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The True Self

06:34 / 26.01.06

is the search for the true self futile because the object of the search does not exist? what is "self"? merely a choice, in practice/action between an often contradictory multiplicity of factors and phenomena internal and external?

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

07:13 / 26.01.06

is the search for the true self futile because the object of the search does not exist?

There are several Zen stories that suggest the search is futile not because the object does not exist but because it is akin to riding a water buffalo on a search for the water buffalo. The eyes cannot see themselves, the tongue cannot taste itself, etc.

But you know those Zen buddhists. Sitting around on their asses all day....

14:28 / 26.01.06

But what you can do is find out what the self isn't. That relates to the neti-neti meditation.

Personally, I've never gotten to any useful answer on what 'I' am and it annoys me greatly. However, if 'I' do not exist, then where does the feeling 'I' come from?

I think the self does exist, but that we have such a limited conception of what it is, that it is hard for us to say anything coherent about it.

16:50 / 26.01.06

I tend to think of our 'True Self' as the highest spiritual and emotional good within in, and the highest-vibration and most spiritually enlightened version of our individual soul, wants, desires, abilities, etc. Something that is within us that we live to show more of to the world and express more fully...the part of God that lies within each of us.

16:54 / 26.01.06

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

18:04 / 26.01.06

If we're talking about consciousness, the book Godel, Escher and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter has some interesting answers. I think he is of the opinion that consciousness is the mind's reflection of the brain's reflection of reality.

The word "self", to me, implies an essence apart from just "concsciousness". I am reminded of a Sufi metaphor:

God is a lamp, and we are all holes in the lampshade. The spots of light on the wall think they are seperate but this is an illusion.

18:39 / 26.01.06

Personally, I've never gotten to any useful answer on what 'I' am and it annoys me greatly. However, if 'I' do not exist, then where does the feeling 'I' come from?

This whole problem comes out of the limited capcity to describe ourselves fully. How could you describe everything about yourself in detail. This whole problem (the search for the true self etc.) comes out of the results of the search, not the quest itself. The results will always be a partial description, a model, because they can't be your entirety.

07:13 / 27.01.06

thanks for the replies.
on further reflection, how about the self defined as no-thing, the absence of manifestation? i suppose that would fit into the qabalistic idea of The Fool as the 0 before manifestation.

i am, not.

11:10 / 27.01.06

Isnt 'I' the root of the ego?

13:14 / 27.01.06

Here's a further complication, if you will, thrown in from a biological standpoint -
Most, if not all, of our sense of self, perceptions and experience, comes from the hardware of our brains. Our brains contain an immense number of interconnected cells which pass messages between themselves. The messages (electrical-chemical changes) represent the output of our sense organs, perceptions and memories. Learning is the action of changing the connections between the cells that trigger in response to given stimulae and goes on all the time. Thus, our network, our mind if you will, is constantly in flux as current perceptions interact with memories (habits, data etc).

How can "I" have a static "true self" if "my mind" is contstantly in flux? The "me" that sends this isn't quite the same "me" that started to write this message (although I did stick to my original idea so perhaps in that focusing on the issue lies the direction to the answer to the original question).

As a sideline, can I ask the list if anyone here daily, hourly, operates on a principle of having "no self".. Can you describe any of your experiences of maintaining this viewpoint?

13:21 / 27.01.06

I think this may offer some insight. For anyone that doesnt recognise it, its a talk that goes on between Bruse Lee and his teacher in 'Enter The Dragon'.

Teacher： I see your talents have gone beyond the mere physical level. Your skills are now at the point of spiritual insight. I have several Questions. What is the highest technique you hope to achieve?

Lee： To have no technique.

Teacher： Very good. What are your thoughts when facing an opponent?

Lee： There is no opponent.

Teacher： And why is that?

Lee： Because the word "I" does not exist.

Teacher： So.. Continue.

Lee： A good fight should to be like a small play. But, played seriously. A good martial artist does not become tense. But ready. Not thinking, yet not dreaming. ready for whatever may come. When the opponet expand, I contract, When he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity...I do not hit. "It" hit all by itself.

Teacher： Now, You must remember. The enemy has only images and illusions, behind which he hides his true motives. Destroy the image, and you will break the enemy. The "it" that you refer to is a powerful weapon easily misused by the martial artist who deserves his flaws.

Boy in a Suitcase

14:11 / 27.01.06

I'm with Anth on this one...

17:28 / 27.01.06

Great dialogue by Bruce the Man Lee, but Myamoto Musashi would disagree with him in one point. Lee says he reacts to the enemy (contracts, expand, etc), but Musashi, in his Five Rings book, clearly states that when the martial artist perfects hir style, there's no need to react to the enemy. The martial artist imposes hir will to the enemy, forcing the enemy to react to hir instead. Guess it's the difference of having no self and having a self so broad that encompasses the whole Universe (and, quite frankly, is there any difference between those two???)

and, additionally:

Most, if not all, of our sense of self, perceptions and experience, comes from the hardware of our brains.

That always bugged me, regarding a supposed "afterlife". If our soul/spirit/energy/whatever survives death (so I hope, at least), and considering that our memories are stored in our brain, and most of our personality is a sum of such memories and the influence of our hormones and senses, how much of "us" survives the destruction of the bodily self? Do we remember who we are (or were) or are we transformed into mindless energy, ready to reincarnate or be absorbed into the "Great Presence"?????

22:32 / 27.01.06

With the curious exception of the pudgalavadins, the self is very strongly denied by Buddhists.

The sense of self in their analysis coming from the workings of the seventh consciousness (the manas), where the ignorance of the nature of things means that the mind thinks there is a self, which causes suffering as it tries to gain satisfaction from unsatisfactory things and to please something that can't be satisfied since it doesn't exist.

My £0.02.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

02:37 / 28.01.06

How can "I" have a static "true self" if "my mind" is contstantly in flux?

Think of the spot of light on a wall, illuminating the dust and dirt stuck to it. Thinking the dust and dirt, which in this case is as transitory as the mind and body both, as the "self" is obviously not correct. The self is the illuminating light (or rather, that's how I understand the metaphor. I could be clueless. Don't quote me boy I ain't said shit).

Consider the poem by Shin-hsui, submitted in a poetry contest at his monastery under the fifth patriarch:

The body is the wisdom-tree,
The mind is a bright mirror in a stand;
Take care to wipe it all the time,
And allow no dust to cling.

'cause, you know, the dust will dull the mirror, thus depriving the wisdom-tree of it's light.

It's a good poem, but keep in mind Hui-neng's poem, which actually won the grand prize in the contest: the robe and bowl signifying his right to be the sixth patriarch after the fifth had passed. This is what he wrote (or rather, dictated because he was illiterate):

Fundamentally no wisdom-tree exists,
Nor the stand of a mirror bright.
Since all is empty from the beginning,
Where can the dust alight

Take from that what you will. I think Dead Megatron is close when he wrote

Guess it's the difference of having no self and having a self so broad that encompasses the whole Universe

Kidninja asks: As a sideline, can I ask the list if anyone here daily, hourly, operates on a principle of having "no self".. Can you describe any of your experiences of maintaining this viewpoint?

Probably not in a way you could easily understand. Not that I actually operate on a principle of "no-self" (btw "principle" probably isn't the right word here). But that's pretty much what several branches of Buddhism do, including Zen, and there are several collections of zen stories, poems, lessons or whatever available online or in bookstores.

08:21 / 28.01.06

How can "I" have a static "true self" if "my mind" is contstantly in flux?

This is something that I've wondered as well. When I think back to myself at, say, 12 years old, that doesn't really feel like me. It's me, but it's so different from who I am now that it feels like a related, but still very different person.
I used to feel that 'I' really started around 15 years old, but I've recently noticed that that doesn't hold true anymore. Apparently, I've again changed to the point where that doesn't feel like me anymore.
I don't think it's merely a function of age, but more a result of a different way of thinking.

I'm not sure how well I'm explaining it. Does anyone have similar feelings?

All Acting Regiment

03:56 / 29.01.06

As we've seen, there's lots of answers here, and it's a very interesting topic. I'd love to go on at length but I'll focus a bit. Looking at the choice of words here, the phrase "True Self" implies that there is an "Untrue Self". Others have already mentioned how one feels a different person at different stages of growth, so even before we get to any mystical level it seems fair to say that the "self" you experience now (while you are reading this) is not the "true" self because it is limited by existing in this particular time segment; in the same way an acorn alone is not a "true" apple tree, and in fact nor is the apple tree when it is a sapling alone, nor only when it is fully grown, nor only when it is dead, nor only when it is in leaf or has no leaves. The apple tree exists through time, a true apple tree is all of the above stages combined. The "true self" as the self which is objectively true from the point of view of time?

Equally, you don't need to get mystical to understand "you" as a part of a larger process (thus making the "self" a bit of a fallacy). You are a product of society, for example. In fact, you are a product of, and nothing without, the Earth, the animals, the plants, and everything else, and all the processes they have gone through.

All Acting Regiment

06:00 / 29.01.06

BTW, I'm not trying to bash the magical/mythical interpretations.

10:19 / 02.02.06

i think the reluctance to define the self as absence (of manifestation) or simply pure consciousness is due to the fact that something invariably manifests from the no-thingness. i suppose this would be the transition from the 0 to the 1 expressed Qabalistically by the Fool and the Magus.

the magus is seen as the root of the ego and also the creator of maya. i am content at the moment i think to see the self as no-thing and manifestations as inheritently illusionary, possibly relative only to our temporal being-in-the-world, not invalid per se by that token but to be abandoned at least after a time, as illusionary. And certainly bound by language. If only in the regard that self is internally communicated through and mediated by language. "the inner dialogue".

so, "i" am no-thing or -

no-thing IS

"i" exists after the fact; i can be a "self" but only ultimately with a certain sense of ironic detatchment. i suppose in a way, that's the way i've seen it and been it for a long time. i create more or less self-consciously, various selves suited to various circumstances and regard it as a kind of play.

i see a kind of parallel with this in many of Burroughs' works, which is i guess why Burroughs grabbed me so much to begin with.

10:25 / 02.02.06

in other words i would see the true self as no-thing, peace, absence of manifestation; i would see the untrue self as anything whatsoever which can manifest because any manifestation implicitly involves falsehood, duality, partiality.

that doesn't rest however on the assumption that if something is false, it's "bad". that's definitely only a dualistic western notion.

i think it is fine to spin & use illusions as it suits us. the problem only arises if we become attatched to any of those illusions and believe that they constitute "the true self". when they only constitute in truth a choice made from a multitude of possibilities. i think it is the attatchment to any manifestation which creates "the abyss".

i suppose this is why i have been led over the years to be "a joyful nihilist" in my thinking. everything is a lie, the distinction between truth and lies essentially disappears. evaluations are made on the basis of utility. finding a useful lie. and all forms eventually return to the void. perhaps in this way one learns over time to thrive in the maya which is wordly existence.

23:34 / 08.02.06

I like my "fake" self, actually. But that's just because I'm in love with Samsara at this point of my spiritual development. Nirvana can wait...

.. and I'm not joking

10:31 / 09.02.06

i sincerely don't think there's anything wrong with falsehood per se, particularly when one recognises it to be false and lives it self-consciously. That's the spirit
of Play.
The true self manifest in the world would appear madness to the great many in any case.

from my own experience i think the pursuit of truth
or "truth", noble as the intent seems, can be as destructive as anything else if not mitigated by other qualities. an appreciation of superficiality develops. and would have saved many a philosopher from irreparable insanity.

i like my false self too. it's completely superficial, vain, air-headed and narcissistic. i guess i evolved it to try and fit in with those around me

and as a protection mechanism too i guess. it's like saying - there's no depth of thought here...

10:33 / 09.02.06

ultimately having left selfhood behind and connected with the impersonal, we have to manifest as something or other; whatever we manifest as is per se going to be imperfect.
hopefully there is room in that manifestation for at least a grain of spiritual truth, love, compassion etc.

20:58 / 12.02.06

there isnt such a thing as a "true self". were biological and electric impulses, everything else is fiction. we all make ourself up everyday. The self is nothing but the story of "you " that we have to make up to be able to function in the society of today. You can become whoever you will all the time. Its only when you give up th eieda of a true self you will be free and be able to decide who you are or what you are.

Read L. Reinhearts "The diceman". Its a good and entertaing start. then go on to Phil Hine and Bill Burroughs.

21:35 / 12.02.06

Fine, "we make ourselves up every day". But then the question becomes: Who is it that is making itself up every day?
If we can become anyone, who is it that is becoming one thing or another?

22:02 / 12.02.06

those last two posts form a kind of classic moment that might provoke instant enlightenment.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

07:14 / 13.02.06

Read L. Reinhearts "The diceman". Its a good and entertaing start. then go on to Phil Hine and Bill Burroughs.

Well hot damn. I bet none of those Temple squares would ever have picked up The Diceman off their own bat. Good thing you're here to shatter our reality tunnels, eh?

Unconditional Love

10:46 / 13.02.06

Faithfully doubtful, conditional self based on the conditions that surround it, cultural, social, personal.

Unconditional self, self with no conditions.

a conditioned, unconditional self, reflecting on the conditions to try to understand unconditional exsistence.

doubtful faith.

21:17 / 13.02.06

can the unconditional self be said to have any qualities/form? or is it expressed in/experienced in negative terms?

23:19 / 13.02.06

Why do you need a true self (or the idea of a true self)?

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

02:00 / 14.02.06

Well, if the Self doesn't actually exist, if it is just an illusion, then I guess that makes your question meaningless.

But since you, MrCoffeeBean, are in possesion of a self, or at least an idea of a self, why don't you tell us?

23:44 / 14.02.06

Well, there are millions of Buddhists out there that believe there is no self, but I'm not sure if I buy that. I think that the True Self is the part of you that chooses how to react from the stimuli that you have to work with, and the part of you that controls your consciousness and awareness. In the most scientific terms, the True Self would just be the electric current running through your body, which is also the part of you that exits and exists outside of the body when astrally projecting, I suppose.

17:42 / 19.02.06

i agree that i don't know if it makes much sense to speak of the true self. i do think, on further thought, it makes a lot of sense to speak of the True Will, which is perhaps a reflection of a True Self that can not be conceived of or defined.