The Dream of the Self

In my last post I touched on the Five Aggregates. Body. Feeling. Thought. Perception. Consciousness. We have learned that we are a combination of sensations that rest upon the foundation of body, that incredible vessel which carries us so gracefully through our lives. Without body the other five aggregates would be impossible, wouldn’t they? We have learned that these five aggregates give us a sense of self—that which identifies the self.

Having said this, the ego/mind recoils at such objectivity!

And the ego/mind questions: there must be more to the self than this?!

There is. But it still relates to body/brain, ego/mind. When one has an experience, the brain immediately backloops to memory, which is a good thing. A child burns her hand on the stove. Throughout her life, whenever she experiences intense heat, her brain backloops to the moment of the first burn. She pulls away from the heat. It is the same with every moment of our lives. A husband and wife get into an argument and suddenly both of them backloop into memory about the all the OTHER times in the past that the other had caused such awful pain. And so it goes with all of the experiences of our lives. And through this flow of experience and backloop, our minds cast forward into the future, creating landscapes based on past experiences— memory backloop/cast forward future—the foundation of our behavior. And we come to believe in the self that we are, based on the foundation already described. So, our sense of self is body, feeling, thought, perception, consciousness—against the illusory backdrop of past, present, future, memory and belief.

But if we observe these processes closely, we see that they never last; that no matter how hard we try to cling to pleasure or escape our pain, it is always a span away, receding like the tide. Nothing stays the same. The self we were as young child is not the self we are now.

Where, then, does the inherent unchanging self reside?

No where.

All things change. All things in the relative world create a wave of Anxiety. Anxiety is the result of our Attachment to Permanence, within and without. We want things to last. We want to accept what is before our eyes— but nothing lasts. We are horrified by the idea that all things must come to an end and that we are not encased within an inherent, self-sustaining self. This thought sends us into an existential paroxysm of fear and dread, which, in turn, drives us in our pursuit of Self-Concern.

If you believe that you are an island, an unchanging, self-substantiating self, I challenge you to hold your breath. See how long it takes before you have to open your mouth and breathe; and breathing in air, you breathe in the earth, and when you breathe out, much to your surprise the earth breathes you out!

Where, then, is the self?

Look at the dandelion: a root that pushes through the ground, growing into a low self-contained green leaf; the stem rises and blossoms into a very sunbright yellow flower; the flower gives birth to an ephemeral cloud of seedlings; the wind blows and the seedlings scatter into the air and find a place to rest: earth, root, leaf, flower and seed. Where is the inherent nature of this plant? Is it earth, root, leaf, flower or seed? And so it goes with us.

Shunyata—pronounced Shun-ya-tah—is the Sanskrit word for emptiness. Shunyata is that which lacks an inherent existence, it is total freedom from the conceptualizing mind, it is openness, playfulness, the experience of dependent co-arising, the one in the many, the many in the one.

But you ask: I still feel the one over all else? Philosophically there is the equation of the relative versus the absolute. Relative: there is me; absolute: there is source of me.

Let’s alter our perspective somewhat, make a conceptual leap that hopefully will allow us to see things as they are. How about this: there is conventional truth and there is definitive truth. Conventional truth allows us the fact of the self, an inherent stable being, (which you and I, assuredly, would agree upon) but at the same time definitive truth tells us that we are a changing process that influences and merges with all other things of the earth (I breathe in the earth and the earth breaths me out). In other words, we are the self and we are the earth!

Shunyata, or emptiness, is the definitive truth that everything lacks an inherent existence.

Remember: I breathe in the earth and the earth breathes me out. In other words, you cannot have one without the other; duality and non-duality are opposite sides of a coin.

To see this process from an intellectual point of view is far easier than actualizing it in the physical experience of our lives, which, ultimately, is the key, if we had the leisure of living the life of a monk who meditates and contemplates at least ten hours a day over a ten year period. But for most of us this is impossible—perhaps absurd.

So, how can we—a busy, harried Western People—practice and actualize Shunyata?

Beautiful, poetic word: Shun-ya-tah! Emptiness and Fullness! Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form!

Whew! I don’t know about you, but it gives me the chills.

Earlier I spoke of concern for the self, which seems to create much of our despair—I have that which I don’t want, I want that which I don’t have. Self-concern is very much about a belief in the self-contained self. When we concentrate on this self, it excludes all else. In other words, all other objects outside of the self are a reference point to the self! It perpetuates the belief in the unchanging, inherent self. But there is a way out of this, a way in which we can practice No-Self and actualize the One in ourselves.

What is the way of No-Self? It is the way of Concern for Others.

The most, noble sage Shantideva, in his poem, The Way of the Bodhisattva, taught about Equalizing Self with Others and Exchanging Self for Others.

In Equalizing Self with Others, we see that our suffering is the same, whether physically or mentally, we share the five aggregates, the vehicle of our experience. Although our vexations can seem quite different, we can see that they come from the same root. Thus I heard the words of the Buddha: “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.”

In Exchanging Self for Others, we come to see that we are all the same being, regardless of gender, race, intelligence, emotion, condition of body, culture, social standing, wealth, poverty, success or failure. We are all a multitudinous expression of the One. Thus I heard the words of the Buddha: “When the world dissolves everything becomes clear.”

There are three very good books (which have heavily influenced this post) I suggest reading if you are interested in going into more detail on the subject.
Embracing the Mind by B. Allan Wallace
Alone With Others by Stephen Batchelor
The Way of the Bodhisattva by Shantideva (Padmakara Translation Group)