Unceasing Self

There is a tenet in Buddhism—a core principle, in fact—that is challenging for most Western minds to comprehend. It is the concept of “no self.” Many principles of Eastern religions and philosophy are difficult for us in the West to comprehend, because our cultures differ so much. For example, we in the West tend to view events in a linear fashion—we see history unfolding in a straight-line manner, from a point in the past and progressing upwards and outwards into the future. Those in the East view events more cyclically—history is a repetitive, periodic process that reoccurs again and again.

To the Western mind the concept of no self can even appear rather absurd, since we emphasize our individuality and our right to be a unique and autonomous being—while the Eastern mind is more likely to subsume itself into the common whole.

Maybe we could grasp the concept of no self better if we begin with a clear understanding of what the self is. Then we might be in a position to consider what it is not. A dictionary definition of the self is “a person's essential being that distinguishes them from others, especially considered as the object of introspection; or a person's particular nature or personality.”

Now, the Buddha is not strictly saying that there is no self—as if it doesn't exist. That's what many Westerners think and rebel against. We ask, Am I not a specific being, who has a “particular nature or personality?” The Buddhist point is that what we think is our essential being—our feelings, perceptions, and consciousness—is really not what we believe it is.  Sure, you have a material body, but that deeper, innate self that we think of as me is not really what we think it is. Let me try to explain. 

There are, in fact, two aspects of what we Westerners think of as the self, which Buddhism says are mistaken. The first is that we tend to think of our self as being a constant, immutable entity over time. Am I not essentially the same person now—someone whose basic essence is “me”—as I was at 10 years old? Well, no. We are more a process than a thing. That's even true physically—our cells are constantly regenerating. We are constantly in the process of unfolding into a new being.

Our second belief about the self that Buddhism claims is mistaken is that we tend to believe there is an intrinsic self—what we might consider to be our conscious self—that is in control. We can think of it as the executive (or CEO) of our mind that is in charge of it all. We have that amazing prefrontal cortex that we think is in command of it all. Well, no. Modern psychology has repeatedly demonstrated that the unconscious part of our brain—the part that we not only do not control, but are not even aware of—makes decisions on its own, causing us to take actions that our conscious mind was oblivious to. Only after the fact does our executive mind see what we did, and then does its best to make up a plausible story for our behavior.

So neither Buddhism nor modern psychology claims that the self literally does not exist. It's more that what we believe to be the self is not the fixed, encased thing we consider it to be. No, it's not that self at all. No self. It's more a process, more like a verb, than a noun. It's a flux… a flowing. Open your mind up to you being something much more vast.

Personality or Predicament?

Psychologists have argued for years now about how to interpret why people act as they do. When we observe Joe behaving in a certain way, do we attribute it to his personality or to his current predicament? Is it nature or nurture? Was Joe's action due to his inherent, peculiar character or did the particular situation he was in cause his response?

While psychologists love to bicker over the real cause, most of us ordinary folks lean towards thinking that what Joe did was due to his personality. After all, we may know, for example, that he is considered to be an extrovert (not an introvert), or he's a pretty agreeable guy (not argumentative), or he's shown himself to be conscientious (not slapdash), or we know him to be a positive dude (not negative), or to be open-minded (not intolerant). We have come to know Joe over time and attribute one or more of these possible traits to him, as we see him consistently behave in a certain (and even predictable) manner.

But wait—some psychologists will contend that Joe may, for example seem to be an agreeable guy most of the time, but didn't someone see him being quite belligerent yesterday? Maybe he was stressed out and his boss was being unreasonable, and Joe uncharacteristically flashed out. Yeah, he may be an easy-going guy most of the time, but the situation he finds himself in can control what he does.

So is it personality or predicament? There seems to be scientific evidence that both play a role—one being more important at a given time than the other. Some folks will argue that one's personality is something that can be consistently observed over time; that a person's response is even quite predictable. In the short term, however, the situation may be quite variable and thus very unpredictable. For example, Joe may most of the time be the kind of guy who always shows up on time—or even early. We can count on him to be there when the show starts. But that may be just when the situation is normal. If he had a flat tire, he could be late.

Another interesting aspect of the personality-or-predicament debate is, if personality is important, how consistent over long periods of time will that person be? If Joe has long been seen to be a conscientious guy, can we expect that behavior to persevere? Can Joe change his personality? Might he become a little careless, in his golden years? That could be considered to be a turn for the worse. Is that what happens, or do people tend to become more positive in their traits, over time?

There is a school of psychology that contends that personality is important, and that we in fact do change for the better over time. Even if we disagree whether personality is more important than the situation, we'd like to believe that we can improve with age. Shouldn't the acquisition of a modicum of wisdom over the years nudge us in the direction of change for the better? Don't we want to believe that we become more agreeable, conscientious, and resilient with age?

Whatever the case—whether personality or predicament governs our behavior—I think we can say that both are important. We are not automatons that predictably respond in a certain way. I'm a believer in free will—that we can change how we respond. We go way beyond the instinctive response that most other animals have. We are in charge, and we can change—despite how a certain situation might evoke certain feelings in us. 

Outwitting Ourselves

There is a barrage of new findings currently being published by psychological researchers. It's even sort of a golden age, as constantly-improving brain-scanning techniques allow neuroscientists and psychologists to probe deep into the brain and make connections between our behaviors and our brain states.

One area that has yielded some fascinating findings is the manner in which we can be deceitful. We all know that honesty is the best policy—we've had this message handed to us throughout our lives by parents, teachers, and religious leaders. Yet every one of us has to admit to behaving deceptively at times. Why do we do this? Primarily to fool others, to take advantage of them. We often find ourselves in competition with other people—for food, sex, winning games, etc.; and we want to win. If we strut around in a posturing manner, we may hoodwink our competition into concluding that we're much more gallant and fierce-some than we really are. We've gotten the upper hand, before any real competition has begun.

An interesting twist on this game is that we're really not quite as dishonest as we appear to be, because we're not always intentionally deceitful. Sometimes we do it because we've deceived ourselves first. We tell ourselves lies, in order that our lies to others don't seem to be quite so unscrupulous. If we ourselves believe this stuff, others will be more likely to swallow it, and we won't feel all that guilty.

But how can we be so disingenuous, and how do we manage to live with ourselves, when we deceive other people and ourselves as much as we do? If we know that honesty is the best policy, won't our conscience tend to bother us? Well, if we've fooled ourselves into believing our own falsehoods, we don't even realize we're being dishonest.

What's the mechanism going on here? How can we not comprehend that we've duped even ourselves? (Of course, we don't do this all the time, or our lives would be phony and unreal.)

It all begins with our senses, which have evolved to give us a very accurate view of reality. If not, we'd probably not survive, and evolution would have done away with humans long ago. So our senses provide us with a good sample of the world. The problem occurs in the brain. Our ultimate perception of our world is what our brain makes it out to be—what it decides all those electrical signals delivered to the brain mean. Accuracy is not maintained if the signals get degraded or scrambled. And accuracy is lost in the process of making memories. How?

Much of our conception of our world is based on memories. Something happens. We perceive it in some manner, and then stash it in memory—to later retrieve it when we need it. The experiences we have range all over the place—from good to bad, painful to thrilling, sad to joyful, scary to comforting. Our brain will sometimes distort our memory of these experiences—by making them more to our liking. We repress painful memories, create false memories, sugar coat memories, and choose to notice only those things that feed our biases.

These distortions of our memories are often unconsciously formed, so that our conscious mind—unaware of the falsification of a memory—hangs onto it, as if it were valid. We've outwitted ourselves, and in the process, we may fool others as well.