Meditation and the self - Shinzen Young

...you can think of enlightenment as a kind of permanent shift
in perspective that comes about through direct realization
that there is no thing called "self" inside you.

Notice that I'm not saying that there is no self, but rather
no thing called a self.

Of course. there is certainly an activity inside you called
personality, and activity of the self.  But that is different
from a thing called the self.

Meditation changes your relationship to sensory experience,
including your thoughts and body sensations.  It allows you
to experience thoughts and body sensations in a clear
and unblocked way.  When the sensory experience of the
mind-body becomes sufficiently clear and uninhibited,
it ceases to be a rigid thing that imprisons your identity.

The sensory self becomes a comfortable home, not a jail cell.
That's why enlightenment is sometimes referred to as liberation.

You realize that the thingness of self is an artifact caused by
habitual nebulosity (cloudiness, haziness) and viscosity (density)
around your mind-body experience...

Shinzen Young
The Science of Enlightenment:
How Meditation Works

via: Markings

~

Photo - Amitabha
Buddha of Infinite Light,.
also called The Eternal Buddha