True Humor is Laughter at One's Self

"In the words of a Chinese Zen master, "Nothing is left to you at this
moment but to have a good laugh!" As James Broughton put it:
This is It
and I am It
and You are It
and so is That
and He is It
and She is It
and It is It
and That is That.(4)
True humor is, indeed, laughter at one's Self—at the Divine Comedy,
the fabulous deception, whereby one comes to imagine that a creature
in existence is not also of existence, that what man is is not also what
everything is. All the time we "know it in our bones" but conscious
attention, distracted by details and differences, cannot see the whole for
the parts."

From Alan Watts' The Book

Self Awareness: Breaking the Bonds of Memetic Servitude

"Beyond the illusion of ego exists a deeper conceptualization of self: the universe consists of a swirling, dynamic dance of power-relationships, with the black-and-white construct of the individual giving way to the grayer concept of the individual as a nexus of these connections. No true separation between individual and environment remains. Our consciousness has developed as a tool used by other entities, but it has provided the ultimate tool for our use to which no other nexus has access: self-awareness. The understanding that self-awareness exists to serve the meme breaks that bond of servitude—it acts as the realization of enlightenment. Re-read the last sentence. The individual re-emerges as a discrete point of true awareness—not delusional ego-awareness, but awareness of our status as a nexus in the dance of power-relationships. Every atom in our body changes, replaced with new matter through the course of eating, metabolism and elimination—we literally do not consist of the same substance today that we did last year. At death we remain physically the same structure, but not the same entity. These examples illustrate that we exist as much more than a complex assemblage of particles. Our true substance seems to more closely resemble a hub and relay to vast webs of power-relationships. While we exist in a constant state of physical flux, we remain a stable, self-aware nexus. Coming to terms with our existence merges science and spirituality, leading ultimately down the classical path of enlightenment-beyond-ego. This realization will set us free."

From Jeff Vail's A Theory of Power (Available online here)

Meditation Notes from the Writings of Ken Wilber

"Slowly begin to silently recite the following to yourself, trying to realize as vividly as possible the import of each statement:"

• "I have a body, but I am not my body. I can see and feel my body, and what can be seen and felt is not the true Seer. My body may be tired or excited, sick or healthy, heavy or light, but that has nothing to do with my inward I. I have a body, but I am not my body."
• "I have desires, but I am not my desires. I can know my desires, and what can be known is not the true Knower. Desires come and go, floating through my awareness, but they do not affect my inward I. I have desires, but I am not desires."
• "I have emotions, but I am not my emotions. I can feel and sense my emotions, and what can be felt and sensed is not the true Feeler. Emotions pass through me, but they do not affect my inward I. I have emotions, but I am not emotions."
• "I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts. I can know and intuit my thoughts, and what can be known is not the true Knower. Thoughts come to me and thoughts leave me, but they do not affect my inward I. I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts."
  
  

Affirm as concretely as possible:

• "I am what remains, a pure center of awareness, an unmoved witness of all these thoughts, emotions, feelings, and desires."

From http://www.integralworld.net/meditation.html

Rider on an elephant's back

"[The rational part of our mind] is a rider placed on the elephant's back to help the elephant make better choices. The rider can see farther into the future, and the rider can learn valuable information by talking to other riders or by reading maps, but the rider cannot order the elephant around against its will. I believe the Scottish philosopher David Hume was closer to the truth than was Plato when he said, "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."

In sum, the rider is an advisor or servant; not a king, president, or charioteer with a firm grip on the reins. The rider is Gazzaniga's interpreter module; it is conscious, controlled thought. The elephant includes the gut feelings, visceral reactions, emotions, and intuitions that comprise much of the automatic system. The elephant and the rider each have their own intelligence, and when they work together well they enable the unique brilliance of human beings."

Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis, pg. 16-17

Illusions

"The I is a thing of the moment, and yet our lives are ruled by it. We cannot rid ourselves of this inexistent thing. In our normal awareness of the present moment the sensation of selfhood is unshakeable. This is the primordial human error, in virtue of which we pass our lives as in a dream." pg 78

"If what is at issue is not truth but happiness and freedom, why must philosophy have the last word? Why should not faith and myth have equal rights? Formerly philosophers sought peace of mind while pretending to seek the truth. Perhaps we should set ourselves a different aim: to discover which illusions we can give up, and which we will never shake off. We will still be seekers after truth, more so than in the past; but we will renounce the hope of a life without illusion. Henceforth our aim will be to identify our invincible illusions. Which untruths might we be rid of, and which can we not do without? -- that is the question, that is the experiment."pg 83

John Gray, Straw Dogs

Absence of independent existence

"Look still deeper into impermanence, and you will find it has another message, another face, one of great hope, one that opens your eyes to the fundamental nature of the universe, and our extraordinary relationship to it.

"If everything is impermanent, then everything is what we call 'empty,' which means lacking in any lasting, stable, and inherent existence; and all things, when seen and understood in their true relation, are not independent but interdependent with all other things. The Buddha compared the universe to a vast net woven of a countless variety of brilliant jewels, each with a countless number of facets. Each jewel reflects in itself every other jewel in the net and is, in fact, one with every other jewel."

"Nothing has any inherent existence of its own when you really look at it, and this absence of independent existence is what we call 'emptiness.' Think of a tree. When you think of a tree, you tend to think of a distinctly defined object; and on a certain level, like the wave, it is. But when you look more closely at the tree, you will see ultimately it has no independent existence. When you contemplate it, you will find that it dissolves into an extremely subtle net of relationships that stretches across the universe. The rain that falls on its leaves, the wind that sways it, the soil that nourishes and sustains it, all the seasons and the weather, moonlight and starlight and sunlight--all form part of this tree. As you begin to think about the tree more and more, you will discover that everything in the universe helps to make the tree what it is; that it cannot at any moment be isolated from anything else; and that at every moment its nature is subtly changing." [The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Soygal Rinpoche, pg. 37.]