All through the 20th century totalitarianism has reared its ugly head in many forms. Its most insidious form is to attach to what we are not this being our physical body we acquired at conception. This is akin to the reflection Narcissus saw of himself in the pool which he believed was his true self.
We know this attachment (it’s kind of psychosis) in Buddhism as clinging to the five aggregates which are not who we really are. We also know this as the the conceit ‘I am’ (asmimāna) based on these five aggregates. In light of this, today’s Buddhists are so much under the spell of totalitarianism that they believe there is no fundamental self like the annihilationists (ucchedavādā) did during the time of the Buddha. There is this body which is me and when I die that's it!
Like Narcissus we are deeply attached to what we see in the mirror (or even a selfie). Transfixed by the image of what we believe to be our true self, we are close to becoming somatic narcissists (a preoccupation/obsession with our body and sex). In this condition, we run the risk of becoming sidetracked by our preoccupation which might take up a large part of the day.
All of our love or preference for our physical body begins to wane, seriously, when we grow old. With death, our lifeless body returns to Māra’s bone orchard or bone-mountain which the Buddha describes in the Aṭṭhipuñja [bone-heap] Sutta. After the death of the body, we are ready to descend into another fertilized ovum, following the zygote as it develops.
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