Below is a chapter from Joseph Goldstein’s book Insight Meditation - The Practice of Freedom. This passage is the inspiration for this website.

Understanding “No-Self” does not come from destroying something we call “Self” or “Ego”. The great awakening or discovery of the Buddha revealed that there was no “Self” no permanent “I” to begin with. So if there is nothing we have to get rid of, then understanding selflessness very simply comes from careful awareness of what actually is happening moment to moment. It does not take too long to get a beginning sense that appearance arising in consciousness are not self, because we see how they just keep coming and going.

A subtle identification can still take place however with the knowing faculty itself; “I am the one who is knowing all these changing objects”. We might believe the knowing is “I” is “Self”. Because knowing or consciousness is much more subtle than the other arising objects, you might find it difficult at first to be mindful of it. But as the mind’s power of steadiness, stillness and clarity grow stronger we can actually become aware of awareness. At certain stages of meditation practice it becomes clear that consciousness itself is a changing process. This discovery can be unsettling because for so long we have identified with the faculty of knowing as being most essentially who we are. Taking it to be our soul, our self, our center. Now we see that, it too, just like all other phenomena continuously appears and passes away.

Imaging yourself jumping out of an airplane and freefalling for the first few minutes. Imagine the sense of exhilaration. But then you realize you do not have a parachute. So you panic and fall through the space. Falling..falling..falling…Filled with terror that you do not have a parachute. Until a certain moment arrives when you realize that there is no ground. At that moment of the journey you just enjoy the ride.

We often go through a similar emotional sequence in meditation practice. As our identification with things loosens up a little we see the repetitive change. At first there can be real exhilaration, a greater sense of spaciousness. But feelings of panic can come when we realize that there is nothing at all to hold onto. Both the objects of awareness and the faculty knowing them are continuously falling away, like water over a waterfall.

We understand now on a deeper level that nothing we grasp at for security actually provides it.

But as we continue with the practice enlightenment dawns; there is no ground to hit and no one to hit it; just empty phenomenon rolling on. Then we feel the great relief of letting go, the deep feeling of equanimity and the joy of ease.