Inquire towards the teachings of selflessness

Many minds find that the teachings about selflessness is unreachable for them to reflect upon. That is because there is an 'I' being there trying to prove that this 'I' doesn't exist, as well as trying to look for an non-existing 'I' to make it disappear.

Most minds would interpret selflessness as being unselfish, where there is an individual being identifying itself as "I practice selflessness. I am selfless, or I am unselfish."

Minds that haven't realize selflessness would think that selflessness is a form of practice, where they think and believe that everyone should practice selflessness, or be unselfish.

Selflessness is not a practice. It's what all and everything are.

There's no 'I' existing to be identifying as "I am selfless" or "I am unselfish."

One either realizes or doesn't realize selflessness. One doesn't practice or not practice selflessness.

One doesn't practice selflessness and becoming selfless. One just realizes the essence of selflessness in all and everything. Similarly, one doesn't practice compassion and becoming compassionate. One just realizes the essence of compassion in all and everything.

When the mind performs the practice of eliminating the ego, there's not any individual being of 'I' that exists that needs to be eliminated. It's the delusive idea of 'I' or the ego, the assertive function of the thinking mind that identifying as an individual being, deriving from and empowered by ignorance and egoism, that needs to be eliminated from the thinking mind, that allows the mind to see or realize the truth of itself and all and everything that it perceives, which is selflessness.

The perceptive assertive intellectual thinking mind is the one that is performing the yoga practice.

It's not "I am performing the yoga practice," or "I am eliminating myself," or "I realize that I don't exist."

It's the selfless impermanent function of the thinking perceptive mind that is purifying and removing the veil of ignorance and impurities and corrupted thinking, eliminating the ego and egoism, freeing the modification of the mind from the delusive idea of "I am an individual being existing, perceiving this and that, performing action and enjoying the fruit of action, being peaceful or disturbed, who enjoys or suffers."

The function of the mind is the one that perceives all kinds of names and forms through the senses and experiences this restless worldly life existence that is subject to impermanence and selflessness.

The mind that is functioning under the influence of ignorance and egoism, where there's an assertive discriminative ego and impure intellect, is the one that perceives, analyzes, judges, discriminates and experiences 'pleasantness and unpleasantness', 'happiness and unhappiness', 'enjoyment and suffering', of all kinds of duality, that perceives all sorts of feelings and emotions, that constantly acts and reacts, that has attachment, identification, desire of craving and aversion, judgment, comparison and expectation, that inspires and aspires, that perceives disturb, dissatisfaction, disappointment, discontentment, greed, lust, hurt, anger, hatred, offensiveness, pride, shame, guilt, regret, fear and worry.

The ignorant impure perceptive assertive egoistic and intellectual thinking mind is the one who likes and dislikes, agrees and disagrees, wants and doesn't want.

The ignorant impure perceptive assertive egoistic and intellectual thinking mind is the one that thinks and doesn't think, that knows and doesn't know, that believes and disbelieves, that acts and doesn't act, that enjoys and suffers.

The function of the mind is the one that is awake and asleep, that is dreaming and in deep sleep.

The ignorant impure perceptive assertive egoistic and intellectual thinking mind is the one that feels good and bad, that feels positive and negative, that feels meaningful and meaningless, that feels loved and unloved, that feels calmed and disturbed.

The ignorant impure perceptive assertive egoistic and intellectual thinking mind is the one that practices or doesn't practice certain social/cultural/religious/spiritual thinking, belief, values and practice.

The ignorant impure perceptive assertive egoistic and intellectual thinking mind is the one that perceives and experiences suffering of disturb, hurt, disappointment, painful sorrow, grief, unhappiness, loneliness, meaninglessness and restlessness. The function of the mind without ignorance, egoism, impurities, and the assertive ego and the discriminative intellect under the veil of ignorance and egoism, doesn't perceive suffering.

The suffering disturbed restless mind is the one that has intense yearning for liberation to be liberated from all these ignorance, egoism, restlessness, impurities and suffering.

The mind is the one that is disciplining, purifying and quieting the modification of the mind.

The mind is the one that is inquiring towards the truth of names and forms, especially towards the truth of itself, to know Thyself.

There's no 'I' being existing to negate a non-existing 'I', which doesn't make any sense to the mind. It's like how can we make something that isn't existing to disappear, because it doesn't exist in the first place.

But, it's possible to inquire and realize selflessness once the mind drops off the idea of 'I' that attached and identified and associated with the modification of the mind, which then allows the thinking mind to stand as a third party witness or observer to witness or observe the modification of the mind or all the thoughts activities in the mind.

Then the mind will start to be able to learn, study, and analyze what is going on in the mind under the purified intellect, being free from egoistic likes and dislikes, agreements and disagreements under the influence of any particular worldly social/cultural/religious/spiritual thinking, belief, values and practice to judge anything, to know Thyself, as it is, and realizing the truth of all and everything, as they are, which is selflessness, or 'I'lessness, or egolessness, where there isn't an individual being of 'I' existing in all kinds of names and forms, in all living and non-living objects, including the function and modification of the mind.

Upon seeing the truth of impermanence and selflessness within the modification of the mind, as well as in all the names and forms that the mind perceives through the senses, of all kinds of pleasant and unpleasant, agreeable and disagreeable, desirable and undesirable life experiences, the mind is no longer being determined or disturbed by the modification of the mind, or what it used to think is what it is, or itself, or 'I'. The mind is at peace, unconditionally.

Upon the complete annihilation of the thought current or the modification of the mind, or the annihilation of the thinking mind, there's only Silence, or Samadhi, the original state of selfless birthless deathless timeless consciousness. It's not even "My original self of who I really am." but it's merely the selfless essence of all and everything beyond all the names and forms. It is undetermined, undisturbed, uninfluenced, unchanged and uncontaminated by all the impermanent manifestation of dualities, qualities, names and forms, good and evil, enjoyment and suffering, born out of Maya.

As long as there's traces of ignorant egoistic desire of craving, grasping, clinging and longing, the selfless consciousness keeps reflecting the loop of ceaseless births and deaths manifesting in various impermanent and selfless thought currents, forms and identities, that gives rise to the suffering of restlessness in the mind under the veil of ignorance, where all kinds of names and forms of living or non-living objects exist, change and cease existing under the law of nature, cause and effect, even if the selfless consciousness is uncontaminated and unaffected by all these selfless impermanent modification of the mind.

If there's an identification of 'I', or an idea of 'I', or 'the ego' in the thinking mind identifying as an individual being, existing and identifying with the function or the modification of the mind perceiving all kinds of pleasant and unpleasant experiences of desirable and undesirable names and forms through the senses, attaching onto the mortal physical body, the impermanent life existence of this physical body, all the relationships with all and everything, all kinds of worldly possessions, and all kinds of social/cultural/religious/spiritual thinking, belief, values and practice that born out of ignorance and egoism, then it's impossible for this mind to perform self-inquiry to inquire towards the truth of the mind and everything.

The delusive existence of the identity of 'an individual being' in the thinking mind, is due to ignorance.

The delusive existence of an individual being of 'I' in the mind is nothing but a false identity made out of attachment and identification towards the collection of memory deriving from the function of memory remembering bits of the continuous stream of the ceaseless thoughts current (the modification of the mind.)

The mind purification process to remove impurities, the practice of self-restriction or self-control, the quiet/calm state of the mind, and the elimination of egoism of passion, attachment, identification, desire of craving and aversion, judgment and expectation, is the prerequisite that allows self-inquiry to proceed.

Replacing the 'I' with 'The thinking faculty', or 'The thinking mind'.

It's not "I am inquiring towards the teachings of the truth of selflessness, where 'I' doesn't exist," because the mind will be stuck with "Who is this 'I' that is existing here inquiring about something? How can I say I don't exist?"

It's just 'The selfless thinking faculty of the mind' (the selfless projector and the projector screen itself) selflessly reflecting 'The impermanent restless modification of the mind' (the projected impermanent names and forms), and both 'The selfless thinking faculty of the mind' and 'The impermanent restless modification of the mind' are just part of the impermanent manifestation of 'The ignorant impure perceptive assertive egoistic and intellectual thinking mind' that is powered and influenced by the energy field, and all are impermanent and selfless. There's no 'I' in all these impermanent and selfless names and forms.

Inquire the truth of everything, and be free.

The minds that hold on strongly onto their existing thinking and belief, may find that this teaching is 'disagreeable' and 'wrong', as it contradicts with the thinking and belief in their minds, that is their freedom of thinking, belief, reaction and judgment.

The minds that are confused, but are aware of ignorance in the mind, and are interested in self-inquiry, can take a look at these blog posts, and see if it can provide some reflection for the mind to reflect upon -

https://mengfoonglai.blogspot.com/2020/12/be-open-to-inquire-truth-of-worldly.html

https://mengfoonglai.blogspot.com/2020/07/self-inquiry-try-contemplate-upon-what.html 

https://mengfoonglai.blogspot.com/2019/05/selflessness.html

https://mengfoonglai.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-function-of-memory-and-existence-of.html