Good Morning Everyone,
Lately in dokusan and other venues, people are asking me about “the self.” What is “the self”? From my point of view, self is an incredibly complex tapestry in constant millisecond to millisecond development. If we were to freeze it, which we cannot, we would see billions of interactions processed from birth to the present moment from billions of sources all intersecting in the mind, which frames the whole as “self.” All perception from every sense organ in every moment throughout every contact with every object of the senses builds this “frame” we call “self.” Since we cannot “freeze” it, it is, itself, in constant transformation with both the interior environment of our mind, and the exterior environment of our perception of the universe.
This construction is so complex we cannot predict human behavior with any real degree of certainty. The most sophisticated regression analyses with thousands of variables, may yield a few degrees of explanation, leaving the rest to who knows what. So, what we need to know is that all of the construct of “self,” every bit of it, is a mental work in progress. When we die, the whole thing disintegrates.
When we practice, Master Dogen suggests, mind and body falls away. We begin to see the true nature of this fabrication we call a “self.” We see that the “self” is an elaborate work in progress, and as Uchiyama says, the self is making the self, which is to say, the architect is doing the drawing with all the myriad data being received.
We learn that as we grasp this constantly transforming self we suffer. We do not want to be sick, be injured, or die. We want pleasure, we do not want pain. We want to look like this. We do not want to look like that. We think this or that will make us happy. We think this or that will make us sad. All attempts to hold on to something impossible to hold on to because it never ever actually existed. When everything is in constant transformation, no “thing” can exist.
Our task as practitioners along the Way is to first discover this basic truth and then surrender to it, allowing the body and mind to fall away. In this way we are truly free as the Buddha himself said, we see “the jailer” clearly.
Be well.
Lately in dokusan and other venues, people are asking me about “the self.” What is “the self”? From my point of view, self is an incredibly complex tapestry in constant millisecond to millisecond development. If we were to freeze it, which we cannot, we would see billions of interactions processed from birth to the present moment from billions of sources all intersecting in the mind, which frames the whole as “self.” All perception from every sense organ in every moment throughout every contact with every object of the senses builds this “frame” we call “self.” Since we cannot “freeze” it, it is, itself, in constant transformation with both the interior environment of our mind, and the exterior environment of our perception of the universe.
This construction is so complex we cannot predict human behavior with any real degree of certainty. The most sophisticated regression analyses with thousands of variables, may yield a few degrees of explanation, leaving the rest to who knows what. So, what we need to know is that all of the construct of “self,” every bit of it, is a mental work in progress. When we die, the whole thing disintegrates.
When we practice, Master Dogen suggests, mind and body falls away. We begin to see the true nature of this fabrication we call a “self.” We see that the “self” is an elaborate work in progress, and as Uchiyama says, the self is making the self, which is to say, the architect is doing the drawing with all the myriad data being received.
We learn that as we grasp this constantly transforming self we suffer. We do not want to be sick, be injured, or die. We want pleasure, we do not want pain. We want to look like this. We do not want to look like that. We think this or that will make us happy. We think this or that will make us sad. All attempts to hold on to something impossible to hold on to because it never ever actually existed. When everything is in constant transformation, no “thing” can exist.
Our task as practitioners along the Way is to first discover this basic truth and then surrender to it, allowing the body and mind to fall away. In this way we are truly free as the Buddha himself said, we see “the jailer” clearly.
Be well.
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