“There is no self” is not a very precise or useful phrase, and much of the confusion here arises from that. The wisdom traditions assert that most people suffer from a problem of identification – that you are not who you take yourself to be. The self exists in the same sense that a tornado exists – as a process. The self is an ongoing mental process. The insight that can be found in meditation is that our identification with that process, or with other elements such as memories, personality, the body, our beliefs etc. does not hold up to scrutiny. We are not those things. As we slowly come to understand this, a lot of things begin to feel easier. So the interesting question is: who are you, really?

A second issue is a misunderstanding of “non-duality”. An experience of “having no self” is not the same as apprehending non-duality. All of us frequently experience the absence of self, during flow states, when absorbed in tasks, when asleep, or even when day-dreaming. Non-duality is something much more fundamental and much harder to describe.

A third issue is that apprehending non-duality is not a state of mind. People don’t experience a “state of non-duality”. It’s not a state. Unfortunately words fail us here because non-duality is inherently non-conceptual. But it’s more like: it’s always right here, and you either notice it, or you don’t. In fact it’s so obvious and ordinary that it feels irrelevant, like the screen in a movie theatre when the movie is playing.

Meditation won’t make your self dissolve. It doesn’t take away your memories. Everything is still there, just as it was before. But you can come to see things differently, like looking through a window at the garden outside, and then suddenly realising you can see your reflection in the window. The garden is still there and you can still see it. But it feels different.

I mean drug laws are crazy laxly enforced — I wish they didn’t exist but if it’s just a global cost-benefit analysis are those other laws really under enforced?

And I’ve always found the idea that justice is a thing you can get from the criminal law kinda odd. Civil law gets you damages, criminal law is justified (imo) by deterrent/passivation effect.

Thanks for sharing your experience!

In case it’s helpful, I’d like to add that even if we have recognised that our feelings are disproportionate and we are reasoning emotionally, it still takes time to process all this and calm down. The problem is, our emotions show during this time and the people around us react to this. I find people often ask me to explain why I’m upset, which unfortunately can feed into the cycle. But physically removing yourself from the situation can seem dramatic, especially if you have already started to display some emotion.

For example, someone recently said something that upset me in a restaurant. I could feel that I was beginning to cry. I also knew that what they said was just slightly annoying and crying or getting angry would be disproportionate. But what can you do? I ended up leaving the restaurant because I couldn’t stop crying. But then it looked like I’d made a dramatic exit because of what they’d said! But if I’d stayed, I would have faced lots of well-meaning questions, which I wasn’t in a state to answer calmly.

I’m sure I can talk to them calmly later and salvage the relationship. I just wanted to point out that sometimes things don’t go smoothly even when you try to do all the “right” things!

this is very spot on, a lot of what people think is “bad” on a surface is actually what makes certain people more desired than others