Not having an illusory self has some real benefits

I'm continuing to enjoy my re-reading of Robert Wright's "Why Buddhism is True," a book that I neglected to write about after I first read it several years ago. My first post about it is here.

In his The Alleged Nonexistence of the Self chapter, Wright offers some advice.

Continue to entertain the proposition you've probably been entertaining your whole life, that somewhere within you there's something that deserves the name I.

And don't feel like you're committing a felony-level violation of Buddhist dogma just because you think of yourself as being a self.

But be open to the radical possibility that your self, at the deepest level, is not at all what you've always thought of as it being.

If you followed the Buddha's guidance and abandoned the massive chunks of psychological landscape you've always thought of as belonging to you, you would undergo a breathtaking shift in what it means to be a human.

If you attained the state he's recommending, this would be very different from having a self in the sense in which you've always had one before.

Basically, what Wright means by this is that it's possible to look upon our emotions, thoughts, perceptions, and such as not being in the realm of good and bad, nor as being lasting parts of who we are.

Nothing lasts. Nothing stands alone. Everything changes. Everything is interdependent, connected to other things.

Wright says:

Think of yourself as having, in principle, the power to establish a different relationship with your feelings and thoughts and impulses and perceptions -- the power to disengage from some of them; the power to, in a sense, disown them, to define the bounds of your self in a way that excludes them.

Think of some degree of liberation being possible -- and don't worry about the fact that this would seem to imply that there's a self to be liberated. There are worse things than being a self that gets liberated. 

One aspect of this liberation is being free of two illusions. Wright describes them clearly. 

So, all told, we're under at least two kinds of illusions. One is about the nature of the conscious self, which we see as more in control of things than it actually is. The other illusion is about exactly what kind of people we are -- namely, capable and upstanding.

You might call these two misconceptions the illusion about our selves and the illusion about ourselves. They work in synergy.

The first illusion helps us convince the world that we are coherent, consistent actors: we don't do things for no reason, and the reasons we do them make sense; if our behaviors merit credit or blame, there is an inner us that deserves that credit or blame.

The second illusion convinces the world that what we deserve is credit, not blame; we're more ethical than the average person, and we're more productive than the average teammate. We have beneffectance.

[Defined as the way people naturally present themselves to the world, as beneficial and effective.]

In other words, if you were to build into the brain a component in charge of public relations, it would look something like the conscious self.

In the next chapter, The Mental Modules That Run Your Life, Wright shares this compelling passage.

Indeed, if there is something that qualifies as a constant amid the flux, something that really does endure, essentially unchanged, through time, that something is an illusion: the illusion that there is a CEO, a king, and that "I" -- the conscious I -- am it.

We saw in the previous chapter that this illusion makes sense in evolutionary terms. The conscious I is the I that speaks, the I that communicates with the world, so it gets access to perspectives whose purpose is to be shared with the world.

These perspectives include the sense that there is an executive self, and that it is a pretty damn effective and upstanding executive self at that!

Now, this might seem kind of depressing. I, and you, and everybody else, we wrongly believe that our conscious self is much more in control of what we do than is actually the case.

Plus, we wrongly believe that this illusory CEO or king/queeen is much more loving, effective, competent, and so on than it actually is. (Again, ignore the paradox of an illusion having qualities; this is just the way Buddhism puts things.)

I like what Wright is saying, though. 

Because we think we're better people, a better self, than we truly are, most of us are harder on ourselves than we should be.

Mistakes, screw-ups, failures -- these challenge our sense of ourselves. We can't understand how someone so caring and competent could mess up so badly. 

Well, this assumes that there's a caring and competent self inside our head. It's akin to a general taking responsibility for a battlefield defeat because he's in charge and should have known better than the failed strategy that his troops followed.

But what if there's no general, no CEO, no king, no one in charge? What if our brains are just highly complex entities with many different modules, or states, that come into play as different circumstances arise? 

Then there would be little reason to engage in regret or recriminations for something poorly done. 

We simply do the best we can with what evolution has given us. No one is in charge of our life, of all our doings. There's just things going on inside and outside our psyches. 

Wright says:

Buddhist thought and modern psychology converge on this point: in human life as it's ordinarily lived, there is no one self, no conscious CEO, that runs the show; rather, there seem to be a series of selves that take turns running the show -- and in a sense, seizing control of the show.

If the way they seize control of the show is through feelings, it stands to reason that one way to change the show is to change the role feelings play in everyday life. I'm not aware of a better way to do that than mindfulness meditation.

Comments

[albert medina]

As one Master put it, humans are in the act of doing one of two things in almost every given moment: A human is either thinking about or pursuing material desires - or he/she is averting and turning away from any type of pain. This is a natural response. Everyone loves pleasures and no one likes to be in pain, physically or mentally. General harmony and equilibrium is dependent on a life of comforts and pleasures, keeping pain at bay.

I like this description very much and see it clearly in myself, and others. As to the presence of a "self", there must be an executive decision maker within each of us, whether we are homeless bums or rich celebs. Decisions must be made continuously in the wakeful state and so our egos, coupled with the mind and its range of past experiences, chooses actions and reactions almost always leaning towards sense-pleasures and the avoidance of pain.

The presence of an aware "self" to carry out these decisions is a given, IMHO. Now, the great rishis and masters who have explored their own "self" in meditation and contemplation have outlined a graduated refinement of "self" as their practice fructified. Their journeys have always been intense and internal, rejecting the external world and all its fanfaronade. This is an area of study which I have always been attracted to. To come face to face with the question, "Who Am I", is a natural movement in our evolution.

It is an exciting and self gratifying experience to explore one's own being. There can be futility and many falls, but I believe this search is a genuine movement towards Truth.

[Appreciative Reader]

Great post. Food for thought, absolutely.

Some thoughts and questions:

(1) The whole continuity myth is busted, if this kind of thinking is internalized. Sure, you might want to make sure your child is well cared for, even after you're gone. Perhaps your child's child as well, in as much her happiness would directly impact your own child's. So, maybe a generation, two, three at most. But beyond that? The kind of madness people indulge in, individuals, families, tribes, nations, to ensure "they" endure on and on .... What sense is there in that kind of thing?

.

(2) Given that the Buddha did not have access to modern science, HOW ON EARTH DID HE PRONOUNCE THESE THINGS SO MANY MILLENNIA AGO?

After all, this was not some random casual thought of his. This is something he "discovered", and clung to with such confidence and steadfastness that he allegedly renounced forever a kingdom and family and a life of opulence, all of which were his for the asking. So, how exactly did he get this revelation of his?

I think that's an extremely piquant question. Might there, after all, be some kind of ...faculty, that isn't simply reason, that might help us answer questions of this nature?

That sort of thinking sounds superstitious. And yet, unless this were so, then you cannot really explains how exactly modern science happens to converge on to the Buddha's teachings.

.

(3) I remain extremely curious to know what RW's take is, his take based on science, on what enlightenment, Buddhist style, might be. Is it merely this understanding? In which case, why the centrality of meditation to this process, of understanding this? Or is it RW's view that meditation is NOT essential to this enlightenment thing, given what we know and understand today?

[Appreciative Reader]

Quote RW (and Brian) : "... there seem to be a series of selves that take turns running the show -- and in a sense, seizing control of the show.... If the way they seize control of the show is through feelings, it stands to reason that one way to change the show is to change the role feelings play in everyday life. I'm not aware of a better way to do that than mindfulness meditation."

Why wouldn't simply internalizing this realization, this understanding, suffice?

Sure, meditation has plenty of benefits. A better grip on your feelings is one of them. That much, sure. And a good many more benefits as well, absolutely.

But this isn't what RW is talking about here. He's speaking of an essential decoupling of our feelings and our thoughts with whatever it is "we" are.

And I'm wondering why merely understanding all of this clearly, merely internalizing this fully, wouldn't suffice to give one this changed perspective.

(Playing devil's advocate here, by the way. I meditate myself, and I'm sold on the Theravadin technique. But I do what I do because I enjoy it, and because I find it beneficial for my mental well-being.

How and why meditation might facilitate this decoupling of feelings and thoughts with our sense of self -- not just assist, not just oil the wheels so to say, but actually provide the motive power (which is what RW's words imply) -- is what I don't get.

And yes, this does tie in with my earlier comment. About how on earth the Buddha came to know all of this, without knowing a thing about all of what science has revealed to us of the world and about ourselves.)

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Albert
You ask
"To come face to face with the question, "Who Am I", is a natural movement in our evolution."

The answer is not who but what.
There is no who. The vessel, cleaned of debris and dust, is empty.

Yet that emptiness is bursting with an unseen, invisible, without taste or texture, indefinable but unavoidable, without source but effulgent, radiant light in a sea of darkness, life.

I'm am that.