Looking and the no-self

I would not say that selves don't exist (although it's possible that I have done so somewhere, sloppily).

Rather, that selves are both nebulous and patterned ("empty forms," in Tantric terminology).

Probably the clearest summary of that I've written so far is "Selfness," which is supposed to be the introduction to a chapter of the Meaningness book that does not yet otherwise exist.

Renouncing the self is characteristic of Sutrayana.

[FWOMP Summoned spirit appears in Kaj's chalk octogram. Gouts of eldritch flame, etc. Spirit squints around at unfamiliar environment bemusedly. Takes off glasses, holds them up to the candlelight, grimaces, wipes glasses on clothing, replaces on nose. Grunts. Speaks:]

Buddhism is a diverse family of religions, with distinct conceptions of enlightenment. These seem to be quite different and contradictory.

According to one classification of disparate doctrines, Buddhism can be divided into Vajrayana (Tantra plus Dzogchen) and Sutrayana (everything else, except maybe Zen). In this classification, Sutrayana aims at "emptiness," which is a generalization of the Three Marks, including anatman (non-self). The central method of Sutrayana is renunciation. Renunciation of the self is a major aspect. For Sutrayana, clear sustained perception of anatman (or emptiness more generally) is enlightenment, by definition.

For Buddhist Tantra, experience of emptiness is the "base" or starting point. That's the sense in which "enlightenment is the prerequisite"—but it's enlightenment as understood in Sutrayana. Whereas Sutrayana is the path from "form" (ordinary appearances) to emptiness, Tantra is the path from emptiness to the non-duality of emptiness and form. The aim is to perceive everything as both simultaneously. That non-dual vision is the definition of enlightenment within Tantra. The "duality" referred to here is the duality between emptiness and form, rather than the duality between self and other—which is what is overcome in Sutrayana. The non-dual vision that is the end-point of Tantra, is then the base or starting point for Dzogchen.

(Probably the best thing I've written about this is "Beyond Emptiness: Zen, Tantra, and Dzogchen." It may not be very clear but I hope at least it is entertaining. "Sutra, Tantra, and the Modern Worldview" is less fun but more concrete.)

seeing that the self is an arbitrary construct which you don't need to take too seriously, can enable you to play with it in a tantric fashion

Yes, this is a Vajrayana viewpoint. For Sutrayana, the self is non-existent, or at least "empty"; for Vajrayana, it is empty form. That is, "self" is a label applied to various phenomena, which overall are found to be insubstantial, transient, boundaryless, discontinuous, and ambiguous—and yet which exhibit heft, durability, continence, extension, and specificity. This mild paradox is quite amusing—a starting point for tantric play.

I'll say a bit more about "self" in response to Sarah Constantin's comment on this post.

When it comes to reading articles here on LW I don't get the feeling that everything that could be said is said.
Pleading directly for getting rid of the self wouldn't fit into the overton window. Just like issues regarding the t-word or the e-word are unlikely to be expressed. To be fair there's a bit of discussion about the e-word but not in this context.

The word arbitrary is a bit suspect to me. If I would hear a rationalist who says that his love for his wife is arbitrary because it's what evolution programmed into him my instinct would be that there's an issue with how he's in relationship.

I get the same sentiment when I hear you speak about how your self is arbitrary in this context.

When it comes to the reports of memory loss in the comments of the PNSE paper (and Richard's comment) I don't see why that would come with the ability to look but I can see that cutting connections to the self could lead to such issues.

More practically I have the concern of taking meditation advice from Buddhists who's goal is a state of detachment from the self or simply following what they recommend (and what's designed for the outcome of creating detachment) might be problematic.

Of course I might also very well have misunderstood where you or Valentine are and it's not an easy topic to talk about, especially in a text-based public venue like this.

As far as lineage goes, Jon Kabat-Zinn was very important for the secular mindfulness that we have as he standardized mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and thus provided "science-backed" meditation and thus people who wanted to do science-based meditation oriented themselves on what Jon Kabat-Zinn standardized.

Wikipedia says about him:

"Kabat-Zinn was a student of Buddhist teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh and Zen Master Seung Sahn and a founding member of Cambridge Zen Center."

According to Wikipedia Thich Nhat Hanh comes from Vietnamese Thiền which is a school of Zen Buddhism.

Do you have a different idea of the history of mindfulness meditation?

Thanks. Do you think it's fair to say that Zen "seeks" renunciation of the self?

Thanks, I got a typo in the first place and hit spellcheck and didn't check the right one.

I don't think the word non-duality indicates self transcendence and/or self renunciation. There isn't only a single way to deal with non-duality.

If you have a clear connection with your felt sense that creates a relationship with your body that makes it clearly your own soma in a very phenomenal basic way.

If you go well through naming an emotion and giving it a handle you create a felt shift as you engage with it.

If you spend 4 hours sitting and focused on your breath you don't engage with any emotions that might come up during the time. You are mindful of them but you don't connect with them or label them.

I'm not sure whether the following is true for you but it was comes intuitively to me and simply expressing my intuitions might be good for providing more substance to understand my perspective:

I could imagine a rationalist who attempts to do NVC to do it without connecting to any of his emotions and thus end up in a place where he detaches from his self but I would consider that partly cargo-culting NVC.