YOU DO NOT EXIST!

Now that's a provocative title for a blog post, if ever there was one.

Well, do you exist or don’t you? ‘Of course, I do, you silly fool,’ I hear you say.

Well, it all depends on what we mean by the word ‘I’, ‘me’, and ‘you’.

One of the themes—if theme be the right word—of my blog posts is what is known as self illusion. It is a teaching of Buddhism but the idea is by no means exclusively Buddhist. Indeed, when I was in rehab many years ago, the psychologist-in-charge, Jim Maclaine, taught self illusion therapy. I have been expounding its virtues ever since. Why? Well, it worked for me! It still does.

Now, when I say that self is an illusion, it is important to bear in mind what I mean by the word illusion. It simply means that the ‘thing’ in question is not what it seems. We tend to think that our sense of self (‘I’ and ‘me’) is something that is real and permanent and stable—perhaps even something that is separate and distinct from the person that each one of us is. The truth is otherwise. Our sense of self seems to be incredibly real. In a sense, it is, although it is not a ‘thing-in-itself’, so to speak. However, there is now a wealth of scientific evidence attesting to the fact—yes, fact—that the notion of an independent, coherent self is an illusion, that is, it is not what it seems.

Dr Bruce Hood

Bruce Hood, pictured left, a developmental psychologist, and Evan Thompson, pictured below, a philosopher and cognitive scientist, are just a few experts who propound the non-existence, that is, the illusion, of the so-called self. I thoroughly recommend their books The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity (2011) [Hood] and Waking, Dreaming, Being (2015) [Thompson].

According to Hood, our brains generate, that is, construct, this illusion of a self—it’s a kind of a matrix—to deal with and respond to ‘a multitude of different processes and decisions that are often in conflict with each other, often occurring below our level of consciousness’. Our sense of self emerges during childhood and is built up andconsolidated thereafter. Thompson refers to an ‘enacted self’ (that is, ‘I’ as a process) and explains that we confuse the interplay of our ever-changing mind—which is a body-brain continuum of sorts—as a supposedly stable, core ‘I’ or ego. He writes:

… the mental repository is a subliminal data bank, not an ego, and it’s constantly changing process, not a substantial thing. Hence this impression that there’s a self is a mental fabrication and what the fabrication represents doesn’t exist.

The bottom line is that there is no a distinct ‘I’ or ‘me’ in charge of our thoughts, feelings and actions. In the words of Hood:

[O]ur brain creates the experience of our self as a model—a cohesive integrated character—to make sense of the multitude of experiences that assault our senses throughout a lifetime and leave lasting impressions in our memory. 

In other words, the self is an illusion created by our brain.

Now, you may ask, ‘Well, so what? Why is any of this important, assuming that it is?’

Well, let me explain, but first listen to these words of J. Krishnamurti:

The very nature of the self is to create contradiction.

Dr Evan Thompson

Krishnamurti also wrote:      

You know what I mean by the self? By that, I mean the idea, the memory, the conclusion, the experience, the various forms of namable and unnamable intentions, the conscious endeavor to be or not to be, the accumulated memory of the unconscious, the racial, the group, the individual, the clan, and the whole of it all, whether it is projected outwardly in action, or projected spiritually as virtue; the striving after all this is the self.

If you have ever struggled with an addiction, you will know all too well that there is, for example, the ‘self that wants to drink [or smoke, etc]’ and the ‘self that doesn’t want to drink [or smoke, etc]’. The two selves—and we generate hundreds of these selves every day of our lives, some of them becoming very persistent over time—are in conflict. At any moment of the day, one of them is fighting for supremacy.

Recovery begins when you come to the realization that none of these selves are what they seem to be. Yes, the so-called ‘self’ is nothing more than an aggregate or heap of perceptions and sensations. It is, in reality, a non-self. What is real is the person that you are. A person can change. You do what is appropriate for a person in your condition. You do not try to change the self that seems to you to be the problem.

Know this. Your sense of self is a constructed narrative that your brain has created. Do not try to change your ‘self’ or the particular little self that seems to be the source of your problem (eg the ‘self that wants to drink’). Work on the person that you are. Give your pesky little self no attention. Give it no power over you—for it has no power in and of itself. You, the person that you are, have power—the power to change your life for the better.

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ARE YOU IN PRISON? (CHANCES ARE YOU ARE BUT DON’T KNOW IT)

OUR DELUSION WITH OURSELVES

The great evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins wrote a monumental bestseller called The God Delusion. Unfortunately, Dawkins, brilliant man that he is, appears to be a bit deluded about the nature of the God, for the One that he says doesn’t exist isn’t God anyway.

Do you want to know what the real delusion or illusion is? It’s the one we all have with ourselves. So, you think you know who you really are? Read on.

Each day we use the ‘I’ word a helluva lot. ‘I am a Democrat,’ we may say, or ‘I am a Catholic.’ So, if we change our politics or our religion, has a new ‘I’ come into existence, or has the original ‘I’ morphed into something different? ‘I am James Wong [or whatever be your actual name],’ you say. But what if you change your name? Think about it, is ‘I’ your name? It can’t be. Nor is this ‘I’ our body or even our mind, for both of those things are constantly changing. ‘I’ is simply a one-letter English word we use to refer to the person each one of us is. Only the person is ontologically real. The ‘I’ is a mental and linguistic construct. It is not ‘real.’ 

You see, just because we have a word for something does not necessarily mean that something actually exists. Most philosophers and neuroscientists now take the view that there is no permanent, unchanging ‘I’ at the center of our existence. The Buddha said this some 2,500 years ago. ‘I’ is simply whatever we attach to it. It is always something external to our point of reference. ‘I’ is identity-less. To use a Buddhist term, ‘I’ is empty. It is whatever label we attach to ‘it.’

The author in front of the Great Buddha of Kamakura,

at Kōtoku-in, in the city of Kamakura, in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

By now you may be saying to yourself, so what is this all about? Well, here’s where the real delusion comes in. It’s when we start identifying this illusory ‘I’ with ‘me’---‘me’ being the person that each one of us is. So, when we say, ‘I am angry,’ we are identifying the ordinarily negative and often very destructive emotion of anger with the person that we are. There may be anger ‘in’ us, but we---the person that each of us is---are never angry. Get the point? There is a real difference. You see, when we identify ‘I’ with ‘me,’ the latter being the person that we are, we always (yes, always) end up suffering.

When it comes to beliefs, positions, attitudes, views and opinions, we identify with them to a point where they actually come to define---wrongly, of course---who we are. That is why we are so relucant to let go of them, even when they hold us in bondage and prevent us from seeing and experiencing things-as-they-really-are. Listen to what the American spiritual philosopher Vernon Howard has to say about the matter:

 

This means that you take [the belief, position, attitude, etc] as being yourself, which it is not. But having identified with a particular attitude or belief you now fear that its loss will cause you to lose what you call yourself. Your real nature does not consist of this or that position any more than you are the coat you put on and off. Your true self resides above all mental positions. Find it.

We are always our own worst enemies, and most of our suffering is caused by ourselves. Here’s one very effective way to reduce the amount of your self-induced suffering. Stop identifying your ‘I,’ which in truth is identity-less, with your ‘me.’ Each time during the course of a day you find yourself---that is, the person that you are---identifying ‘I’ with ‘me,’ pull yourself up. Bit by bit, start changing a lifetime of self-delusion. When you hear yourself saying, ‘I am angry,’ say, ‘No, that is not the case. There is anger in me.’ Of course, that does not relieve you of the responsibility of owning that anger and managing it appropriately. Look to see what is causing your anger. It will always be some desire of some kind. Then take appropriate action.

A man once said to the Buddha, or perhaps to some Buddhist monk or teacher, ‘I want happiness.’ The man received the following advice. ‘First remove “I”. That’s ego. Then remove “want.” That’s desire. See, now you are left with only “happiness.”’

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NOTING AND LABELING IN MINDFULNESS MEDITATION

Should I ‘note’ and ‘label’?’ This question is the ‘to be or not to be’ when it comes to the practice of mindfulness meditation.

For the uninitiated, mindfulness is the sustained presence, both physical and psychological, of choiceless awareness of, and bare attention to, the action (both internal and external) of the present moment from one moment to the next. In the words of Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn, who is the father of the modern mindfulness movement, mindfulness means 'paying attention in a particular way ... on purpose ... in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.' Mindfulness meditation is a special, concentrated and more deliberate and focused form and practice of mindfulness.

Whatever arises, whether internally or externally, is impermanent. Sensations, whether in the form of thoughts, feelings, images, ideas, bodily sensations, or external physical sensations (sounds, etc), come and go. They wax and wane. They arise and vanish. Reality---what is---is that which comes and goes, waxes and wanes, arises and vanishes. Mindfulness enables, indeed empowers, us to live in the immediacy and directness of the arising and vanishing of that which is truly present in the now.

In order for there to be an immediacy and directness about our moment-to-moment experience of life, three events need to occur more-or-less simultaneously. Those three events are as follows: the occurrence of some activating sensation, our initial awareness of (that is, noticing) that sensation, and mindfulness in the form of pure, unadorned non-judgmental observation. If those three events are not simultaneously experienced, then what will be experienced will be nothing but the past. In other words, the reality of the immediate experience will subside. Indeed, it will die! Any consciousness of it will be in the form of an after-thought or a memory, as we glance back to re-experience, and (sadly, yes) evaluate, a past experience.

So, it is essential that our mindfulness should so far as is humanly possible be simultaneous with both the occurrence of sensation and our initial awareness of it. Dwell in the sensation of the moment. The idea is to watch and observe the sensation without thinking any thought connected with the sensation, that is, without judgment, evaluation, interpretation, analysis, comparison, self-criticism or condemnation.

Some teachers and practitioners of mindfulness advocate what is known as ‘noting’ and ‘labeling.’ Noting means to firstly notice---in a fraction of a second, that is---the particular sensation and then focus on (‘penetrate’) the sensation intently but gently for a second or two, unless of course the sensation happens to immediately disappear. Labeling goes further than noting and means that whenever in one’s mindfulness meditation a thought or other sensation arises you quietly, gently and ordinarily interiorly say to yourself, one or two or more times every five seconds or so for some or all of the temporal duration of the sensation, something such as ‘thinking … thinking,’ ‘feeling … feeling,’ ‘touching … touching’ or ‘sensing … sensing,’ that is, some word or phrase that describes without adornment or embellishment precisely what you are noting. Where the sensation, particularly an emotional state, is more persistent or prolonged labeling may involve saying something like ‘there is anger.’ (Note. Never say ‘I am angry’ as that only reinforces your identification with the ‘angry self’ in you as a person.)

Other teachers and practitioners are strongly against any form of noting or labeling.  My own view on this matter have fluctuated somewhat over the years. I tend to the view that, as a general ‘rule,’ noting and labeling are to be avoided. The reason is obvious. The mere act of noting and labeling requires you to intentionally formulate a thought, and then make a mental decision, to note or label. That takes time---the more so when there is labeling---and is a judgment of sorts, with the result that the reality of the immediate experience begins to subside, the reason being that the consciousness which almost invariably arises from the act of noting or labeling is one of an event in the past, that is, an event which has now gone, but which is nevertheless re-experienced as an after-thought or a memory. Even noting involves a period of intently focusing on what you have noticed for several seconds.

However, ever the pragmatist, I see a limited place for noting and labeling where the activating sensation is particularly strong, persistent or otherwise troublesome. To note and perhaps also label sensations of that kind or intensity can be comforting or reassuring and may help to ensure that one’s mental or emotional equanimity if not lost as a result of some troublesome sensation or set of sensations. This is because the acts of noting and labeling, especially the latter, can at times bring about an abrupt end to the particular sensation or set of sensations. As the mind can only focus on one thing at once, noting and labeling can cut short the object of the noting and labeling. Advocates of noting and labeling also say that such practices can be helpful when the meditator’s mind drifts during meditation by stabilizing one’s attention. Maybe. Having said all that, I do not recommend that noting and labeling be done routinely or throughout the whole course of one’s meditation.

The author in Japan in October 2012

So, note or label the sensation or set of sensations (eg ‘thinking ... thinking,’ or ‘there is anger’), but only if you feel you really must do so. Then return immediately to your post, so to speak, of unadorned observation. Let your mind penetrate whatever sensation arises---or whatever be your predominant experience---in the moment and from one moment to the next. Unadorned observation means to be ‘outside’ of whatever it is you’re observing---the outside witness, so to speak---looking at the particular object or thought or whatever the sensation may be. In time, you learn to dis-identify and stand aside from your own thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations.

I am firmly of the view that more than half of our emotional and psychological problems would die from atrophy---on the altar of unadorned observation---if we were to simply look and observe, directly and objectively, with ‘effortless effort.’ If we just did that on a regular and systematic basis our mind would be so much more peaceful and undisturbed. The ‘secret’---although it’s not really a secret---is to maintain a ‘soft’ acceptance of whatever is. You see, there is one thing more than all others which keeps alive and reinforces our false, illusory sense of ‘self,’ together with our self-centeredness and self-absorption, and that is when our moment-to-moment sensation of life is experienced not as something which is happening now, of which we are mindfully aware, but as something which is happening to ‘me,’ or which ‘I’ am suffering---that is, as something being ‘inflicted’ upon us. The problem, as I see it, with all noting and labeling is that they reinforce the illusory sense of an ‘I’ or ‘me’ doing the noting or labeling.

Don’t let reality die on you. Don’t experience it as a past event. Let each sensation arise and vanish of its own accord. Observe it closely, without analysis, judgment, evaluation or condemnation---indeed, watch it, without thinking any thought associated or connected with the sensation. Otherwise, you will instantly lose the immediacy, directness and actuality of your experience of life.

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THE ILLUSORY MIND [Part 2]

So, what is the mind? Well, for starters, it is much more than the brain. The materialist position, equating the two, is simply wrong. The bulk and the weight of the evidence point the other way---namely, that the mind is both relational and ‘extended’ to situations in the external world. But what of the ‘self’? Does ‘it’ have a transcendental, separate existence of its own? 

The short answer to that last question is---no. That is the position asserted by most forms of Buddhism, and it is a position that increasingly is being supported by the findings of modern neuroscience and neuropsychiatry.

Hundreds and thousands of separate, ever-changing and ever-so-transient mental occurrences (‘selves’) harden into a mental construct of sorts. We call ‘it’ the self, but  the so-called self, or ego-self, is no more than a confluence of impermanent components (‘I-moments’), that is, mental states (cittas). These mental states are cleverly synthesized by the mind in a way which appears---note that word, appears---to give them a singularity and a separate, independent, unchangeable and material existence and life of their own. The so-called ego-self---as well as the so-called ‘mind’ (nama)---has no separate, independent, permanent existence in the sense of being, to quote from Vipassana Bhavana, ‘compact, all of one piece, doing all these different mental functions’:

‘We’, our entire existence, at any given time is simply the arising of one of those mental states, which is quickly replaced by another. (Vipassana Bhavana.)

Now, it is through this perception of an internally created sense of 'self' that we experience, process and interpret all external reality. With alcoholics and other addicts, this false or illusory sense of self also becomes chemically altered (seemingly for all time)---with truly disastrous consequences for the addict and those associated with him or her. Each of us---not just the alcoholic or other addict---clings to the ‘self’ as self. We even manage to convince ourselves that we ‘belong’ to that self, and that we are those myriads of I’s and me’s that make up our waxing and waning consciousness (the latter simply being the function consisting of apprehending the bare phenomenal world, that is, cognition):

Whenever there is a functioning sense-organ (eye, ear, tongue, nose, body and mind), a sense-object (visual form, sound, taste, smell, touch and thought) entering into the field of the sense-organ then, with these brought together, there is the manifestation of the part of consciousness referring to the specific sense-organ. (Majjhimanikāya, i, 190.)

Buddhist teachings refer to different types of ‘conditions’ that give rise to cognitive events. In the case of sensory perceptions, external objects are the objective or causal condition. However the immediately preceding moment of consciousness is said to be the immediate condition, with the particular sense organ being the physiological or dominant condition.

In short, Buddhism sees a human being as being simply an amalgam of ever-changing phenomena of existence. Yes, the so-called ‘self’ is nothing more than an ‘aggregate’ or ‘heap’ of perceptions and sensations. It is, in reality, a non-self. There is no unifying consciousness, and no ultimate ‘self.’ Rather, the human mind is a field---indeed, a veritable battle-ground---of conflicting tendencies, feelings and emotions, for the simple reason that the mental is not a unitary agent. Consistent with an overall pluralism, we are always dealing with a plurality---indeed, pluralities---of complex interacting but otherwise waxing and waning forces, for such is the nature of reality. At the same time, Buddhism espouses an ‘extended’ view of the mind such that the mind is seen to be more than just the activity of the brain. Rather, the mind is an embodied and relational process. True, the mind is a product of the brain, but it is conditioned by both internal and external events.

I go so far as to say this---most of our problems, at least those of a mental or emotional character, as well as problems in our relationships, arise because we fail to recognize the ‘illusory’ nature of our ‘self.’ We constantly talk about our ‘self,’ we are told all the time that we must love our ‘self,’ and we react badly when we feel that some other person is attacking our ‘self.’ If only we could grasp this simply truth---more than half of our problems would die from attrition if we, the person that each of us is, acknowledged that ‘self is illusion.’

Know this. You are not a ‘self,’ you are a person among persons. Be confident, but forget all about self-confidence. Be a person of esteem, for that you are, but forget all about self-esteem. Seek the truth (that is, the 'real' and 'actual') in all things, but forget altogether about self-seeking. The purposes of ‘self’ are in direct and stark contradistinction to the pursuit of happiness, peace of mind, and serenity.

 The photographs in this post were taken
by the author on a trip to Japan in 2012.

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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.’

To be continued.

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