Question

What are the benefits of the reflection on "I don't exist"?

Answer

There's no benefit to that type of reflection - it's a view and opinion. By reflecting on this, something that you don't know, you could be building wrong view - you don't know that this is true. It's much more helpful to reflect in ways that bring forth wisdom, rather than views and opinions that we cannot know to be true. This is just a philosophical idea, and it is more in line with Nihilism and it is a misunderstanding of Anatta - "I don't exist", we don't know that to be true. What are we saying? Are we saying that these Four Great Elements don't exist? The Four Great Elements, we can't know that they don't exist. These Five Aggregates, they arise and pass.

We can say that, "We are not this", but we can't say that, "We don't exist", because we can't actually say what we really are. We can, however, investigate into what we are not. So it's not really helpful to form ideas about what we ultimately are, but it can be helpful to investigate into what we think we are, and see whether we are this or that, whether we truly are this or that; but that's not to say that we're not something else. That's just a limited idea to think that that's all there is.

Be careful about views and opinions.

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