"There is no such thing as 'self'. Eastern Philosophy as Liberal Arts" | Talking about my current life as an AC x HSP
It's Yamane😊
I've been taking a break from note for a while.
The reason is that my father passed away, I had to support my mother who became lonely, I ended up being hospitalized for nearly a week for some reason, and after being discharged, I had to clean up my parents' house which was on the verge of becoming a hoarder's house, so I was completely exhausted from spending my days doing so much.
And that's when I came across Shinmei P's book, "There is no such thing as 'self'. Eastern Philosophy as Liberal Arts" (Sanctuary Publishing).
It seems this book was published after an article the author originally posted on note, titled "After reading 50 books on Eastern philosophy, I stopped caring about my 'true self'," became a hot topic.
To think it all started with note makes me feel a sense of familiarity!
Wandering around a bookstore while exhausted
When I think, "Ah, I can't take it anymore," for some reason I often find myself wandering around a bookstore.
I suppose somewhere in my heart, I'm hoping that the answer might be somewhere among the countless books.
Well, usually I don't find the answer.
But, very rarely, I have had the experience of being saved by a book I picked up there, and I have been blessed with miraculous encounters.
This might be one of those times.
Picking up "There is no such thing as 'self'," made me laugh a little and feel relieved, and I felt like I could see a path to making my own feelings easier from now on.
This analogy was incredibly easy to understand!
It made me realize what "emptiness" really means,
and I was moved to find out the reason why a classroom on graduation day looks so sparkling.
The following is a quote.
"The fiction called 'school' disappears," and "this feeling when people and things are all liberated from meaning and become nothing. (omitted) It's a refreshing, sparkling, and transparent feeling."
It has "Liberal Arts" in the subtitle, but it's practical. And, it's funny.
Since the book's subtitle is "Eastern Philosophy as Liberal Arts," I thought it would be a book that would make me smarter by acquiring knowledge, but it was completely different lol.
My impression is that it's a "funny essay + practical guide."
As it is written in the book that "not making 'knowledge' the goal!" is the trick to utilizing Eastern philosophy, the content teaches the essence of Eastern philosophy not as knowledge to be accumulated as liberal arts, but as a way of thinking to actually make your current heart feel at ease.
So, honestly, you might not gain much in the way of liberal arts, but it is very practical. Through the author's humor-filled personal experiences, you can find ways to utilize the teachings of Eastern philosophy to make yourself feel more at ease.
I feel a kind of "enlightenment" in the author's perspective, who can talk about his own experiences in such an amusing way
In this book, the author's experiences—from repeated setbacks and escapism to being cornered and finally unable to get out of bed at his parents' house—are told alongside introductions to Eastern philosophy.
Episodes like becoming unemployed or getting divorced, I think there must have been a lot of painful things in reality.
However, it is not portrayed as tragic at all, and it is funny throughout.
And, I remembered these words.
"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."
(Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.)
As Chaplin says, when you look at your own experiences while in the middle of them, they feel like a tragedy, but if you step back and look from a distance, you can laugh at them.
In this way, I thought that the author, Shinmei P, is able to talk about his experiences with such humor because he is able to look at himself very objectively.
I felt that this is exactly the Buddhist approach of trying to observe oneself from the outside through meditation.
You can see that the author has truly internalized the teachings of Eastern philosophy (though perhaps he was that way to begin with...).
That is why this book allows you to learn not just from the content of the text, but from the writing style itself, which reflects Shinmei P's personality and way of life.
🪷 "The Lotus in the Mud" or the fiction of me
Now, as an AC x HSP, I am currently suffering through various things, and I would like to write in closing about how reading this book has brought me some relief.
First of all, lately, I have been completely beaten down by various things.
And, honestly, I was disappointed that despite thinking I had grown significantly by overcoming various experiences, I ended up being beaten down again, thinking, "I guess I hadn't really changed that much after all."
Also, when I cleaned out my parents' house, which had become close to a hoarder's home, I re-realized that I had grown up in such a dump, and I was reminded of the unpleasant feeling that I might be a dirty existence myself.
But, like Shinmei P, when I look at myself from a little further away, I started to think of myself like a lotus that grew precisely because of that mud-like dump (is that over-romanticizing it? Haha).
And I thought that now might be a chance to shed the fiction of the "grown-up me" even further and take another step closer to the state of "there is no such thing as a 'self.'"
And so, if I can peel away the fiction of myself one by one like an onion and reach "non-self," I thought that perhaps one day I will be able to wrap all the suffering as an AC inherited through generations and the difficulties of living as an HSP in love.
"Every day is a good day." It was a reading experience that made me think that even on days when I am so miserable I can't do anything, if I accept it as it is, it might just be a good day after all!
