“I am a person with a body, a mind, and wants”. This is the fundamental belief of every one of us. All other beliefs and knowledge happen in relation to this. “That is the sun, it rises in the east”, “You are a reader of this article”, etc., hold meaning in association and relation to that primary belief. 

‘That’ bright object in the sky, which is separate from ‘this’ embodied person, is called the Sun. The one who is reading this article, who is not ‘me’, is ‘you’. 

Let’s assume for some time that our fundamental belief was erroneous, and therefore, we have to discard it. This is not an entirely novel idea. Throughout history, we have discarded some old belief systems in favour of new ones. Newton’s principle of gravity was rejected in favour of Einstein’s theory, and the belief that Earth is the centre of the universe was thrown away.

What are the implications of the impersonal view of life? 

It is important to rule out a far-fetched view of insentience. Non-awareness is an impossibility. If there is no experience, then there is no point in talking about it. Awareness is thus a precondition for any knowledge, process, or experience. You can argue that there are AI or mechanical processes. Well, without a human consumer, none of them would make any sense. 

So, in that case, the acceptable view is that a body is seen, a mind is experienced, but there is no person. Experience is experienced without any experiencer. Wait! What an absurd statement! Is it? Well, let’s embrace this absurdity for a while, and we shall address later how this is a much more rational view than our present one.

If there is no person, then every experience turns impersonal, isn’t it? That sun, this keyboard, my fingers, etc., all become irrelevant. Instead, there are only processes. For example, the tongue receives tasty food, and the body feels pleasant. It is quite different from a personal experience, where, due to a person’s personality, they begin to either crave or be averse to that taste and enter into a whole new equation. 

Experience is the process of interaction between objects that form the cause and a change(s) as an effect. The body and the mind exhibit change(s) that form the content of experience. For example, pressure on touching the skin is a result of that interaction. This in itself is an impersonal experience. 

But when a personality enters the picture, it skews the usual causality. Either the process is dragged to get more of that experience or shunned to avoid it. Taking cues from our regular world, the consequences of this are not hard to predict. It only results in cascaded suffering. 

Leading an impersonal life enables experiencing the world as it is. There is no bias, prejudice, or skewness. If something is actually unpleasant, it is experienced as such without trying to avoid it. If something is pleasant, it is experienced as such without trying to want more of it. In fact, pleasantness and unpleasantness are just labels that are mapped by the ‘person’, who is nothing but the result of a wrong view. 

The consequences of correcting this view are liberation from the cycles of suffering for once and all. Buddhism strives to achieve this through its prescribed practices. A life of true independence, freedom, and blissfulness(not the pleasantness of senses) is shown to be achieved through this knowledge by wise masters. 

How to rationalise the impersonal view of life?

In the first place, how did this idea originate in your mind that a person is sitting underneath who experiences all phenomena? You could answer it’s because you feel it yourself. You have that first-person experience of not only the outside experiences of the world but also the thoughts in the mind. 

Alright, so the proof is that you have a belief in your own feelings. Fair enough.

You are reading this article on your device. You experience this device as a solid material, which can be held and put to various uses. 

Now self-analyse this device. Does it have an independent existence? Of course not, it’s made of electronic components. When they are arranged, it appears like this.

Okay, does that mean electronics components have an independent existence? Of course not, it’s made of atoms. When they are arranged, they appear like components. 

Ahh! So, it’s the solidity of atoms that arrange and rearrange till they give rise to your solid device. Yes, that seems correct.

But 99.99% of the volume of an atom is empty space. How come such a solid form resulted from that? Modern science has reached to this startling discovery that what feels so solid may not be solid in reality. As they keep searching more, the more hollow the matter appears. 

The point being, the belief that you have formed about the universe through your first-person feelings begins to fall apart when you employ self-analysis. 

The same thing goes for a feeling of experiencer as well, who feels to have embodied a solid structure called a body, and a subtler object called mind. When you self-analyse that experiencer, it can’t be found. 

Let’s ask where this person resides. Is it in the body? If yes, which part? Or it actually resides in the mind, and the body is just an annexe of that. If so, what happens in deep sleep? If you keep inquiring about this person with deepening concentration and flow, you will find it’s empty, empty of an independent person. 

In our regular life, we carry a personified view of ourselves because we haven’t had the opportunity to analyse our own existence yet. We have employed rationality everywhere else, except for the entity from which it originated. 

If not Who, then What?

An impersonal view of life seems rational, and also, people have achieved that state through practices, but to bring coherence, one thing still remains to be answered. 

Experience is there, and we have denied anything otherwise as a precedent. And as per the view, let’s accept that no one is experiencing. But at least we should be able to comprehend “what is it that experiences, if not who?”

And if that is not personal, does that mean it is universal? 

Well, only so much can be answered by nature in just one go. 

Stay curious and keep seeking with intensity!