A Buddhist deconstruction of the "self"

[Encephalon]

I think I may have accidently posted this in the wrong thread, so I'm reposting it fresh. I just wanted to add that I've watched Buddhism get dragged through the mud in here for a few years now, sometimes for good reasons in response to very unusual behavior by self-described Buddhists, but I hope this clears the air a little bit. My mental universe is Buddhist; everything else seems Taoist for now.

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The nature of the self has been up for grabs in TTB lately. I thought I’d take the liberty of sharing the thoughts of two of the most important Buddhist scholars alive today, Stephen Batchelor and David Loy. Years ago I taught myself to type while typing Batchelor’s “Buddhism Without Beliefs” in its entirety. His explanation of “no-self” is the best I have come across. Following Batchelor is Loy’s account of what we find in the absence of our “self.”

 

Buddhism generally suffers from gross misinterpretations in TTB. I hope this contributes in some small way to a more accurate understanding of Buddhist psychology, the portal through which Buddhism has traditionally been in dialogue with the west these past 50 years.

Scott

 

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“In everyday experience, one thing leads to the next. I become irritated by something S said to me and end up wanting to hit him. I imagine I see a snake in the pottery shed and freeze in terror. Everything we do now becomes a condition for what is possible later.

 

We may speak of conditions and consequences as though they turn out to be processes with no independent reality. The harshness of a barbed remark that haunts us for days is no more than a brief instance isolated from a torrent of events. Yet it stands out in the mind’s eye as something intrinsically real and apart. This habit of isolating things leads us to inhabit a world in which the gaps between them become absolute. The snake in the shed is really there, as sharply differentiated from the frightened person who beholds it as from the shards of discarded pottery on which it is coiled.

 

Clutching at ourselves and the world in this way is a precondition for anguish. By regarding things as absolutely separate and as desirable or fearful in themselves, we set ourselves the task of possessing something we can never have or of eradicating something that was never there in the first place. Noticing how things emerge from and fade back into an unbroken flow of conditions begins to free us a little. We recognize how things are relatively, not absolutely desirable or fearful. They interconnect and interact, each contingent on the others, no one of them intrinsically separate from the rest.

 

Whatever emerges in this way is devoid of an intrinsic identity: in other words, things are empty. They are not as opaque and solid as they seem: they are transparent and fluid. They are not as singular and straightforward as they seem: they are complex and ambiguous. They are not only defined by philosophy, science, and religion: they are evoked through the play of allusions, paradoxes, and jokes. They cannot be pinned down with certainty: they trigger perplexity, amazement, and doubt.

 

~

 

The same is true for each one of us. Just as a potter forms a pot on the wheel, so I configure my personality from the spinning clay of my existence. The pot does not exist in its own right: it emerges from the interactions of the potter, the wheel, the clay, its shape, its function (each of which in turn emerges from the interactions of its causes and components ad infinitum). There is no essential pot to which its attributes adhere—just as there is no essential daffodil to which stalk, leaves, petals, and stamen adhere. Pots and daffodils are configurations of causes, conditions, parts, functions, language, images. They are devoid of an identity stamped like a serial number in the core of their being.

 

And so is each of us. As a human being I am more complex than a pot or a daffodil, but I have also emerged from causes and am composed of diverse, changing features and traits. There is no essential me that exists apart from this unique configuration of biological and cultural processes. Even if intellectually I agree with this, intuitively it may not be how I feel about myself. In any event, dharma practice is concerned not with proving or disproving theories of self but with understanding and easing the grip of self-centeredness that constricts body, feelings, and emotions into a tight nugget of anguish.

 

Imagine you are at a crowded exhibition of Ming porcelain. A voice calls out: “Hey! Thief! Stop!” Everyone in the room turns to look at you. Although you haven’t stolen anything, the glare of accusation and disapproval provokes intense self-consciousness. You stand as exposed as though you were naked. You—or rather the tight nugget of anguish—blurts out: “It wasn’t me! Honest.”

 

It is as though this self—which is a mere configuration of past and present contingencies—has been fired in the kiln of anxiety to emerge as something fixed. Fixed but also brittle. The more precious it becomes to me, the more I must guard it against attack. The circumstances in which I feel at ease become ever narrower and more circumscribed.

~

Self-consciousness is at once the most obvious and central fact of my life and the most elusive. If I search for my self in medication, I find it is like trying to catch my own shadow. I reach for it, but there’s nothing there. Then it reappears elsewhere. I glimpse it from the corner of my mind’s eye, turn to face it, and it’s gone. Each time I think I’ve pinned it down, it turns out to be something else: a bodily sensation, a mood, a perception, an impulse, or simply awareness itself.

 

I cannot find the self by pointing my finger at any physical or mental trait and saying: “Yes, that’s me.” For such traits come and go, whereas the sense of “I” remains constant. But neither can I put my finger on something other than these traits that —however ephemeral and contingent they may be—nonetheless define me.

 

The self may not be something, but neither is it nothing. It is simply ungraspable, unfindable. I am who I am not because of an essential self hidden away in the core of my being but because of the unprecedented and unrepeatable matrix of conditions that have formed me. The more I delve into this mystery of who I am (or what anything is), the more I just keep going. There is no end to it, only an infinite trajectory that avoids falling into the extremes of being and nonbeing. This trajectory is not only the center, which is free from this duality, but the central path itself.

 

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Dr. David Loy, a western-trained philosopher and qualified zen teacher in the Sanbo Kyodan lineage of Zen Buddhism, is also one of the most original thinkers in contemporary Buddhism. Loy has made it clear that egocentric consciousness finds it very difficult to conceptualize non-egocentric consciousness, a task similar to a hand grasping itself or an eye seeing itself.

 

I want to stitch together Batchelor’s characterization of the self as the emptiness of the pot to Loy’s account of what emerges from that emptiness.

 

Literally, nirvana means something like “blown out” – but what exactly is it that is blown out? The answer is sometimes expressed nihilistically: there is no more dukkha (suffering) because the self is blown out, which means an arhat’s death is extinction, without the dukkha of any future rebirth. More often, nirvana has been understood as some type of transcendental salvation: an enlightened person attains or realizes some higher reality. Both of these interpretations seem incompatible with what the Buddha himself emphasized: there can be no extinction of the self because there never was a self to be extinguished, and there can be no salvation for the self because there never was a self to be saved.

 

Perhaps the meaning of “blown out” is better understood in terms of what has already been said about our sense of lack, the “black hole” at the core of our being. The Third Noble Truth reassures us that something can happen to our black hole, that we are not fated to forever trying to fill a bottomless pit. Although we cannot get rid of the hollowness at our core, we can experience it differently.

 

It turns out that our hollowness is not so awful after all; it is not something that needs to be filled up. We cannot make our selves real in the ways we have been trying – the bottomless pit swallows up all our efforts – but we can realize something about the nature of the hole that frees us from trying to fill it up. We d not need to make ourselves real, because we have always been real. I do not need to ground myself, because I have always been grounded: not, however, as a separate, skin-encapsulated ego somewhere behind my eyes or between my ears and looking out at the world – for there has never been such a self. Rather, the bottomless, festering black hole can transform into a fountain and become a refreshing spring gushing up at the core of my being. The bottomlessness of this spring means something quite different than before. Now it refers to the fact that I can never understand the source of this spring, for the simple reason that I am this spring. It is nothing other than my true nature. And my inability to reflexively grasp that source, to ground and realize myself by filling up that hole, is no longer a problem, because there is no need to grasp it. The point is to live the spring, to let my fountain gush forth. My thirst (the Second Noble Truth) is “blown out” because a letting go at the core of my being means my sense of lack evaporates as this fountain springs up.

 

There is a problem, however, with this metaphor: the image of a fountain at our core is still dualistic. Our core, our formless ground, seems to become even more separate from the world “outside.” The actual experience is just the opposite, because the duality between inside and outside disappears when “I” do not need to try to ground myself by grasping at some phenomenon in the world. Of course there are still thoughts, feelings, and so forth, yet they are not the attributes of a self “inside.” The fountain gushes forth as the spontaneity of words and acts – not so much as “my” spontaneity as a characteristic of the world of which my particular fountain is an inseparable part.

 

From Loy, The great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory

 

 

 

Tai Po - I haven't acquired full control of my right little finger since my surgery, hence a lot of Tai Po.

Edited May 12, 2011 by Blasto

[manitou]

Wow, blasto - that was incredible.

 

I don't know why, but throughout the reading of your words, I kept remembering that I am a conglomeration of everyone I've ever known, I think. Sometimes something will come out of my mouth, and it'll surprise me - not said as something in my heart, but rather something an old police partner of mine would have said - and with the same inflection, the same attitude. This awareness comes to me often. It's like I'm a patchwork of others.

 

I've never quite understood the bantering back and forth between Buddhist thought and Taoist thought. From my perspective, it all goes to the same place (or non-place) and it's an individual hosting of any mindset, whether Buddhist or Taoist, that brings us to the Oneness inside of us. Personally, I shoot for lack of structure in any mindset. It just seems that the arguments we've had on TTB's about this merely goes to form, not essence. The essence is there for all.

[Jetsun]

Thanks Blasto that made clear a lot of stuff for me, I especially like this part:

 

 

The self may not be something, but neither is it nothing. It is simply ungraspable, unfindable. I am who I am not because of an essential self hidden away in the core of my being but because of the unprecedented and unrepeatable matrix of conditions that have formed me. The more I delve into this mystery of who I am (or what anything is), the more I just keep going. There is no end to it, only an infinite trajectory that avoids falling into the extremes of being and nonbeing. This trajectory is not only the center, which is free from this duality, but the central path itself.

 

 

As completely negating the self is something I see quite a fair few fair Buddhists and new age people get into, but it is a trap I think one which I fell into for some time and can lead you to nihilism.

[Otis]

Good stuff, Scott!

 

I think the stumbling block sometimes is an unwillingness to say: "I am my ego".

 

Instead, we want this rhetorical ego to be taken away from us, so that "I" can now live in Nirvana. But it is precisely "I" which is the source of anguish. Nor will changing my beliefs free me, because it is precisely the process of believing that imprisons me, not just the beliefs themselves.

 

Not that the "I" can be cut out, either, of course. How would "I" cut "I" out? I can only stop. Stop taking my self seriously, stop believing that I see truth, stop trying to be in control, stop making plans and decisions, stop using will, stop, stop, stop.

 

And trust that "I" am only the smaller part, a cluster of functions that has tried to be a homunculus in my own brain, has tried to be a puppeteer of my own body, that has tried to imagine my way out of my own situation. Trust that the full self, the body in which I am contained (but which I cannot truly know), is wiser than "I" am (because it contains me as well as the rest of it). It can use all of this processing power a great deal more powerfully and efficiently than I ever could, so it's time for me to relax, and stop trying so damn hard.

Edited May 12, 2011 by Otis

[Otis]

Sometimes something will come out of my mouth, and it'll surprise me - not said as something in my heart, but rather something an old police partner of mine would have said - and with the same inflection, the same attitude. This awareness comes to me often. It's like I'm a patchwork of others.

Wild, isn't it? These sticky encodes, these memes that have wormed their way into my brain, to come out later on, as if they were "me"?

 

Why do we find ourselves saying the same thing to our kids that our parents said to us? Not because it's reasonable or true, but because it's what's there. It's been recorded in our brains as some variation of "truth", as part of our "this is what parents say" and so it just comes out.

 

Or for example, "that's what she said" or other culture-wide jokes. Talk about a sticky meme, that became part of the integral social self of many many people.

[manitou]

Thanks Blasto that made clear a lot of stuff for me, I especially like this part:

 

 

 

As completely negating the self is something I see quite a fair few fair Buddhists and new age people get into, but it is a trap I think one which I fell into for some time and can lead you to nihilism.

 

That's why I love the fact that one of the Sage's 3 treasures is Love.

[Encephalon]

Thanks Blasto that made clear a lot of stuff for me, I especially like this part:

 

 

 

As completely negating the self is something I see quite a fair few fair Buddhists and new age people get into, but it is a trap I think one which I fell into for some time and can lead you to nihilism.

 

It's not easy asking the ego to imagine itself out of existence in order for some unfamiliar construct of an identity to come it and occupy that space. I'm just grateful for Loy and Batchelor, two western scholars who actually did the real work of deep infusion in the eastern traditions who have shared their insights with a western audience. We in the west need these people to guide us in this cross cultural path.

[doc benway]

You're on a roll Scott!

Good stuff.

I agree with you Maitou, so much foolish arguing about ideologies.

All ideologies are wrong. The ideology is never more than an incomplete approximation of reality, biased by cultural, geographical, and sociological idioms. Nothing more than human thoughts trying to capture something beyond it. Thought is limited and needs to learn to yield to awareness.

[xabir2005]

I cannot find the self by pointing my finger at any physical or mental trait and saying: “Yes, that’s me.” For such traits come and go, whereas the sense of “I” remains constant. But neither can I put my finger on something other than these traits that —however ephemeral and contingent they may be—nonetheless define me.

Traits are not me, not mine. If they were me, if they were mine, I can say "I don't want this trait, I want that trait"... you can choose and control. But nope, traits arise due to conditions, they are not me, not mine.

 

As for 'define me', they are merely that - convenient definitions and labels but do not point to an actual findable thing.

 

See http://www.aimwell.org/Books/Suttas/Anattalakkhana/anattalakkhana.html

The self may not be something, but neither is it nothing. It is simply ungraspable, unfindable.

Yes, it's unfindability and ungraspability points to its emptiness.

 

Just like the word 'weather' cannot be located as an entity anywhere but is a mere label collating a conglomerate of weatherly phenomena such as wind, clouds, rain, snow, ever changing moment to moment.

 

No such actual thing as a 'weather' can be located anywhere - it is a mere label collating various ever-changing phenomena.

 

You can't say 'weather does not exist' or 'weather exist' - both do not apply to something that cannot be found and yet is referring to a conglomerate of undeniably appearing phenomena. Those phenomena do not exist in and of themselves, but arise in dependence on other phenomena.

 

This applies to 'self' as well.

Edited May 13, 2011 by xabir2005

[Birch]

[Encephalon]

I liked this one Mr Blasto. I wanted to mention the "black hole". It's the thing we're told "love" can fill. And so we (I?) go off searching for this "love". Mostly (I think) by trying to get it from other people or trying to do stuff to forget we have it.

 

I think have we have to be very careful of the definitions we assign to the terms we use. Loy's entire model governing the 'black hole' is not used in the sense that you are defining it, so a couple of problems arise.Do we assume that other people do NOT have the black hole as well? Or that we can fill it by forgetting it?

 

I was thinking of this and I figured, if "everyone" has the black hole then they can't give me anything to fill mine. There is no "love" - or anything else for that matter outside a person that will do away with the black hole within.

 

I think that by telling people that they will find it outside of themselves by pleasing others (which is insane IMO) or shopping to forget (or any number of alternatives) or by forgetting and forsaking themselves as many traditions suggest is not only misleading, but kind of cruel.

 

Welcome to the world of global consumerism, or what some call globalization, or what Loy calls the world's first global religion, insofar as consumer culture has been elevated to a religious function, with its host of 'sacraments' - shopping, spectacle, entertainment, sex, drugs, power... anything that can be used to fill that black hole.A person who has not discovered the beauty of themselves should not IMO be made to renounce themselves :-)

 

You're right, this is a critical point; we need an ego strong enough to be able to work on behalf of the rest of us. By far the best suggestion I've found in a while is changing your perspective on the black hole. Making friends with it. Loving it even. "Fountain" sounds nicer too.

 

The fountain analogy precipitated a small epiphany for me. If you want to dig more deeply into this I would highly recommend "Money Sex War Karma" by Loy. It's a lighter version of his earlier masterpieces that explains how our secular institutions of the modern world fill our hole with all manner of distractions.

 

good catches there, K!

 

 

PS - edited for failure to denote difference between K's dialogue and my own (in bold).

Edited May 14, 2011 by Blasto

[C T]

Hi Scott,

 

You might find these two articles quite capable of furthering the deconstruction of the 'self', in a relative sort of way -

 

http://archive.thebuddhadharma.com/issues/2009/summer/noself.php

http://bodhi.sofiatopia.org/skandhas.htm

 

 

Your 'angry Buddhist' pal,

CT

[Encephalon]

Hi Scott,

 

You might find these two articles quite capable of furthering the deconstruction of the 'self', in a relative sort of way -

 

http://archive.thebuddhadharma.com/issues/2009/summer/noself.php

http://bodhi.sofiatopia.org/skandhas.htm

 

 

Your 'angry Buddhist' pal,

CT

 

Thanks for that, you Irish meanie.

[Aaron]

Hello Blasto,

 

Fist, I enjoyed this article. I have also decided that it is hypocritical of me to advocate love, compassion, and tolerance, and yet not be willing to listen to what you have to say, when clearly you have a great deal to say that is relevant and meaningful.

 

I wanted to address some things that came to mind while I was reading this article that I think might be interesting to pursue in relations to the self, especially since I think this is where the self discussion is going to continue.

 

My first thought is about the origination of self. I understand that Buddhists and Taoists tend to believe that we originated from nothing and that we never fully understand that nothingness, emptiness, void, or whatever you choose to call it. My question stems from biology though, the origination of ourselves as infants within the womb.

 

From my limited knowledge of biology, my assumption is that we begin with the meeting of sperm and egg, and that from this we are born inside the mother. No one can remember back to this moment, at least as far as I know, so what I can take from this is that we are not truly the self we know now when we are first created, but rather that self comes later and essentially grows within the womb. Even after we are born we do not remember these first few years and this this is perplexing to me, since anyone that watches an infant clearly sees them as a person, their personality and essentially who they are is evident from the moment they leave the womb and join the rest of the world.

 

The second point I want to make is that every infant requires a few things to grow up into a relatively healthy adult early in their lives, the first two years to be exact. The most important being love and compassion. If a child is not able to bond with their mother, they will never be able to bond in a healthy way with anyone else for the rest of their lives. This tells me that the self, this aspect that we choose to see as an illusion, may in fact be quite real. The reasoning being simply that if you take an adult that hasn't properly bonded with their mother and try to explain anything that you just have, they will come away from the discussion completely perplexed and indifferent, in fact they may not even see the need for the discussion in the first place.

 

So from that I ask the question, if we cannot even remember these first moments, the moments when we are held and loved and cared for, yet they play such an important part in the nature of our existence, the way we view ourselves, what does that ultimately say about the idea that we do not exist, that the self is an illusion and that simply seeing through this illusion will allow us to accept the world as it is? If someone who suffered from severe neglect is unable to experience this, then can it honestly be said to be true? Isn't it worth exploring the idea that the mere ability to examine self requires that we must first become healthy selves?

 

In an even broader sense, it's not the fact that we are unable to examine the self that limits this ability, but rather the ability to bond with other selves, to view other selves as being worthy of our attention, to have a good sense of our relation with the whole. It is only when we can do this that we ultimately see the worth of being free of anguish, because it is the knowledge of suffering that urges us to be free from suffering. One might say that one who has not bonded properly is perpetually suffering, hence the inability to understand or acknowledge the importance of being free of it.

 

I know I'm going on, but I have a point that I want to clarify. This seems to me to be an indication that, even though we come from nothing, we are not nothing and that is ultimately the reason why we cannot escape ourselves, even after understanding the illusion of self, that at our base we are intricately connected to our body and the way our minds develop through contact with others. In fact the conditioning that we decry is in fact necessary and needed, in order for us to truly evolve into beings that can see the ultimate need to escape self. If it is just an illusion one could say that we could simply put a child in a box with a water and food and they would develop as they should, but that's not what happens and any sane person would be completely horrified by that idea.

 

My belief that self is real and concrete stems from our intimate need to bond with others, and I believe that the Buddha also saw this need ultimately, especially when it comes down to the eightfold path. It is through compassion that one becomes closer to others and it is only through compassion that one can ultimately understand the true nature of suffering and the true need to end that suffering. Hence the paradox seems to be, that only in becoming closer to others, do we ultimately understand the need to detach from others.

 

Even more important, if the self is not completely defined in infancy, if it is only our interaction with the world that helps that to become defined, is it safe to say that the self may not be the product of the void, but rather the product of something that originally came from that void, that the conscious human being we are grows within us? If so where does that put us?

 

Anyways, I'm not sure where else to go with that, but I thought it was worth pointing out.

 

Aaron

Edited May 14, 2011 by Twinner

[Encephalon]

Hello Blasto,

 

Fist, I enjoyed this article. I have also decided that it is hypocritical of me to advocate love, compassion, and tolerance, and yet not be willing to listen to what you have to say, when clearly you have a great deal to say that is relevant and meaningful.

 

Well, to be sure, its not me. I am merely passing along a message from a couple of authors I depend on for clarity.

 

I wanted to address some things that came to mind while I was reading this article that I think might be interesting to pursue in relations to the self, especially since I think this is where the self discussion is going to continue.

 

My first thought is about the origination of self. I understand that Buddhists and Taoists tend to believe that we originated from nothing and that we never fully understand that nothingness, emptiness, void, or whatever you choose to call it.

 

It's a difficult concept to grasp because our ego doesnt much appreciate the experience of egolessness, which is why the delusion of separateness is more or less our default awareness, punctuated, if we are lucky, by brief glimpses of connectedness, unity, and deep empathy for and identification with the rest of creation. Our identity expands to include an ever-widening net of life on earth. That we can allow this insight to drop anchor in our daily awareness, at least intellectually, and cultivate our behavior in accordance with this insight, is the work of a lifetime.

 

My question stems from biology though, the origination of ourselves as infants within the womb. From my limited knowledge of biology, my assumption is that we begin with the meeting of sperm and egg, and that from this we are born inside the mother. No one can remember back to this moment, at least as far as I know, so what I can take from this is that we are not truly the self we know now when we are first created, but rather that self comes later and essentially grows within the womb. Even after we are born we do not remember these first few years and this this is perplexing to me, since anyone that watches an infant clearly sees them as a person, their personality and essentially who they are is evident from the moment they leave the womb and join the rest of the world.

 

My expectant wife had the gall to recommend that I take time out from my regular reading program and dive into Whats Going On in There?: How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life by Lise Eliot, Ph.D, a mother herself and a professor of neuroscience. It generally conflicts with what youve proposed in your preceding paragraph. Brain and mind, including personality, is not graven in stone upon birth but far more predicated on what happens outside the womb than we have originally believed. Please note that Im not trying to prove you wrong for the sake of making you feel inferior. This was news to me too.

 

The second point I want to make is that every infant requires a few things to grow up into a relatively healthy adult early in their lives, the first two years to be exact. The most important being love and compassion. If a child is not able to bond with their mother, they will never be able to bond in a healthy way with anyone else for the rest of their lives. This tells me that the self, this aspect that we choose to see as an illusion, may in fact be quite real. The reasoning being simply that if you take an adult that hasn't properly bonded with their mother and try to explain anything that you just have, they will come away from the discussion completely perplexed and indifferent, in fact they may not even see the need for the discussion in the first place.

Aaron, it is not my intention to single you out here but equivocation is given full throttle, not only in this forum but everywhere. I dont want to beat a dead horse but assigning a term multiple definitions is a recipe for communicative failure. Im glad you liked what Loy and Batchelor have said about the nature of the self, but they are not claiming that human beings are void of personality, individuality, identity, or temperament. They are claiming that the self is impermanent, a product of ever-changing contingencies that the human being is exposed to in the phenomenal world and that dharma practice itself is about cleansing one's perception through meditation and moral conduct. This forms the entire crux of the article.

 

 

So from that I ask the question, if we cannot even remember these first moments, the moments when we are held and loved and cared for, yet they play such an important part in the nature of our existence, the way we view ourselves, what does that ultimately say about the idea that we do not exist, that the self is an illusion and that simply seeing through this illusion will allow us to accept the world as it is? If someone who suffered from severe neglect is unable to experience this, then can it honestly be said to be true? Isn't it worth exploring the idea that the mere ability to examine self requires that we must first become healthy selves?

 

This question has already been answered.

 

In an even broader sense, it's not the fact that we are unable to examine the self that limits this ability, but rather the ability to bond with other selves, to view other selves as being worthy of our attention, to have a good sense of our relation with the whole. It is only when we can do this that we ultimately see the worth of being free of anguish, because it is the knowledge of suffering that urges us to be free from suffering. One might say that one who has not bonded properly is perpetually suffering, hence the inability to understand or acknowledge the importance of being free of it.

 

Sorry, Aaron, but I cant explicate that paragraph. I concur that bonding is essential, but I think your other points are predicated on this difficult subject of no-self, which I am beginning to think may be best defined herein as egolessness.

 

I know I'm going on, but I have a point that I want to clarify. This seems to me to be an indication that, even though we come from nothing, we are not nothing and that is ultimately the reason why we cannot escape ourselves, even after understanding the illusion of self, that at our base we are intricately connected to our body and the way our minds develop through contact with others. In fact the conditioning that we decry is in fact necessary and needed, in order for us to truly evolve into beings that can see the ultimate need to escape self. If it is just an illusion one could say that we could simply put a child in a box with a water and food and they would develop as they should, but that's not what happens and any sane person would be completely horrified by that idea.

 

Thats true. We must have a healthy ego before we learn how to make it work on our behalf.

 

In order to tame the ego, My belief that self is real and concrete stems from our intimate need to bond with others, and I believe that the Buddha also saw this need ultimately, especially when it comes down to the eightfold path. It is through compassion that one becomes closer to others and it is only through compassion that one can ultimately understand the true nature of suffering and the true need to end that suffering. Hence the paradox seems to be, that only in becoming closer to others, do we ultimately understand the need to detach from others.

 

Im with you up right up until you place an emphasis on detachment from others. I dont understand that point.

 

Even more important, if the self is not completely defined in infancy, if it is only our interaction with the world that helps that to become defined, is it safe to say that the self may not be the product of the void, but rather the product of something that originally came from that void, that the conscious human being we are grows within us? If so where does that put us?

 

I think this paragraph is also predicated on assumptions that may not hold.

 

Anyways, I'm not sure where else to go with that, but I thought it was worth pointing out.

 

I think it natural that we should need to reconceptualize our identity in the face of the radical proposition that our self is not the concrete, separate, and isolated phenomenon that the west has treated as fact since the beginning. We rightly demand to see a compelling vision of what we are in the absence of all that we call I. That seems fair enough.

 

I think Dogen, a zen master born in 1200 AD. comes close.

 

I came to realize clearly that mind is no other than mountains and rivers and the great wide earth, the sun and the moon and the stars.

 

He also writes -

 

To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.

 

Or, to use a Ken Wilber term, we are holons, both wholes and parts occupying a point in an infinite chain extending in both directions.

 

Ive found Joanna Macy the most helpful in helping me wrap my mind around the intimate psychological experience of this no-self. But thats for another post.

Edited May 14, 2011 by Blasto

[TzuJanLi]

Greetings..

 

Thank you, Scott.. that is an excellent presentation, and i appreciate that the two perspectives are equally contrasting and complimentary toward the same understanding.. i hope we can enjoy a difference of perspective that has potential for understanding.. as time permits, i will put words down that expresses my understanding of 'self', in hopes we might ponder the uselessness of obstructing clarity with notions not relevant to the direct experience..

 

Be well..

 

PS: I am curious, is your handle a reference to XingYi?

[Aaron]

Hello Blasto,

 

I'm not offended by your post. I still don't think that there is any such thing as no-self, but that's only because I find no scientific or logical evidence to prove that it exists. I understand the philosophy that is behind it, but I still find it lacking in proof as well. I understand that many people have claimed enlightenment, but I've yet to see anything that proves they are such, either in action or metaphysical phenomena. In the same way I understand what people are talking about in reference to Samadhi and the deconstruction of self, but I have yet to see anything that's been proven.

 

I've been told that I need to practice it in order to experience it, but I liken that to the same thing the preacher told me when I was leaving the church, "If you're wrong you're going to hell. Do you really want to take that chance?" My answer was, "I don't believe in hell, so that's not a good enough reason."

 

 

Aaron

[Encephalon]

Forget Buddhism then. If the notion of a socially constructed identity is simply to alien to grasp with the language of Buddhism then pick up any work on contemporary psychology that is pertinent to the subject. Looking for scientific or logical evidence of 'no-self' or egolessness is absurd so I have to agree that you haven't found the nonexistent evidence. Hard evidence of a socially constructed identity is there for anyone who wants to look. Whether we "believe" it or not is immaterial.

 

Have you done your own peer-reviewed independent research into the claims of enlightenment made by individuals? How would you even begin to quantify data? Are you even in a position to interpret the data? I'm certainly not.

 

To the best of my knowledge, acts in concert with the Tao, a total freedom from egolessness that allows us to manifest wu wei, is really where the "action" is. You're looking for proof of this? Good luck.

[Aaron]

Forget Buddhism then. If the notion of a socially constructed identity is simply to alien to grasp with the language of Buddhism then pick up any work on contemporary psychology that is pertinent to the subject. Looking for scientific or logical evidence of 'no-self' or egolessness is absurd so I have to agree that you haven't found the nonexistent evidence. Hard evidence of a socially constructed identity is there for anyone who wants to look. Whether we "believe" it or not is immaterial.

 

Have you done your own peer-reviewed independent research into the claims of enlightenment made by individuals? How would you even begin to quantify data? Are you even in a position to interpret the data? I'm certainly not.

 

To the best of my knowledge, acts in concert with the Tao, a total freedom from egolessness that allows us to manifest wu wei, is really where the "action" is. You're looking for proof of this? Good luck.

 

Hello Blasto,

 

I never argued that self wasn't socially constructed, I've read Joseph Cambell's Mythos, I understand the effect that culture plays on the ego and unconscious. My argument is that it's a necessary construct, that it's a natural part of our nature to develop these constructs. (Also, even with this said, I think we can both agree that at least a small part of our personality is dictated by our DNA.)

 

From my understanding acting in concert with the Tao does not require ego-less-ness, but rather that one act in concert with the Tao. Wu Wei may manifest from this, but so does Te, or high virtue. My argument has always been that one does not need to be free from Ego, but rather return to their original nature in order to be able to manifest Te. Wu Wei, action without action, doesn't necessarily require a return to one's original nature, but rather an understanding of one's place within their environment. Once they understand this, then they can begin to act in concert with that environment and allow Wu Wei to manifest as it is supposed to.

 

As far as empirical evidence regarding enlightenment, it can't be proven, hence one should always take accounts with a grain of salt. If someone comes up to me and claims to be the messiah, I'm not going to believe them unless they can prove to me they are. Hence enlightenment in my opinion, is a classification of a state of knowledge and understanding, and not a quantifiable mystical or metaphysical experience.

 

You are right though, it doesn't really matter so much. My point is not that enlightenment can't be proven or disproven, but rather that no one should dictate what is required to achieve it or quantify it in the first place. In the end you have asked the most important question and I believe the one that should settle this argument once and for all, "how does one quantify enlightenment?" They can't, so in the end why is it so important to prove it? A lot of this has to do with faith.

 

Aaron

Edited May 15, 2011 by Twinner

[Birch]

" think have we have to be very careful of the definitions we assign to the terms we use. Loy's entire model governing the 'black hole' is not used in the sense that you are defining it, so a couple of problems arise."

 

What was Loy's model? And what are the couple of problems?

[Encephalon]

Hello Blasto,

 

I never argued that self wasn't socially constructed, I've read Joseph Cambell's Mythos, I understand the effect that culture plays on the ego and unconscious. My argument is that it's a necessary construct, that it's a natural part of our nature to develop these constructs. (Also, even with this said, I think we can both agree that at least a small part of our personality is dictated by our DNA.)

 

From my understanding acting in concert with the Tao does not require ego-less-ness, but rather that one act in concert with the Tao. Wu Wei may manifest from this, but so does Te, or high virtue. My argument has always been that one does not need to be free from Ego, but rather return to their original nature in order to be able to manifest Te. Wu Wei, action without action, doesn't necessarily require a return to one's original nature, but rather an understanding of one's place within their environment. Once they understand this, then they can begin to act in concert with that environment and allow Wu Wei to manifest as it is supposed to.

 

As far as empirical evidence regarding enlightenment, it can't be proven, hence one should always take accounts with a grain of salt. If someone comes up to me and claims to be the messiah, I'm not going to believe them unless they can prove to me they are. Hence enlightenment in my opinion, is a classification of a state of knowledge and understanding, and not a quantifiable mystical or metaphysical experience.

 

You are right though, it doesn't really matter so much. My point is not that enlightenment can't be proven or disproven, but rather that no one should dictate what is required to achieve it or quantify it in the first place. In the end you have asked the most important question and I believe the one that should settle this argument once and for all, "how does one quantify enlightenment?" They can't, so in the end why is it so important to prove it? A lot of this has to do with faith.

 

Aaron

 

That's the most satisfying exchange you and I have had. I am grateful. I think it's a great point you made that the socially constructed self is a natural process. And of course we are in agreement about the nature-nurture debate.

 

(Speaking tangentially about nature/nurture, there is a great point made on this subject by a physician up in Vancouver who works with hardcore drug addicts. His insights into the balance between Na v Nu and the role of upbringing is illuminating, almost like a modern Maslow who looks for negative criteria.

 

 

I have plenty to brush up on before I tease out specifics regarding how much ego is involved in wu-wei. I understand our ego can be harnessed for good and used conscientiously, but in those moments of intense spontaneity, such as resonding to physical attack, I believe Taoist treatises do cite egolessness as the desired end.

[3bob]

[Marblehead]

Edited May 15, 2011 by Marblehead

[Encephalon]

I loved this the first time I read it. Still do. I think it was this that allowed it to be easy for me to say "I don't know."

 

Yeah. There are few things I am truly definitive about.

[Marblehead]

Yeah. There are few things I am truly definitive about.

 

 

Oh!!!, my goodness!!!

 

There is no doubt about that!!!!