Sense Of Self Is An Essential Skill Of Mind
Many articles in the Western press have confused the Buddha’s idea of “anatta,” the absence of an eternal soul, with the idea that meditation should rid you of your ordinary sense of self. Then the press has utilized neuropsychology to confirm this point. Psychologists like Bruce Hood, in his book, The Self Illusion, have encouraged people to look upon their sense of self as something to be discredited and abandoned.
All of this is dismaying to a psychiatrist who spent much of his professional life helping disorganized, fragile, and wavering people to develop a firm and coherent sense of self. Let me emphasize it in one clear sentence: our sense of self is a creation, an essential skill of our mind. Our minds collect the information contained in our body sensations to fabricate an integrated and continuous identity. This gives us greater memory, consistency and flexibility - you could say “character” or “personality” - than we would have if we were limited to immediate reactivity.
There is an enormous difference between understanding that our self is created, versus devaluing it. After all, clothes, cars, and houses are created things, and we don’t try to live without them. Our body is a created thing and we can’t imagine trying to live without it. Our sense of self is an integrative, psychological system that we must have to live a focused, directed and self-consistent life. In the psychological sense, the Buddha had a powerful sense of self that gave him continuity and consistency across a lifetime of teaching and leadership.
There are many people who have difficulty creating a consistent, flexible, responsible internal executive. Their problems may be due to many reasons, either neurological and/or environmental. These neighbors and family members of ours suffer excessively, because they are unable to generate around themselves a world of goals, loves, people, and tasks. We should not weaken the executive function of confused people by implying that their psychologically constructed sense of self, which they need in order to function, should be abandoned, simply because all of their being is ultimately
ephemeral.
When we absorb the wisdom of meditation, we see our selves as chimera, and when we take care of our daily business, we count on ourselves, to be effective, just as the Buddha was. We are the world, using all the laws of science and running on the energy of the Big Bang. We are a fabrication, created by our brains as they integrate and portray ephemeral body sensations. And we are people, born to eat, meditate, make friends and hold jobs. All of these dimensions co-exist and express aspects of a bigger truth.
How do you relate to the notion that a sense of self is a creation and an essential skill of our mind? Can you share a personal story of a time you became aware of your self as an integrative psychological system? What helps you respect your self and not dismiss it simply because it is a creation?
It takes a strong sense of self to be able to let go of attachment to identity, and to trust the fabrication and the fabricator as being one and the same so that compassion and altruism can naturally arise as the outcome of social fabrication and conditioning. Anatta isn't a bypass to experience, any more than a solid sense of self can control experience. Direct experience is all we have, it simply happens and how it is received and integrated depends on the cultural meaning ascribed to it. There is no escape hatch, only the mystery wonder and luminosity of consciousness being aware of itself
This passage brings out very nicely the appropriate role of the "ordinary self". A coherent sense of identity is necessary to protect the body and allow it to do its thing as well as to function "effectively" in the world. But what it means to operate "effectively" is something for us to meditate on.
I believe a coherent sense of self is the starting point and perhaps the baseline to explore questions of god/truth/beauty. And to find out what it means to dismantle the self, as referred to by the Buddha and other mystics and sages of the past.
I find that allowing the self to operate coherently in the world is a slippery slope. For many of us, includng myself, the body and mind are mostly used for the service of ones own projected goals, couched in the guise of making a livelihood. Takes a lot of self-reflection to watch this movement and put a self-correcting algorithm in place.
Wow, this is a thought provoking essay; thank you.
True, we, none of us, can abandon or forget our 'self'.
I guess for me, in my continuing to grow up in this life, it is a balance of humility (that helps me engage more deeply with others and enables better empathy within), and the care and love of me much like that which I work within myself to cultivate for others. I seem to be balancing this with increased awareness of my internal responses to others and pausing and feeling and allowing for understanding of others and myself in these situations. Also, the realization and experience of the larger world really does drive home the sameness of us all which has humbled me rightly.
Your term 'internal executive' is one I am not familiar with and cannot seem to find specific information on the almight worldwide web, though I feel I understand what you are referring to.
