"Who Are You?"

  

 

 

                Who are you?  How do you see yourself?  What kind of a person would you say you are? 

                When you ask someone questions such as these, you are likely to get answers such as lawyer, or truck driver, mom or dad, student, Democrat, Republican, Christian, Buddhist, gay, US Marine, professor, African American, Irish, environmentalist, athlete, introvert, intelligent, beautiful, winner, loser, successful, happy, sad, your physical body, your beliefs, your history, accomplishments, and so on.

                But which pieces of our present and past we select to be part of our definition of self is completely arbitrary—it is something we construct through what we choose—often unconsciously—to include in our description of self.  Someone may include their experiences as an athlete, but not their experiences of not fitting in socially and so this person says “I’m an athlete.”  Perhaps a definition of self includes your episodes of anger, but not your episodes of kindness and so you see yourself as “an angry person.”  But these are all actions that you have done or do, just as my “being an uncle” is really just doing some “uncle-ing” from time to time.  And “being a writer” is really just writing things from time to time. 

                We have all done, felt, believed trillions of things in our life. Out of all of that, a relatively small number of things are selected out and we say “That’s me.”  The Buddha taught that this sense of self is a totally mind-constructed and fictional entity.  It is much like writing a novel—some things are included in the novel and others are not.  In this case, the novel we are creating is called The Story of Me.

                And, it needs to be mentioned here that other people will likely select other elements from my life and stick them together to form a different idea of who Dale is, and so yet another work of fiction is born.  Often, we pick one or two behaviors that someone has done—“John didn’t make good on his promise to help” and make it into a definition of self for that person—“John is unreliable.”  But when we really see what we are doing here, that is the beginning of freedom for us.  Let's see how this works.

                The Buddha taught that there is no fixed, permanent self.  There is only a sequence of various and ever-changing “me patterns.”  Over the course of my lifetime, many Dale patterns have come into existence and passed away. We are afraid that when we die, the self will be obliterated.  But what we mistakenly call the self is simply a temporary pattern of selected characteristics.  Consequently, what you think of as your self has already died many times.  The pattern that we called “Dale at five years old” does not exist anymore—it “died” a long time ago.  The pattern that we called “Dale at age twenty” has also passed away. 

                “But,” someone will say, “If I don’t know who I am, there is something wrong with me; I should be able to say who I am.” 

                If I am not any of the things I thought I was, then I don’t know who I am.  I found this disturbing at first and said so to my teacher at the time.  When I asked him about it, he said “Why do you need a definition of self?  What’s it for?”  This question utterly stumped me every time it was put to me.  I had no answer, but somehow I thought I should be able to say who I am.

                But the Buddha would ask us:  “What’s wrong with being nothing in particular?  What’s the problem with not having some self image, portrait, of definition of self?”  When we really get that our idea of who we are is just a piece of fiction, it is actually very freeing in at least 4 ways.

                First, there is no need for defending one’s self.  If I think of myself as “a very intelligent  person,” then I have to try to explain it away every time I do something stupid:  “Well, I realize that it may have looked like what I did was stupid, but actually…”  We seem to have some sort of an image of self that we feel like we have to defend and maintain.   But if I don’t think of myself that way, I can laugh and say “Wow.  That was really a dumb thing to do!” and let it go.  How much easier that is!  If "lawyer-ing" is just something I spend a good bit of time doing and someone says something critical of lawyers, I don’t have to leap up and defend the honor of lawyers. 

                Second, not having a definition of self opens up more choices for me.  Perhaps I think that “ I’m not the kind of person who takes part in political activism.”  As a result, I never participate in political activism.   But… if I have no image of self, if I recognize that I’m not any particular kind of person, then I can spontaneously choose to do or not do something based on how I feel and think in that moment.  What I can choose to do and be is not limited by defining myself as a mother, medical doctor, failure, introvert, Democrat, happy person, or any other “kind” of person.

                Third, I can relate to other people more fully and deeply.  If I’m relating to you in terms of my mental definition of self and you are doing the same, all we know is bunch of ideas in our heads, We never get to know each other on a deeper level.  Instead, my image of self is getting to know your image of self.

                Additionally, I can drop my narrow idea that “John if unreliable” and realize that he is much more than one thing he did once.  I can be interested in him as a whole person, which makes it easier to let go of grudges against him and start over fresh.

                Fourth, if someone says something critical about a belief—which is a sort “map” of some part of reality—this is no different than if he criticizes the road maps in my car.  The maps are not me and the beliefs are not me.  If they are accurate they are useful tools, but that is all. I may find my shovel a useful  tool but it would never occur to me think that shovel is who I am!  There is, then, absolutely no need to argue and defend  a belief when someone disagrees.  As a consequence, disagreements absolutely do not need to be taken personally and a collaborative and noncompetitive discussion becomes possible.  This goes a long way toward eliminating endless arguments and power struggles.    

            

Note:  For a much fuller presentation of these teachings, please see The Wisdom of the Buddha: Using Mindfulness to Change Your Life, Chapter 16  The Story of Me, A False Idea of Who We Are, pages 230-240. Chapter available via e-mail on request.  Paperback and Kindle formats of the book are available from Amazon.

 

Note:   My intention is to add new posts to the blog approximately every 2 to 3 weeks. If you would like to receive an e-mail notification each time a new blog post is made, please let me know and I will add you to the list of recipients. This notification will also include the title of the new post.  Some of the material that appears in this blog is copyrighted, but in keeping with the Buddha’s teaching that the dharma is not to be sold, the contents of this blog may be freely copied and given away, but not sold. 

            If you have questions, comments, or ideas for new Blog topics please contact Dale at ahimsaacres@gmail.com.