How well do you know your ‘self’? Well enough to know that your ‘self’
does not exist? Please read on.
More and more psychologists, psychotherapists and
counsellors are drawing upon the insights of Buddhism to better understand the
nature and activities of the human mind. In my own therapeutic practice, I
apply, quite eclectically and unashamedly, ideas and teachings from a number of
different traditions, both Eastern and Western. A pragmatists, all I am
interested in is results---and changed
lives.
When we turn to Buddhism we discover that its ideas,
teachings and practices espouse a psychological
realism that expressly acknowledges
the reality of cognitive and other mental processes. The mind is seen as both
relational and ‘extended’ to situations in the external world. Yes, mentality
belongs to the spatio-temporal world along with everything else such that a
person’s mental things and processes are not wholly internal to that person.
In addition, Buddhism
views a person as being a human
body-mind as a whole, that is, an autonomous and dynamic system that arises in dependence upon the natural world as well as human
culture. So-called ‘consciousness’---not so much an entity in its own right but
a dynamic, ever-changing process---emerges when the mind and the body cohere. The
physical body is essential for the emergence of the mental, but having said
that, Buddhism has never regarded the body and the mind as being separate. Mind
is said to ‘extend’ into the body, with the body also ‘extending’ into the
mind.
When Buddhism uses the word
‘illusion’ it does so in a special way. Referring to a thing as an ‘illusion’
does not mean that the thing does not exist. It simply means that the thing in
question has no separate, independent, unchangeable and permanent existence. Buddhism
psychology aims to treat what
Buddhism often calls an 'illusory [or a 'false'] mind' (that is, a mind
characterized and dominated by wandering, oppositional and discriminatory
thoughts) with a view to bringing into manifestation a 'true [or 'pure']
mind' (being a mind which is not in opposition to itself).
Buddhist psychology teaches the doctrine that ‘self
is illusion,’ and that belief in the existence of some supposedly permanent and
substantial ‘self’ or soul is a delusion.
t There is no actual ‘self’ at the centre of our
conscious---or even unconscious---awareness. The ‘self’ does not exist---at least it does not exist
in the sense of possessing a separate, independent, unchangeable, material
existence of its own. In words attributed to the Buddha, whether ‘past, future, or present;
internal or external; manifest or subtle...as it actually is ... “This is not
mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am’” (Majjhima Nikāya I, 130). Buddhist scriptures
are very firm on this teaching of ‘not-self’ (anattā):
Even as the word of ‘chariot’ means
That members join to frame a whole;
So when the groups [the ‘five aggregates’] appear to view,
We use the phrase, ‘a living being.’ (Milindapantha,
133.)
Just as the word ‘chariot’ is but a mode of
expression for axles, wheels, chariot-body, pole, and other constituent
members, placed in a certain relation to each other, but when we come to
examine the members one by one, we discover that in the absolute sense there is
no chariot; … in exactly the same way the words ‘living entity’ and ‘Ego,’ are
but a mode of expression for the presence of the five attachment groups [again,
the ‘five aggregates’ (see below)], but when we come to examine the elements of
being one by one, we discover that in the absolute sense there is no living
entity there to form a basis for such figments as ‘I am,’ or ‘I’; … . (Visuddhi-Magga,
133-34.)
Our so-called
consciousness goes through continuous fluctuations from one moment to the next. As such, there is nothing to constitute, let
alone sustain, a separate, transcendent ‘I’ structure or entity. We ‘die’
and are ‘born’ (or ‘reborn’) from one moment to the next. Whence comes our
sense of ‘I-ness’? To quote Robert C Lester, author of Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia:
The ‘I-ness’ or selfhood of man, perceived as
unchanging --- his sense of individual being in time, having experiences --- is
an unwarranted extension or assumption from experience to experiencer, from
knowledge to knower, thought to thinker.
No wonder Jesus exclaimed, ‘I of myself can do nothing’ (Jn
5:30). Perhaps he understood the illusory nature of the ‘self.’
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