by Greg Goode
The self may also seem to be the subject. It seems to be that which feels, perceives and experiences. Take a moment and try to feel how your body presses gently against the surface on which it rests. Do you get a sense of how it seems that it is truly you who feels these sensations?
The self may also seem to be the owner of our body, thoughts and feelings. The self seems to own the feelings; the feelings don’t seem to own the self. Can you get a sense of the asymmetry in this relationship, how it feels that ownership seems to go one way and not the other? The self-as-owner feels like it exists prior to the owned experiences, and independently of them.
The self may also seem to have a character and personality. There is a “true” character. Think of the times you might have said, “That’s me; that’s the way I am.” You might have been talking about being an introvert or extrovert, patient, impatient, loving and so forth. It usually seems that the personality feels fixed and constant across situations.
Let’s summarize what we may have found out about our sense of self through introspection. The self we believe exists can be:
the core of our identity
enduring, permanent
unique and unrepeatable
single and unified
substantive and intense
the actor, chooser, doer
the subject, a central location
the owner
possessor of a personality
Can you add anything else to this list? Something that comes up in your own experience?
No Such Self Exists
In the rest of the chapter, we explore the radical suggestion that no such self exists. Specifically, we will show how these attributes do not constitute an independent self the way we may think they do. We will investigate the arguments proposing that the idea that such a self exists is a full blown illusion, perhaps the greatest and most consequential illusion human beings have ever succumbed to.
What’s the Problem with Selves Anyway?
Why is it important whether there is really a self? According to the emptiness teachings, the self doesn’t exist, but our conception of it does exist. It is the conception of self – a complex of thoughts and feelings and other experiences – that causes discontent. We really feel as though the self exists. In fact, we might even feel that there must be a true self in order to serve as the basis for thinking, feeling and action.
When we have the conception of self, then we also have a pronounced sense of “me” (what I am) and “mine” (what belongs to me). This means trouble. A pronounced sense of me-ness is paradoxical. We feel that the self ought to be solid, fixed and permanent. But what happens is that the more strongly we insist on that kind of self, the more we feel fragile and vulnerable. This self of ours seems to need defense and protection. It also leads to an exaggerated clinging to what we think is good for us, and an exaggerated aversion to what we think is not good for us.
When we have a strong sense of “mine,” we can be strongly attached to these things, whatever they are. They might include anything, from bits of candy all the way to life itself. Being attached to these things leads to suffering.
Attachment and aversion do not let things come and go in a way that is natural. The brand new car will collect some scratches. A relationship that was perfect in spring goes sour in fall. According to Buddhism, impermanence is the nature of phenomena in the world and it is thus not wise to be overly attached to things, as they will surely end. If we’re attached to the pristine car or a perfect relationship, we will suffer when something happens to them. If we’re attached to the good things in our lives, we want them to last forever. This puts us at odds with reality.
There is another problem with being attached. Let’s say that I’m attached to literal possessions, such as a diamond ring, or seeing my name in golden letters on Broadway. If I do not yet have these things, then I’ll feel anxious and nervous, thinking that I must attain them. And if I do have them, I’ll feel anxious not to lose them.
Having an attached, exaggerated sense of self also hardens my identity and creates walls between myself and other people. This makes it harder for me to love, and harder to be loved. It makes me more vulnerable to alienation from others, and from the world. A strong attachment to self is a form of self-centeredness. I evaluate people and situations in terms of what’s in it for me. Other people come to be treated as means to my ends. I develop a narrow tunnel vision of the world that excludes most things that don’t immediately advance my interests.
The emptiness teachings distinguish between the sense of self, which exists, and the self, which doesn’t exist. By refuting the self, which never existed in the first place, we realize that the notions of me and mine can’t get off the ground. These notions, and the attachments and aversions that go along with them, become lighter and more insubstantial the more we realize the emptiness of the self.
One of the most important Buddhist insights into the human condition is that there is a bi-directional relationship between self and suffering. They wax and wane together. That is the Buddhist explanation of how seeing through the illusion of the self will end your suffering.
Does this overall analysis of suffering ring true for you? Many people will agree that self-centeredness and strong attachment tend to trigger compulsive, rigid behavior. These feelings and behaviors reduce well-being, both for the person caught up in them and for the people in the surrounding area. Let’s now take a closer look at our own experience.
Meditation – The Link Between Self and Suffering
Take a few moments and identify a situation in your life in which you suffered. What happened? Re-live the experience in your mind. Now look into how you experienced your self at that time. Was the self thick and solid? Or was it light and in the background?
For many, this meditation will shed some insight into how suffering comes with a sense of a self.
Now let’s look at some existential suffering that comes with realizing that your self is going to die.
Meditation – The Fear of Death
Take a few moments to bring your sense of inherent self to mind. This would be the self that is the experiencer of your life and the owner of your hopes, dreams and aspirations. Now consider that at some point in the future this self will die. You will no longer be there. How does that make you feel?
If you’re like most people, then confronting the certain reality of your eventual death creates fear and perhaps even a sense of despair.
Now imagine yourself differently. Imagine yourself not as a solid, substantive self, but as a bundle of feelings, thoughts and perceptions, of all the little pieces that arise within your inner life. Take a few moments and imagine yourself in that way.
Physical death will still occur, but all it means is that this symphony, a distributive process of sorts, is going to end. No unique, solid self is going to die here. Does this fill you with the same sense of discomfort? Look into this and see if there is a difference.
The Bundle View of the Self
The view of the self as a bundle of characteristics has commonalities in both Buddhism and Western philosophy. If you found that the “bundle view” of the self can lessen the existential fear of death, even a little bit, then you are tasting the truly profound impact that changing your conception and experience of self can have.
Sometimes we might have philosophical or ideological objections to such a notion of the self. We might think that there needs to be something extra, something in addition to this collection of phenomena that binds them all together into a coherent whole. But is there really such a need?
Remember the analogy of a university (in an example from Gilbert Ryle) that we explored in the Introduction? To recap: imagine that you are a foreign student visiting Oxford University for the first time. You are taken on a taxi tour around all the buildings and colleges of Oxford University. After a while you ask your guide, “OK, now can you show me the university?” Of course, there is nothing to Oxford University o
ther than its buildings, quads, fields and other structures.
So perhaps the self can be seen in a similar way. Maybe there doesn’t need to be an additional entity called the “self” that exists in addition to the hustle and bustle of mental and physical phenomena.
We hope that these meditations made it clear that there can be a significant downside to having a solid self. It is not necessary that you agree with every detail of these analyses in order for the deconstruction in the rest of this chapter to be able to work. The bundle view is only one of many possibilities of experiencing our self in ways that do not carry a fixed, inherent essence.
Methods of Deconstructing the Self
Our strategy is to take a number of good arguments against a substantial self and bring them close to home. These arguments will be used in the following way. First, we locate our own sense of self and bring it front and center. We know how to do this now. While this sense of the inherently existent self is tangible, we then look at an argument that will try to pinpoint this self that we feel is there. We will look in detailed, exhaustive ways, and we will not find such a self. If we have confidence that that argument has covered all the options it sets for itself, then we will see that there are no loopholes, and that such a self cannot be found. This non-finding is the realization of the emptiness of the self.
You will notice a stronger and clearer insight, the more you do these meditations. With repeated sincere application, they’ll gradually poke more and more holes into your beliefs, and you will gain certainty that the solid, independent self you thought you had is not to be found in reality.
Once you understand the overall emptiness method (and we’re confident that you will after working with this book), you can take the next well-argued Sunday supplement-style article on the non-existence of the self and apply it in this way. Clarify what is being refuted, connect with it experientially, then go through the reasonings and refutations. And of course, this overall method works for any phenomenon you examine, not just the self.
Now that we have a clear idea about the self we will be refuting, we can move on to the next step, the actual deconstruction.
Meditation – Finding the Self in Experience (I)
Take a moment and look into your own experience of your self. Notice what you actually find. Can you find anything that you can name or identify that is truly your self?
David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, tried this and failed. Here is the famous description of his experiment.
For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.
Hume (2000)
So what Hume finds inside are perceptions, but none of them seems to be identical with a self nor do they seem to be a perception of the self. Hume was looking for a single continuous impression within his experience that would correspond to an enduring, permanent self. But, he concludes, “there is no impression constant and invariable.”
Whatever he finds is always already intertwined with something else, such as sense perceptions. But all these inner mental events are by nature fleeting. They come and go, often in an instant. None of them is an “I” or “mine.” There is nothing constant in our inner experience. It is a flux of impermanent phenomena. We are refuting our conception of a stable, inherently existing self by realizing that it cannot be found anywhere. This is the realization of the emptiness of the self.
The “I” is never part of an experience, but a story we tell ourselves about that experience.
Now there are plenty of animals which are believed to have conscious experience but not a self. This shows us that there can be a working model of experience that doesn’t require a self. And here is a reversal you will encounter many more times when studying the self: where there does seem to be a self, the self seems to be privileged and primary. It seems to be necessary to explain something like visual experience. But this is backwards. Vision is already present, and the self is more like an evolutionary add-on – an explanatory afterthought.
Meditation – Finding the Self in Experience (II)
In this meditation, we will look for the same thing for which Hume was looking, but in an even more detailed way.
Start out by bringing a sense of your inherent self to mind. If you need to, imagine being criticized or wrongfully accused. That should make the sense of self more vivid. Try to get a sense of a self that remains the same through different life changes. That is, try to find a self that serves as the basis for growth, aging, sickness and health. It still seems to be the real you. It was you when you were a child, it was you just five minutes ago, and it is you now. Only the attributes change. Try to focus on this permanent, essence-like sense of self.
Reflect on the various pieces, parts and processes that seem to come and go. Western psychology and physiology speak of thoughts, sensations, perceptions, beliefs, emotions, hopes, wishes, fears, expectations, memories, judgements, guesses, intuitions, values, ideals, the senses of good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant, and perhaps clairvoyant senses. There are also parts of the body, such as arms, legs, hands, feet, torso, head, neck, face, brain, bone, blood, muscle, internal organs, genitalia, skin, hair and nails.
Now that you have a sense of the permanent self in mind, take a few moments and try to actually find that permanent self among the categories of experience. To look in a very detailed, close-focus way, first look at each item individually and check for the presence of the self. And then look at all the items together and check for the presence of the self. You may have a sort of psychoanalytic picture of the mind, according to which experiences can reside in various parts of the mind, including conscious, subconscious and unconscious parts. Add these parts to the list below, as seems appropriate. So our list of categories of experience may include:
thoughts, sensations, perceptions
beliefs, guesses, judgments
loving feelings, feelings of dislike, and neutral feelings
desires, aversions
decisions, choices, free will
emotions, hopes, wishes, fears
expectations
memories
your narrative about yourself
values, ideals
the senses of good and bad
the senses of pleasant and unpleasant
the waking state
intuitions and esthetic impressions
perhaps clairvoyant senses such as dreams, subtle intuitive states and trances
meditative states such as realizations and samadhis
anything else you can add to this list of experiences
Now, as these things come and go and let themselves be observed, do you find any one of them that is the self?
Most likely, your results will be like Hume’s. You will identify lots of passing bits of experience, but won’t be able to find the self among them.
If you think that you have actually found the self among your experiences, then ask these questions:
Which bit of experience is it?
When this bit of experience comes and goes, does the self come and go along with it? If the self truly is that experience, then they should come and go together. There are two possibilities here:
(a) If the self you seem to have found remains present and does not come and go with that experience, then that experience cannot be the self. They are different, because at some times the self seems to be there even though that bit of experience is not there. In this case, the self you have “found” has not been found in your experience and doesn’t really have anything to do with your experience. So in what sense can it really count as your self?
(b) If the self you seem to have found does come and go along with that bit of experience, then you have not found the permanent, inherently existent self that was your target of refutation.
&nb
sp; In either case, you have not found the inherently existent self to which your conception of self seems to refer.
If you don’t feel confident that your meditation has covered all the possibilities, then try to add more aspects of experience until you feel sure that you have not left anything out. In order to realize the emptiness of the self, you need to be able to look in every place or aspect of experience, and not find the self there.
On the other hand, if you do have confidence that you have all the possibilities accounted for, and still haven’t found the self, then you have realized the emptiness of the self!
Meditation – Finding the Self in the Parts of the Body
This meditation is similar to the one above. The main difference is that in this case you are not trying to find the self among the experiences, but among the pieces and parts that make up the body.
Take a few minutes to come up with a list of the parts of the body. The list should be one that categorizes the parts in a way that you find meaningful and complete. Here is a list that you can start with. Feel free to add to it or change it as you please:
arms, legs, hands, feet
torso, trunk, hips, genitalia
neck, head, face
brain, cranium, central nervous system
bone, blood, muscle
heart, lungs, other organs
skin, hair, nails
breathing, the circulation of blood and other fluids
molecules, atoms and other particles
gross or subtle energies
anything else you can add to this list of parts
Feel free to add any items to this list that you feel might be candidates for the self, or that might house the self.
Now once again, bring up the sense of the inherently existing self that you had identified earlier. This solid and substantial sense might seem easier to get hold of if you imagine being wrongfully accused of something. In the following meditation, we will try to find the self that this sense refers to. If the inherently existing self is truly there, then you should be able to find it somewhere in relation to all these parts.