myself engaged in life. In July 2023, I saw a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. I also went to see a therapist but that didn’t help. No one seemed to recognize my symptoms, which may not be common in Vietnam. Eventually, at the end of 2023, I decided to tackle my symptoms rationally, which led me to existential questions. **Part 2: Existential crisis** I started questioning everything: Why am I here? What is this world? I struggled with solipsism, the idea that only my mind is certain to exist. I also resented being born without consent and found it absurd that people live without questioning their existence. I explored existentialism and absurdism, but the crisis was more than just thoughts - it was an overwhelming, unsettling feeling. I grew up in a culturally influenced Mahayana Buddhist environment, visiting pagodas and praying for salvation. Seeking answers in Buddhism, I found its doctrines contradictory and eventually gave up. **Part 3: A new approach to Buddhism** I kept living, but new questions emerged: Why do I prefer one thing over another? Why do I think certain thoughts? This led me to the Buddhist concept of non-self—the idea that we don’t have a fixed, controlling self; rather, our thoughts and decisions arise from interdependent conditions. I came to see humans as ever-changing combinations of matter and energy. The autopilot mode I felt before is indeed how I function - thoughts and actions in me arise interdependently on the current environment and internal information like memories. Realizing this brought me a deep sense of relief. My existential questions are no longer valid because existential questions usually evolve around the sense of self. For almost a year, I felt liberated and enthusiastically explored Buddhism. However, I struggled with how to perceive my parents. Understanding non-self dismantled their identities as my parents. Every interaction felt like I was just acting the role of a good son. Conventional and ultimate truths seemed irreconcilable. Love, relationships, and social constructs felt meaningless. I ultimately decided to care for my parents - not out of love for parents, but compassion for special people. **Part 4: Denial of existence** On New Year’s Day, I attended a 10-day Vipassana retreat led by Mr. Goenka, which involved complete silence. The meditation was difficult, but the discourses troubled me more - especially those about reincarnation. From my research and the book No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life by Thich Nhat Hanh, I thought that we would dissolve into different dimensions and reincarnation would not only happen after death, it's happening right now. However, he said that consciousness right before you die will decide how you will be reborn. At the retreat, I was still struggling with reconciling the two truths. One night, I broke down thinking about my mother - born into poverty, the only motivation of her life is me and my brother. I couldn't reduce her to mere energy and matter. She was through a lot not to be treated like that from her son - even though she's fine and having a decent life right now with my dad and us. She - just like a lot of other people - wouldn't feel so bad about herself, only I feel that way. By the third night, I began losing my sense of external reality. The lack of social interaction and strict schedule made me forget what the world outside looked like, especially at night. So that problem triggered thoughts in me: I thought about my mom, I thought about how I couldn't reconcile the two truths, and I had fears of my dying grandfather - mostly how haunting the scene of a funeral will look like and especially the haunting imagery of human decay. When you feel love for somebody, it hurts to see them die. I didn't see him as a self, the love died and the fear arose. I remember crying in the 3rd night really hard thinking I would return home with my parents, living with them as if they a fixed selves, diminishing the value of the ultimate truth, and apologizing to them for being a sick child with all the mentioned fears and vulnerabilities. I was feeling so haunted at night that I asked to leave on the 4th day. The teacher - not Mr. Goenka ofc - insisted on me staying for the Vipassana session (because the first three days were introduction, if you know). I stayed but couldn’t make it and left on the 6th day. **Part 5: Returning home** Back to my room, I was still haunted by all the old thoughts and even existential thoughts somehow: how do I view this life, non-self or self - because I still can't reconcile them, life is weird, everything is weird, mom still doesn't feel like mom but she is mom. Nights were the worst - daytime distractions kept thoughts at bay, but at night, everything resurfaced. During that time, life felt like a dream, nothing was clear, the world is real but it's not real at the same time, so are people and all their material and non-material products. Two weeks later, the Lunar New Year came, and I had to go back to my hometown for more than 1 week with my family and my dying grandfather. I was so confused that most of my mind was filled with haunting thoughts and fears. Two days before New Year's Eve, my grandfather died. Surprisingly, his death didn’t haunt me as much as I expected - his body was hidden in a closed coffin. But also, to my surprise, I was having a sense of self so strongly that I started to have existential questions. A lot of times, I woke up in confusion and a strong sense of overwhelming frustration: why I was born just to die, why everyone was born just to die, and how everyone doesn't ask these questions and just live on. Why was I born and now I'm forced to live a life of suffering - or dukkha? Why was I born and now I'm forced to do this, to take care of my grandparents or my parents when they're old, to make a funeral for them? It's even worse when I think of non-self: I'm not me but I can't resist this strong feeling of frustration and suppression, and how everyone doesn't see that they're non-self and just live like they have a self. Life started to feel so strange, so absurd, everything felt weird. **Part 6: Trying to move on** Returning to Ho Chi Minh City, I struggled to function. I tried going out for spaces and to see how life goes on. Some days I woke up feeling absurd about life, and some days I just rushed to work because I couldn't sleep the previous night. The scariest moment wasn’t falling asleep - it was waking up, not knowing what feelings I’d wake up to. Life still feels vague and nightmare-like. Especially, sometimes when I caught myself wanting to do something, even when it was just dinner, I was like: that's not me, I don't actively want to eat, so why would I eat? Even when I caught myself in autopilot mode, instead of understanding it like when I just discovered non-self, now I hated it, like I wanted full control over what I do. Even when I said something, I felt like what I spoke just slipped out of my mouth without my permission. From observing my mind, I started to have moments of denying everything that arose in my mind. Maybe because I feared that just observing phenomena in me, I wouldn't take life seriously and would hurt people: like when I say something to follow Right Speech, who speaks now that we know about non-self, or do we just observe any words slip out of mouth as well? It all felt really frustrating because nothing seemed to solve the absurdity of my existence and this whole universe. I was even looking for answers if non-self implied determinism. Like I was looking for an answer that when I knew it, everything would just be logical and no-one really suffers. **Part 7: Slowing reconnecting with life** Just yesterday, I had a very strong moment of frustration when I just woke up from a short nap, like "Why do I wake up again, in this life, in this body, especially with all these questions and crisis"? Right at that moment, I started to get myself together, thinking I'd fight all the fears of meditation I'd had since the Vipassana course and sit down to face my thoughts. After a short while, I realized that even if life is deterministic and the feeling of control I'm having is an illusion, life still goes on. I’d have to start to live despite them all. I started to slowly pick myself up, cleaning my room that had been left messy since these thoughts got intense, taking a good bath, and listening to a famous Vietnamese monk’s discourse as I found his voice was really calming and his speeches were advocating living life to the fullest. I didn’t always agree with everything he said, but he was a big help. Life was still feeling really vague, but now dream-like, not nightmare-like. I told myself I'm here anyway so the best thing to do now is to live, I should not care so much about the vagueness of the world and live with love and compassion, and I should take advantage of my feet, my hands, my eyes and my consciousness to enjoy life and love people. I also found that the deliberation of non-self to emptiness and the two truths is just interpretations of Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddha actually wanted us to focus how to live and even discouraged useless discussion on the concepts. I also learn a Mahayana interpretation of emptiness that helped reconcile the two truths: Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Both truths are one and because I tried to eliminate the conventional truth, I was stuck. Slowing myself down really helped slow the racing thoughts I've had for a long time. **Part 7: Today’s feelings** This morning I woke up to the feeling of absurdity again, but I soon got myself together, started listening to the monk again, and went back to my hometown. I told myself that I shouldn't hope to view my parents properly, that I may still feel confused but I should fight that and live with love. Just like I thought, the moment I saw them, I had a feeling like "Who is this? Who is this combo of energies and matter? Why do I have to take care of them? I don't feel the connection between us". They still feel very vague and strange to me. I really don't know how to describe it to you, but it still feels like a dream. Maybe I know about non-self so I keep breaking them down till nothing is meaningful anymore. And the worst part is, I feel like the denial of existence is still strong in me: both mine and others'. I occasionally see my thoughts and think: this is not me, it's weird that I have them and I shouldn't be enslaved to them, I see me speaking and think: this is not me speaking. I keep doing that until nothing is left, but the sense of self is still so strong that I have a feeling of conflict in me. Or sometimes, I don’t deny, I freak out. I understand that my reactions are caused by a lot of past actions and my own nature: the human memories, the human senses, the human brain, and all the human conditional and genetic reactions. And I freak out because I am a human. And with other people or the world, I keep being confused about how my understanding of non-self breaks them down into emptiness of self while they’re still interacting with me. It's like sometimes I when I want to have a drink, I realize my body just automatically moves to the exact place of the water. When I just had DPDR, I just thought that I was sick and in autopilot mode. After knowing non-self, I know it's because of a lot of things in me that create the movement. However, it freaks me out. Or when I'm talking with my mom, my mouth just automatically replies with relevant things. I used to think it's just DPDR, but now I think it's because I'm non-self. However, the fact that I'm not in control of my words freaks me out because if I just let the words slip out of my mouth without control, life both feels really weird and vague and I don't know what this body will do anymore. -------- I understand that everything arises dependently, even the way I act, even the language I speak. But it still feels a lot like I don't know what life is. Life still feels very vague and I still find myself questioning a lot of things in life - or actually everything in life, like why I am here as a human, who are these people that I subliminally call parents, why a practice of culture is created and if it's just created out of ignorance. I can tell myself to just accept that they are there, but it still feels like I'm method-acting in life, especially to my parents, who it feels wrong to method-act to. Every time I live life vaguely, it feels like I might hurt myself and people by not being present. But every time I try to connect with life, the lack of control freaks me out. If you reach here, I’m really grateful that you spent time. I’m in deep confusion and hope to find help. Thank you so much.

I believe that a soul exists due to my religious background, and my religious scriptures say that those who shall not have faith(in existence of soul and few other things) will face extreme sadness in the afterlife. I have many sufferings in life, including emotional, physical, etc., and I have been facing this by constantly telling myself that I will enjoy the afterlife, but now I am doubtful of any kind of afterlife at all. So, I decided to follow the teachings of Buddha, as they do not require faith in something that is not knowable to stop suffering. I do not want to convert to Buddhism, as I am a little sure but doubtful about what my scripture says about the afterlife is somewhat true, and it will create a problem in my family. ***Main question: If one believes in atman/self and also believes that the teaching of Buddha will end suffering (except for the teaching of no self). Will Buddhist teachings to end suffering be good for this type of person? Are there sets of Buddhist practices to end suffering that I can follow even after believing in a soul/self, or do I require to abandon my belief in the existence of a soul? Also, what are the Buddhist practices to end suffering in which one cannot do till he does not believe in the absence of self?*** Request :Answer in simple terms as I have very basic knowledge about Buddhism and please avoid commenting on my faith.

> "What do you think, Anuradha: Do you regard form as the Tathagata?" > > "No, lord." > > "Do you regard feeling as the Tathagata?" > > "No, lord." > > "Do you regard perception as the Tathagata?" > > "No, lord." > > "Do you regard fabrications as the Tathagata?" > > "No, lord." > > "Do you regard consciousness as the Tathagata?" > > "No, lord." > > "What do you think, Anuradha: Do you regard the Tathagata as being in form?... Elsewhere than form?... In feeling?... Elsewhere than > feeling?... In perception?... Elsewhere than perception?... In > fabrications?... Elsewhere than fabrications?... In consciousness?... > Elsewhere than consciousness?" > > "No, lord." > > "What do you think: Do you regard the Tathagata as form-feeling-perception-fabrications-consciousness?" > > "No, lord." > > "Do you regard the Tathagata as that which is without form, without feeling, without perception, without fabrications, without > consciousness?" > > "No, lord." > > "And so, Anuradha — when you can't pin down the Tathagata as a truth or reality even in the present life — is it proper for you to > declare, 'Friends, the Tathagata — the supreme man, the superlative > man, attainer of the superlative attainment — being described, is > described otherwise than with these four positions: The Tathagata > exists after death, does not exist after death, both does & does not > exist after death, neither exists nor does not exist after death'?" > > "No, lord." > > "Very good, Anuradha. Very good. Both formerly & now, it is only suffering that I describe, and the cessation of suffering." Based on the above, who is it that is really suffering? And who is I?

the unborn , is described by Buddha: > The born, become, produced, made, fabricated, impermanent, fabricated > of aging & death, a nest of illnesses, perishing, come-into-being > through nourishment and the guide [that is craving] — is unfit for > delight. **The escape from that is calm, permanent, a sphere beyond > conjecture, unborn, unproduced, the sorrowless, stainless state, the > cessation of stressful qualities, stilling-of-fabrications bliss.** Doesn't this describe nirvna? Can the description infer us to a true-self (*atta*), not-self (*anatta*), or anything else other than what is listed? Can you infer emptiness? As I was saying to other, losing with a self is so bad, I couldn't justify calling this so-called unborn a self, and it wouldn't be me or mine unfortunately. Regardless, this text says permanent, and what is the harm in selfing this permanence? What is the harm? What was permanent is no longer mine? It doesn't say 'end of defilements', 'end of existence', but perhaps you can infer that. How do you infer it?

Specifically, I mean this meaning of locus-of-control The way I see it, if one doesn't have a strong internal locus of control, it becomes very hard to go through daily life, since you keep considering the outcomes of your actions to be driven by external forces outside of your control. On the other hand, it makes sense to me that the self is an illusion (anatta), that it is in constant flux, and impermanent. From this logic, it seems like an internal locus of control also means buying into an illusion. How does one not have a strong internal locus of control, and still deal with the myriad challenges in daily life?

According to Theravadic Buddhism there’s no self. Self is an emergent illusion of a collection of smaller entities ( citta, chaithasika etc), in the same way, the physical body is an emergent result of the 5 elements (āpo, thejo etc.). This is also somewhat coherent with modern scientific understanding, which explains mind/self is an emergent result of chemical reactions in the brain. Modern science is also on the path which states there is no free will, but rather responces and interactions to stimuli in a complex system. My main question here is, if there is no self in Buddhism, what is the meaning of the concept of taking the right-effort (viriya) to attain nirvana, as there’s no actual actor to exert an effort? Conscious action itself is an illusion and there was no control for an alleged self in the first place. There never was an actor, and there never were conscious actions. Everything was an emergent illusion. So why talk about exerting an effort to reach Nirvana?

It can be understood that the self is not some real permanent thing, but I wish to know whether we can find a real *temporary* self? We can define a temporary self, which lasts for some small duration, and at a certain location. For example, we can identify this temporary self with the mind which is controlling the ideas I am presenting here as a question. Is this definition of a temporary self in some sense real?

This is very similar to https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/22696/did-siddhartha-gautama-achieve-nirvana It is also kinda separate/different, and since I have not "realised all phenomena are non-self" I might ask my own question, especially as I am more interested in Mahayana Buddhism, just not what 'nothing to attain' means. Is our historical Tripitaka Buddha also Siddhartha Gautama, the prince who left home? Clearly they are not identical, because the latter has undergone complete and perfect enlightenment (so not the same question as the above). But are they in any sense the same? Follow up questions like whether the Jataka stories are about Shakyamuni Buddha, whether the dharmakaya is Shakyamuni Buddha, would also be appreciated.

I am trying my best to digest the concept of the non-self but each time it hits a fundumental question, that i can't stop thinking of. If the self is an illusion, what is the point of self awerness meaning self respect, self esteem... is it important to have them in this context.

In a previous question I asked whether the Theravada posits the selflessness of phenomena? Where the best answer I understood to essentially state that it does not. At least, it did sound like there was an important difference between the selflessness of persons and the selflessness of phenomena. That is, Theravada regards the self of persons as not truly existent while the self of phenomena may or may not be. Further, the latter is not deemed an important question. This is not in agreement with the Mahayana madhyamaka schools AFAIK who I think near uniformly disagree. > In my opinion, the Theravada view according to the Pali suttas imply > that: > > 1. The self (of persons) is not truly existent. > > 2. Whether non-self phenomena are truly existent from its own side or > not, is (probably) not important towards the path to the end of > suffering. (See the Parable of the Poisoned Arrow, Parable of the > Simsapa Leaves and the Discourse on the Unconjecturables) However, in a comment to this recent answer it was asserted by the same that 'papanca' of objects is essentially equivalent to what the Mahayana schools call the selflessness of persons. I'm confused as this seems to be in tension with the previous. What is the solution or is it just my misunderstanding? Is there any crucial difference between the emptiness of persons and emptiness of objects where the former is to be regarded as definitely non-truly existent while the latter question is not important? Is there some Pali suttas which will illustrate this difference in emptiness between the two selves? Is the 'papanca' of the self of persons different from the 'papanca' of the self of phenomena? What am I missing? Isn't it the case that SN 22.95 is talking about this 'papanca' of phenomena? Doesn't it compare it to an illusion? If so, then on what basis is it concluded that whether phenomena are truly existent is immaterial in Theravada?

After quite some time of daily meditation, I feel less like having a real separate, permanent self (specific details see below, but it's a general question), which, in my opinion, could be regarded as a step on the path to enlightenment. However, it also matches the criteria of a depersonalization disorder as defined by psychiatry more or less. I wonder whether that's an issue and how to approach it. As a distinguishing feature, one could think that it feels good and liberating in the case of enlightenment, but negatively speaking a source of suffering in the case of a disorder. As a non-enlightened being I don't always feel good, so it's not that clear, and I think there can be more serious doubt in moments or phases when one feels bad (e.g. due to unpleasant nyams in meditation). The feature of social functioning also doesn't seem clear to me, since one could argue, for example, that seeking solitude/retreat for meditation is a socially impaired behaviour, especially when I talk to people who are not familiar with Buddhism. I suppose talking about feelings of no-self sounds rather crazy – which isn't a problem in itself, but it might impair my ability to have a positive influence on their lives or in charitable organizations. So I wonder: - How would you distinguish between the (partial) feeling of non-self as a step towards enlightenment and a depersonalization disorder (or a similar mental disorder)? - (How, in which cases) would you speak openly about non-self-experiences with others? Some details about my personal experience if relevant: Instead of a permanent self, it feels more as if mental events rise and pass without being mine or controlled by "me“. I feel less like having permanent character traits. I don't feel very connected to my past or possible future - "my“ body feels like an arbitrary vessel of consciousness. In deep meditation I feel like an abstract, spacious awareness (which is peaceful, vivid and benevolent). While I'm not completely free of mental afflictions, I think attachment, desire, aversion, fear, and so on, are significantly weaker than before I started meditation and then in many other people (up to a point that others don't understand some of my behaviour). Meditation method: shamatha awareness of awareness according to Alan Wallace.

No one can deny that a rainbow is as real as the term can be defined in any meaningful way. You can point to it so that others can see it and you can even photograph it. If a rainbow was a mind created phenomenon, then a camera, which has no mind or consciousness, would not be able to photograph it. Yet, if you got into a helicopter and traveled into the rainbow, all you would find would be atmosphere, moisture and sunlight, i.e. the elements of the rainbow. You would no longer perceive the rainbow itself. Yet, someone further away would see both the rainbow and the helicopter you were in, so even though you no longer perceived the rainbow because of your proximity at such close scale it would not mean that the rainbow ceased to exist or that it was never existent in the first place. Similarly, a meditator might perceive a dissolution of the self into its constituent elements and thus conclude that the self does not truly exist, yet it wouldn't mean that it actually did not exist, only that the meditator's awareness of it had ceased. As a comparison, if one is asleep and dreaming, one loses awareness of the body and the external world, yet both still exist for others, one of whom could wake up a sleeping person and return them to the world and body they had become unaware of. Thus, only awareness would have ceased, not the objects of awareness. Is the affirmation of a self somehow analogical to the affirmation of a rainbow ,is it just as real and not-real in that sense?

In one sutta a monk was teaching, that there's something that is behind our existence, that is permanent (opposite of non-self). Buddha asked for this explicitely, got confirmed, and corrected the view. Which sutta it is?