The problem of self
29/January/2010 06:31 PM Filed in: not-self
How do we use the concept of “self” (attā)? Broadly
speaking, in two ways. The first is conventional,
when we refer to ourselves in a normal, everyday way
— “I went shopping today …;” “I don’t like the smell
of fish.” All this is obviously empirical. The word
“I” points to my sense of personal unity, bounded by
this body. “That wasn’t me — I was at home at the
time!”
The second is when we refer to something much more mysterious — the unseen entity at the core of our being. This entity is mysterious because it is not empirical. Unlike the body I identify with, we never see it. It remains hidden beneath the various ways in which I express my personal nature. Sometimes I am happy, sometimes sad; sometimes good, sometimes bad; sometimes I like this, sometimes I don’t. While I retain a sense of personal unity throughout these changes, I cannot pinpoint the one who undergoes these changes — the one who is sometimes good, sometimes bad. This one — the “metaphysical” rather than “empirical” self — remains hidden. It’s more an inference than an experience. My empirical self refers to something reassuringly physical — the one typing (or reading) these words. But my metaphysical self is only a concept. It has no more reality than that.
The second is when we refer to something much more mysterious — the unseen entity at the core of our being. This entity is mysterious because it is not empirical. Unlike the body I identify with, we never see it. It remains hidden beneath the various ways in which I express my personal nature. Sometimes I am happy, sometimes sad; sometimes good, sometimes bad; sometimes I like this, sometimes I don’t. While I retain a sense of personal unity throughout these changes, I cannot pinpoint the one who undergoes these changes — the one who is sometimes good, sometimes bad. This one — the “metaphysical” rather than “empirical” self — remains hidden. It’s more an inference than an experience. My empirical self refers to something reassuringly physical — the one typing (or reading) these words. But my metaphysical self is only a concept. It has no more reality than that.
My ordinary sense of myself — the one I see looking
at me from a mirror — has a stability, a continuity,
a predictability. But it is also subject to change.
Like the weather, it is experienced as a pattern of
changing events, and like the weather, if the pattern
becomes wild, unbalanced, then things can get very
messy. Stability is important. But this is the
stability of a pattern, rather than of a unitary
thing, an entity. Any actual appearance of it — the
weather, now — reveals shifting, changing events. And
the closer we look, the more shifting and
unpredictable the events. I can be confident that
some months of the year will be warmer or cooler than
others, but I don’t know what the temperature will be
at 2.30 tomorrow afternoon.
The self is like this. My emotional patterns can be stable and predictable; in fact, if they are genuinely unpredictable, I and the people around me are probably in for a difficult time. But just as I don’t know what tomorrow’s temperature will be at 2.30 p.m., so I can’t tell what emotion will be colouring my sense of myself and my world at that time. And just as I can’t control tomorrow’s temperature, so I can’t control tomorrow’s emotion.
The concept of self, however, the metaphysical entity that has no physical existence, is different. This seems to defy change. This is “me,” now. When I remember the past, long ago, that was the same “me;” and when I anticipate far into the future, that will be the same “me.” The concept of self provides an imagined unchanging background against which the normal changes of self can be measured. It makes sense to say, “I was angry yesterday, but now I’m calm,” just as we say, “The weather was wet yesterday, but it’s dry today.” Certainly, yesterday rain fell; certainly, today the sun shines. But what is the “it” that is dry today and wet yesterday? — the ”it” that we call ”weather.” “It” does not exist — except as a concept. A useful concept, but still just a concept. Similarly, where is the “I” that was angry yesterday but calm today? “I” do not exist. There’s just calmness, as I sit and type these words. The “I” that travels through time is just a concept. A useful concept, but just a concept.
Useful it might be in everyday life, but the Buddha points out certain dangers that are inherent to the concept of self. For starters, it is shrouded in darkness, in delusion (avijjā). We never actually experience this self, for whatever we experience is not — cannot be — ourself. Consider this: “Looking out my window, I see the lawn.” Is the lawn me? No, it can’t be, because I’m the one looking at it. “I am thinking about the nature of self.” Is the thought me? No, it can’t be, because I’m the one doing the thinking. “I feel really good about this.” Is the feeling me? No, it can’t be, because I’m the one doing the feeling.
Do you see where this is going? Although I go about my daily business confident in my assumption of self, I never actually find it. I can never pin it down. So while we can say that self is a concept, even as a concept it is extremely slippery, and over the centuries the people who have thought seriously about this concept have come up with an enormous variety of views to explain it, most of which conflict with each other. This very variety of views alone is enough to tell us that something is wrong. My sense of “myself” is quite clear and obvious; so why should it inspire so much disagreement?
What makes the situation worse, from the Buddha’s perspective, is that the darkness and confusion inevitably associated with (the concept of) self is also linked to what he calls taṇhā. Taṇhā literally means “thirst,” and refers to the drivenness deep within us which is based on our sense that something necessary to us is missing, something we desperately need to find. There is a lack, an absence, deep within us, a sense of incompletion or inadequacy, and a drive to fill that lack, to replace that absence with something. This drivenness, the drive to possess, which is taṇhā, is what we usually call “craving.” Where we find the darkness which is delusion, we find the drive which is craving. They work together. Delusion is fuelled by craving; craving is the response to the absence found at the heart of delusion.
Self emerges into the daylight as a view, our fully developed sense of who we are and what the world is. This view of self is intimately linked with the feeling of craving. We intuit a sense of lack, of something missing that should be there, and the concept of self is designed to fill that gap. We are driven to invent ourselves, and the others with whom we come into contact. We are not satisfied with this experience of life as it presents now; we need some kind of extra added conceptual framework that we can hang this experience on, and say, “That’s me, and my experience!” Our deep sense of lack within us makes our-experience-of-this seem inadequate, not quite good enough to compensate for the ache at our centre. But since no concept can rid us of our felt sense of lack, all concepts of self are unsatisfactory, and so we are endlessly working on them. Either refining existing concepts, replacing them — or defending them ferociously. But nothing we do, no view of ourselves, can achieve anything more than a temporary papering over of our deep sense of lack.
The self is like this. My emotional patterns can be stable and predictable; in fact, if they are genuinely unpredictable, I and the people around me are probably in for a difficult time. But just as I don’t know what tomorrow’s temperature will be at 2.30 p.m., so I can’t tell what emotion will be colouring my sense of myself and my world at that time. And just as I can’t control tomorrow’s temperature, so I can’t control tomorrow’s emotion.
The concept of self, however, the metaphysical entity that has no physical existence, is different. This seems to defy change. This is “me,” now. When I remember the past, long ago, that was the same “me;” and when I anticipate far into the future, that will be the same “me.” The concept of self provides an imagined unchanging background against which the normal changes of self can be measured. It makes sense to say, “I was angry yesterday, but now I’m calm,” just as we say, “The weather was wet yesterday, but it’s dry today.” Certainly, yesterday rain fell; certainly, today the sun shines. But what is the “it” that is dry today and wet yesterday? — the ”it” that we call ”weather.” “It” does not exist — except as a concept. A useful concept, but still just a concept. Similarly, where is the “I” that was angry yesterday but calm today? “I” do not exist. There’s just calmness, as I sit and type these words. The “I” that travels through time is just a concept. A useful concept, but just a concept.
Useful it might be in everyday life, but the Buddha points out certain dangers that are inherent to the concept of self. For starters, it is shrouded in darkness, in delusion (avijjā). We never actually experience this self, for whatever we experience is not — cannot be — ourself. Consider this: “Looking out my window, I see the lawn.” Is the lawn me? No, it can’t be, because I’m the one looking at it. “I am thinking about the nature of self.” Is the thought me? No, it can’t be, because I’m the one doing the thinking. “I feel really good about this.” Is the feeling me? No, it can’t be, because I’m the one doing the feeling.
Do you see where this is going? Although I go about my daily business confident in my assumption of self, I never actually find it. I can never pin it down. So while we can say that self is a concept, even as a concept it is extremely slippery, and over the centuries the people who have thought seriously about this concept have come up with an enormous variety of views to explain it, most of which conflict with each other. This very variety of views alone is enough to tell us that something is wrong. My sense of “myself” is quite clear and obvious; so why should it inspire so much disagreement?
What makes the situation worse, from the Buddha’s perspective, is that the darkness and confusion inevitably associated with (the concept of) self is also linked to what he calls taṇhā. Taṇhā literally means “thirst,” and refers to the drivenness deep within us which is based on our sense that something necessary to us is missing, something we desperately need to find. There is a lack, an absence, deep within us, a sense of incompletion or inadequacy, and a drive to fill that lack, to replace that absence with something. This drivenness, the drive to possess, which is taṇhā, is what we usually call “craving.” Where we find the darkness which is delusion, we find the drive which is craving. They work together. Delusion is fuelled by craving; craving is the response to the absence found at the heart of delusion.
Self emerges into the daylight as a view, our fully developed sense of who we are and what the world is. This view of self is intimately linked with the feeling of craving. We intuit a sense of lack, of something missing that should be there, and the concept of self is designed to fill that gap. We are driven to invent ourselves, and the others with whom we come into contact. We are not satisfied with this experience of life as it presents now; we need some kind of extra added conceptual framework that we can hang this experience on, and say, “That’s me, and my experience!” Our deep sense of lack within us makes our-experience-of-this seem inadequate, not quite good enough to compensate for the ache at our centre. But since no concept can rid us of our felt sense of lack, all concepts of self are unsatisfactory, and so we are endlessly working on them. Either refining existing concepts, replacing them — or defending them ferociously. But nothing we do, no view of ourselves, can achieve anything more than a temporary papering over of our deep sense of lack.
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