Who is reading this book if there is no "self"?
Your "self" is the source of judgments about the world. So, what does your "self" think of these two chapters?
Your "self" is the root of frustrations and disappointments, feeling of lack. Does your "self" feel that these sections are lacking? That you are lacking?
For folks who are new to this topic, the Buddhist proposition that there is no fixed "self", and that the subject/object (self vs. the rest of the world that is not my self) divide is a mentally drawn line, does -not- mean that there is no "you" now reading these words. While, in one way of experiencing things, there is no "you" and the subject/object divide in only an arbitrary mental division and an illusion, but from another perspective there is a "you" (although more provisional and less solid and permanent than you might assume).
Also, some folks believe that the goal of this practice is to be free of the individual "self" totally, once and for all. I do not believe so. We cannot function in the day to day world without a "self" that views itself as separate from other things. While their may be times of Kensho and the like in which the sense of being a separate and abiding self radically disappears, it must return for us to function in life. However, what is possible via this practice is for one to experience a sense of "self" and also "no self" at once (as if experiencing life simultaneously from two perspectives that are so interpenetrating and whole that they are truly one).
Why is that a good thing?
Because it allows one to experience life two ways (that are "not two"). For example, the "self" can experience loss, lack and frustration while simultaneously the "non-self" knows no loss, lack or frustration. The "self" as an ordinary being in this world can experience the grief of a loved one's death, while the "non-self" experience surpasses the subject/object divide there can be experience something that does not "come and go", and is thus not a matter of birth and death. The "self" knows the passage of time, the "non self" tastes something beyond the ticking clock.
The central existential crisis of a human being is thus resolved.
Does that make sense? Sound kinda nuts? Can you understand how the experience can resolve much human suffering?
David Loy described many problems with a "transcendent" viewpoint. Is what he describing a "transcendent" viewpoint that somehow avoids those problems?
Gassho, J
SatToday