Views and Discussions About the Ego... Now, if someone should say that feeling is his Self, he should be answered thus: "There are three kinds of feeling: pleasurable, painful, and indifferent feeling. Which of these three feelings do you consider as your Self?" Because, at the moment of experiencing one of these feelings, one does not experience the other two. These three kinds of feeling are impermanent, of dependent origin, are subject to decay and dissolution, to fading-away and extinction. Whosoever, in experiencing one of these feelings, thinks that this is his Self, must after the extinction of that feeling, admit that his Self has become dissolved. And thus he will consider his Self already in this present life as impermanent, mixed up with pleasure and pain, subject to arising and passing away. If any one should say that feeling is not his Ego, and that his Self is inaccessible to feeling, he should be asked thus: "Now, where there is no feeling, is it then possible to say: 'This am I?'" Or, another might say: "Feeling, indeed, is not my Self, but it also is untrue that my Self is inaccessible to feeling, for it is my Self that feels, my Self that has the faculty of feeling." Such a one should be answered thus: "Suppose that feeling should become altogether totally extinguished; now, if after the extinction of feeling, no feeling whatever exists there, is it then possible to say: 'This am I'?" To say that the mind, or the mind-objects, or the mind-consciousness, constitute the Self, such an assertion is unfounded. For an arising and a passing away is seen there; and seeing the arising and passing away of these things, one would come to the conclusion that one's Self arises and passes away. 1t would be better for the unlearned worldling to regard his body, built up of the four elements, as his Self, rather than his mind. For it is evident that the body may last for a year, for two years, for three, four, five, or ten years, or even for a hundred years and more; but that which is called thought, or mind, or consciousness, arises continuously, during day and night, as one thing, and passes away as another thing. Therefore, whatsoever there is of corporeality, of feeling, of perception, of mental formations, of consciousness whether past, present or future, one's own or external, gross or subtle, lofty or low, far or near: of this one should understand according to reality and true wisdom: "This does not belong to me; this am I not; this is not my Self." To show the impersonality and utter emptiness of existence, Visuddhi-Magga XVI quotes the following verse: Mere suffering exists, no sufferer is found, the deed is, but no doer of the deed is there. Nirvana is, but not the man that enters it. The path is, but no traveller on it is seen.