Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
— RUM I
When we are born, we enter this world without a sense of self, free from any identity. We are simply an undifferentiated flow of experience. However, by the time we are less than a year old, the mind has begun to construct a sense of self, one built from a conglomeration of physical, emotional, mental, and relational processes. As we age, that notion of “self” becomes more solid, definite, and real, so much so that we genuinely believe that our image or identity is who we are.
Yet this idea of self is not as substantive or enduring as we like to think. It is a constructed notion, based on a matrix of ideas, memories, perceptions, and reflections from people and the world around us. As we investigate the “self” with awareness, we see that it is as elusive as it is unreal. It is like a mirage or rainbow that appears solid and substantive, but under close examination, it fails to have any enduring existence.
The felt sense of our self is a defining aspect of our personal existence. We know ourselves by a sense or feeling of “me-ness.” Hard to describe and define, this identity is a familiar sea of feelings, thoughts, perceptions, bodily experiences, and memories. Sometimes we call this our personality, but if we look closely, we notice how this, too, is just a concoction of fleeting experiences that change day by day, hour by hour.
We tend to think of our sense of self and our identity as fixed and enduring over time. But are they really? On wilderness retreats, I invite students to contemplate their own sense of self while in nature, and I often offer my own experience as an example of how the self is constantly in motion, flighty, changeable, and elusive.
One morning during the retreat, after a cold night camping on uneven ground, I wake up having slept badly. I may feel a bit irritable and tired, and I notice “grumpy Mark” is present. He tends to look at the world somewhat negatively. From the perspective of that “self,” the day’s activities will look like hard work. Then I will have a strong cup of black tea, my morning ritual, which helps wake me up and brightens my mind. Between the caffeine and splashing my face with cold water, I will feel brighter, more positive. In the short period of time it takes to drink some tea, “grumpy Mark” vacates and I feel excited about spending the day outdoors. I start to look around at the natural beauty all around me and feel rejuvenated, inspired, and happy.
This buoyant sense of self may not last long. I might remember a disagreement I had with a teaching colleague the night before who critiqued my course structure and teaching style, and now reactivity surfaces: I become angry over being judged; I feel a little hurt inside. A righteous personality quickly emerges, one filled with indignation, and this self gets swept up in a flurry of planning how to rebut my colleague. Usually, after a few minutes, I recognize this reactivity and laugh at myself: “the mindfulness teacher” planning revenge! A wiser self now takes the place of the vengeful one, and I adopt a different view of my colleague: he is, in fact, an old friend whom I know appreciates me and has only my best interests at heart.
Seeking further relief from that confining straightjacket of anger, I decide to hike to a nearby meadow, a beautiful landscape of emerald grasses. Soft dawn light illuminates the ponderosa trees that flank the meadow. I breathe in the fresh mountain air and feel a moment of heartfelt gratitude for being in this magical place, far from the bustle of my urban life. I’m transported into an expansive sense of self that feels love and appreciation for nature and its beauty. In that expansion, I feel the rigidness of the angry one fully dissolve.
I then sit at the foot of an old Douglas fir tree and meditate. As I abide in that contemplative state, my mind quiets, my heart opens, and I have a sense of merging with the landscape. In that quietude, “Mark” as a sense of self becomes hazy. There is no more self-talk, no more feeling separate, just a flow of experience. There is a visceral sense of being one with the living forest. This is all witnessed effortlessly in awareness. The familiar sense of self fully dissolves, leaving just a quiet, awake presence.
Then I am jarred out of this tranquil, serene place by the sound of the retreat bell, summoning everyone to the meditation circle by the campfire. I am jolted out of this sense of connection, where all sense of me, my life, my little separate part of the universe, has disappeared, with no self to be seen. Rapidly, “teacher Mark” emerges, the self who is concerned about getting to the meditation on time and busy planning what kind of practice to lead that morning. This sense of self feels more dense and opaque in comparison to the state where all self-referencing disappears.
And so it goes throughout the day. When we observe ourselves closely, we find that our sense of self expands, contracts, disappears, and transforms, not unlike someone playing an accordion, stretching open and closed through the melody of the song. The key with mindfulness is to observe this dance of the self, to not take any one position as real or as ultimately who we are. Our sense of self changes and flows in the same way thoughts come and go ceaselessly. We see how this experience of a fixed, enduring self is illusory, in that nothing stays around for more than a few moments. Our job is to abide in awareness, notice this ebb and flow, and not be bound by any particular position or vantage point. This releases us from being defined or confined by any particular view or identity.
The wisdom that arises from mindfulness makes space for the sense of self to be and not to be. Not believing any one of these fleeting identities to be who we really are, we release being concerned about any of it. In fact, we sit back and watch the whole show like an amused grandmother, quietly watching over the antics of her grandchildren. This is the profound peace we are so busy searching for. It does not come from creating and perfecting our personality. Freedom comes when we see through the machinations of “self” and cease to be bothered by or believe in any of it.
• PRACTICE •
Exploring the Changing Nature of Self
Take a day to pretend you are a journalist, scientist, or biologist, and your chosen subject is your own sense of self. This experiment requires suspending all previous notions and preconceptions of self and who you think you are.
From the moment you wake up to the time you go to bed, observe your sense of self. Notice how you experience it. Is it observable as an image, a thought, a memory, a felt sense experience, something physical, or a particular identity? Does it feel positive, negative, or neutral? In your body, do you sense it as contracted or expansive or both? Does the sense of self have a particular location in the body?
Can you sense the changing inner landscape of self? Notice how it rarely stays the same for very long. Can you observe the shape-shifting nature of identity. In the same way you may reflect how even today your sense of self has morphed from perhaps being expansive to contracted, from confident to shaky. As you observe the fleeting nature of self, notice how that makes you feel toward the “personality” that may have defined you, and you may have cherished, for a long time. Does it feel freeing, scary, confusing, or liberating to see your sense of self as malleable, insubstantive, or elusive?
What happens when you contemplate who you are and discover it cannot be defined by any of these momentary experiences? Reality makes space for these various appearances of self to be and also not to be. Your practice is to abide in awareness and observe as all these momentary experiences of self and not self come and go. Notice how this practice allows you to not be bound or confined by any of them, and in this way you can find a sense of space and freedom in relationship to this dance of self.
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