One lesson I take away from my experience disowning these various unpleasant feelings—the tension in my jaw from overcaffeination, the tooth pain, the anxiety—is the paradox of control. All three feelings, in their initial, annoying persistence, proved that they were not under my control—indeed, if anything, they were controlling me! And, according to the Buddha’s conception of “self,” my lack of control over them in turn proved that they were not part of my self. But once I followed that logic—quit seeing these things I couldn’t control as part of my self—I was liberated from them and, in a
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