This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
But as a habit is arising, even though there's no me, in seeing that there is no place for that habit to live, because that would be a me, I would have that habit. So seeing that there's no place for that me to be there, to have a habit, kind of undercuts the habit in the moment. And it kind of like, well, if there's no place to have a habit, where is it going to come from? Whereas belief in a separate me will feed the habits and keep them going. So it's kind of like you're looking at it from two different angles in a way. One angle is saying, of course there's no me, so anything that arises, including habits, is happening just in that emptiness.
But looking at it in a more kind of experiential, direct way, you see that a habit, that is arising just kind of in this sort of blind belief in there being a me there, gets really undercut in the moment. It really, it really, it has no place to live. Where is it going to, what's going to be feeding it? What's going to be keeping it going? Sorry, and the fact that the me is always the thought. I mean, it's always thought, it's always thinking. It's, you can't, there's no me there if you're not thinking. You know, it's actually thought that creates or appears to create this sense of a me there.
But the fact is that if you see that thought, just like you see a chair or the light or, and it's just a thought that's bubbling up, and that's what it is, and you see that every time this notion of a me is there, it's with thought. And you realize that it's reliant on a thought for that me to be there. Doesn't that kind of, doesn't that sort of validate the fact that the... What do you do then? You know, you see it's another thought. You realize that the answer's not in the mind. Yes. What are you going to do? Just drop it. It's like a chair or sound or, or, yeah.
As soon as you start into thinking again, really looking at who's, you know, who's having this or whatever, you know, the answer's not, you'll never find the answer in the mind. It's pointless looking there. But this direct kind of recognition. This recognition that there's no one there pulls all the juice out of these things. And, and, and, you know, the habits can have a chance to sort of naturally fall away that way. Without making it into a practice or something or some kind of goal. But just to kind of rationalize away and say, oh, these habits are happening for no one, is, you know, it's still kind of feeding them, you know, in this sort of...
But seeing, seeing that the me and the, and the, the ideas, are creating the me is just as valid as looking back and seeing that there's no one there. There's nothing there. It's the same thing. It doesn't matter what sort of form of investigation you do. The fact is that everything we know about me is learned. This is a body. This is the mind. And we've categorized mind to mean these ideas and those ideas and these sensations and those sensations. And we've, we've just arbitrarily come up with a rule. I mean, you know, we could have been like this. So, this is the rule. This is me.
We could have told a story like that. Or we could have told a story any other way. But the fact is that it's just a story. And the fact that without a story, there's, there's a sense of presence there. Means that it's only thought that makes or creates this sort of seeming separation. Because it's the ideas that sort of...