Seeing No-Self Quotes

“When we see this, we know for sure that we are being lived. There are deeds but no doer, thoughts but no thinker. We’re a set of constantly unfolding psychosomatic processes, embedded within much larger, more complex systems. Believing we can somehow create separation and distance from the larger system on our tiny island of selfhood is quite absurd.”
― Katrijn Van Oudheusden, Seeing No-Self: Essential Questions to Reveal Our Nondual Nature

“Truly seeing the absence of the doer is the end of psychological stress and suffering. But it’s also the most difficult insight in this book. Not because it’s difficult to see per se, but because the belief in it is so tenacious. It’s the essence of the separate self.”
― Katrijn Van Oudheusden, Seeing No-Self: Essential Questions to Reveal Our Nondual Nature

“Consider that the self itself is nothing more than a thought, the I-thought. This thought isn’t controlled by any separate entity. The self-thought arises and disappears spontaneously like any other thought. If we’re not thinking me-thoughts, there is no me! Remember that a thought can’t do anything; it has no power or agency. Therefore, this self we believe in so strongly is nothing more than a mental vibration without agency or volition. It’s only a repetitive thought pattern. The self is a mental loop in love with itself, selfing automatically on endless repeat. We only feel the me is robust and important because we have been taught to give it all our attention. Methoughts make us feel individual and special. No-self is not a popular proposition to the selfing loop!”
― Katrijn Van Oudheusden, Seeing No-Self: Essential Questions to Reveal Our Nondual Nature

“The self is a mental loop in love with itself, selfing automatically on endless repeat. We only feel the me is robust and important because we have been taught to give it all our attention. Methoughts make us feel individual and special. No-self is not a popular proposition to the selfing loop!”
― Katrijn Van Oudheusden, Seeing No-Self: Essential Questions to Reveal Our Nondual Nature

“You Are Not Your Thoughts Consider that thinking may be occurring completely in parallel to life. Perhaps thinking is nothing more than the mental chatter we add to reality. Before you learned a language as a small child, there was no thinking and life still happened just fine. Whether there is thinking or not does not influence reality. Could that be true? Then what is the point of quieting or emptying the mind? We can simply let thinking be and pay it no attention.”
― Katrijn Van Oudheusden, Seeing No-Self: Essential Questions to Reveal Our Nondual Nature

“You have never been born. You will never die.”
― Katrijn Van Oudheusden, Seeing No-Self: Essential Questions to Reveal Our Nondual Nature

“Silently and effortlessly look at this Being, this aware Presence. The verb looking is used as shorthand for perception. We are not trying to see anything. Don’t worry about anything happening or doing this right. Just try to look. Look directly at this alive, aware sense of Being without trying to perceive or understand anything. It doesn’t matter how long you look. A fraction of a second is enough. Try, with all your heart, to notice and recognize what is aware.”
― Katrijn Van Oudheusden, Seeing No-Self: Essential Questions to Reveal Our Nondual Nature

“If someone attacks the supposed story of me, that is not a problem anymore. Who cares what socalled others think of my so-called story?”
― Katrijn Van Oudheusden, Seeing No-Self: Essential Questions to Reveal Our Nondual Nature

“Inquiry is an investigation of direct, first-person experience in the present moment. During this process, we’ll look at two things: How the content of experience comes and goes, so it can’t be what we essentially are. The content includes all of our perceptions, as well as thoughts and sensations. How the container of experience (what the content appears within) is always already there: never coming, going, or changing in any way. This leads to the recognition that we can’t be the content and must be the container. The words content”
― Katrijn Van Oudheusden, Seeing No-Self: Essential Questions to Reveal Our Nondual Nature

“We also need to ensure we don’t become stuck in a nihilistic idea of no-self, but simultaneously rediscover our ever-present Being—our true nature before and beyond any idea of self.”
― Katrijn Van Oudheusden, Seeing No-Self: Essential Questions to Reveal Our Nondual Nature

“You are not a person. You are what is aware of the person (right now, already). That Awareness (the very same awareness that
is aware of the person) is all there ever is, all
there ever was, and all there ever will be.”
― Katrijn Van Oudheusden, Seeing No-Self: Essential Questions to Reveal Our Nondual Nature

“Here is a list of some benefits of recognizing your freedom from the separate self: The sense of disconnection from the world disappears—no more “no one gets me.” The boundary between you and others fades, unearthing our shared being. No more competitive instincts or urges to win at the expense of others. Experiencing wholeness, oneness, and integration within life itself. A profound trust that makes you feel carried by the entirety of life. A natural, unconditional empathy and compassion for others. Spontaneous gratitude, awe, and joy for life’s simple existence. No more stress, worry, or anxiety born out of attempts to control or improve life. Freedom from self-judgment, as well as the desire to judge or be judged by others. A continuous flow of presence, fully engaged in the here and now.”
― Katrijn Van Oudheusden, Seeing No-Self: Essential Questions to Reveal Our Nondual Nature

“A complete acceptance of all life's fluctuations, good and bad. An intrinsic desire to serve, in line with your unique gifts. Joy that arises regardless of circumstances. An unwavering confidence in the expression of life as it unfolds—uncontrived and unshakable.”
― Katrijn Van Oudheusden, Seeing No-Self: Essential Questions to Reveal Our Nondual Nature