How can you be self-confident if you have 'no self'?
How can you be self-confident if you have 'no self'?
The Buddhist conundrum less complicated than it seems!
If Shakyamuni Buddha showed up at your front door one day and you invited him inside for a coffee, he might reply, “Thanks, I’d like that.” Or perhaps, “Sorry to trouble you, but I prefer tea.” Rather than his choice of drink, the important point here is that Buddha would have no problem referring to himself as ‘I’ or ‘me.’
This is an important point when diving into the vitally important and subtle subject of our self. Because while it’s true that Buddha taught that complete freedom can only attained when we release all grasping at a self, he was also happy to refer to himself in the first person.
Put simply, there is a perfectly valid ‘I’ or self to whom we can refer, along with an ‘I’ or self that doesn’t actually exist. When we understand the difference between the two we can see that self-confidence and self-care doesn’t in any way contradict the idea of ‘no self’, even if, on the surface of things, these ideas seem to clash.
The true ‘I’
Let’s begin with the true ‘I’. The valid way of referring to our self. Which in Buddhism goes by a variety of names like the ‘mere I’, the ‘apprehended I’ or the ‘conventional I’. This ‘I’ is a label for the collection of body and mind elements we call ‘me.’
It’s perfectly valid to talk about a me who was born in such and such a place, grew up with certain conditioning, has suffered from depression or PTSD, enjoyed various successes, leans this way or that on social, economic or political issues, or prefers one kind of drink over another.
We use this same valid label for a collection of parts that are constantly changing – the ‘I’ of 2024 describing a quite different person from that of, say, 1984. Just as time changes what is implied by the ‘I’ label, so does perspective. ‘I’ am appreciated by some, tolerated by others and actively disliked by a number of people. I have my own ideas about who ‘I’ am, but the way I am perceived by other beings is something over which I have limited control. Others have their own karma or conditioning forcing them to perceive me in a way that has nothing to do with me.
Even my own ideas about who ‘I’ am are liable to instant change. With a single phone call, accident or diagnosis, the way I think about my self can alter. I’m sure it’s the same for you too.
There is no permanence or essence to this constantly changing bundle of karmas and propensities. And thank heavens for that! Because I have the capacity to focus my mind and energies on positive, virtuous activities, I can create a future self who bears little resemblance to who I am now, in the same way that I am quite a different being from the one I was forty years ago. I have a strong say in the ‘I’ who I become.
The mere collection of body and mind parts described by the true ‘I’ label is what will ultimately become a Buddha even if, at the moment, it refers simply to me! When I am enlightened I may still refer to a ‘me’ even though my state of being will, like Shakyamuni Buddha’s, be quite different by then.
In summary, the true ‘I’ is simply a convenient way of labelling ourselves. A grammatical short cut. A whole lot easier than saying, “this continuum of constantly-changing mind and body parts would prefer a cup of tea.”
The false I
Our problem is that, on top of this label, we create something that doesn’t exist, never has existed and can’t possibly exist: an ‘I’ who is somehow separate from our body and mind.
Like the true ‘I,’ this false ‘I’ goes by a range of names like the ‘separate I,’ the ‘self-existent I,’ the ‘independent I,’ the ‘inherently existent I.’
Neither my parents nor teachers ever sat me down and said: “David: as well as being a collection of physical and mental elements, there’s also this other fellow called ‘I’ who is the real you. The essential you. The you who is the most important being in your world and who you must cherish deeply.”
No one ever said that to me. I’m guessing not to you either. But somehow we come round to inventing this unicorn – because everyone around us has their very own pet unicorn too. The false ‘I’ is a cultural assumption we take on by ourselves. We aren’t surprised when people say: “My mind isn’t what it used to be,” or “my back hurts if I do such-and-such.” We may even say such things ourselves. What these words imply is that there is an ‘I’ who possesses our mind or back. An ‘I’ who is the owner, controller or ringmaster of our personal reality, independent of both body and mind.
This false ‘I’ exists in an elusive way – seldom there when you look for him or her, but the moment your metaphorical back is turned, taking full-blown psycho-dramatic centre stage. Lamas tell us that a good way to identify this false ‘I’ is to recall a time when we were unfairly accused of something. A burning sense of injustice gives rise to an ‘I’ who is not merely a label for a collection of body and mind parts, but who seems to exist substantially and independently and whose integrity is being maligned: do you know who I am?!
Undeserved blame is not the only way to identify the false ‘I.’ As I have shared with readers before, depression cast a debilitating shadow over much of my life in my twenties, and at the heart of this was the assumption that ‘I’ had a permanence with certain characteristics that meant ‘I’ was fatally flawed.
An ex-girlfriend told me that ‘I’ was impossible to love. Instead of seeing her words for what they were, I took them to heart. I thought that the person who meant the most to me back then had identified, in this permanent me, an immutable failing. ‘My’ life was doomed to misery!
For exactly this reason Buddha said that the ultimate cause of all our suffering is the belief in this false ‘I.’ Being told that you’re unlovable by the person you love is never going to be a cause of great happiness. But whether it is a temporary setback, or a source of enduring despair depends on how you process it.
Is this unlovable me a permanent self viewed by an objective observer? Or an in-the-moment remark by a subjective observer about a constantly-changing continuum of body and mind which everyone sees very differently? You don’t need to be a therapist to see how very different emotional outcomes will arise depending on your understanding of how ‘I’ exists!
Self-care and ‘no self’
Understanding the difference between the true ‘I’ and false ‘I’ makes it a lot easier to understand why there is no contradiction between concepts like self-compassion, self-care, self-confidence and the idea that there is no inherently existent ‘me.’
Some Buddhist schools refer to the ‘true I’ as ‘no self’ by which they simply mean that we have no inherently-existent self. I personally think that a caret (‸ or ^) should be inserted wherever the phrase no ‸ self is used, implying the all-important, qualifying phrase ‘inherently existent.’ It would save newcomers to the Dharma a world of confusion and pain!
The self that requires care, compassion and in whom we wish to engender confidence is the true ‘I.’ The ‘I’ that is simply a label for our continuum of body and mind. There is no permanent, concretised, self-existent ‘I’ needing care, but if care is needed right now, then let’s not deny ourselves. If we’re going through tough times of trauma, burnout, grief, anxiety or apprehension, of course it is entirely appropriate to respond with self-compassion. We’d do the same for someone else in the same position, wouldn’t we?
As the Dalai Lama often teaches, if we cannot love ourselves, how can we truly extend love to others? Mind training or lojong practices encourage us to soften towards our own suffering, seeing it as part of the condition we share not only with fellow humans, but with many other living beings. Such softening allows us to open our hearts more fully.
Being our own therapist
Lama Yeshe used to encourage his students to be their own therapist – underlining the importance of taking care of ourselves. As an insight into our tendency to concretise or reify an ‘I’ that is the source of suffering he used to talk about a double bubble. First, he used to tease, we invent a false ‘I who exists in a permanent, independent way. Next we attribute all kinds of negative qualities to this unicorn. In my case, an unlovable, sub-par loser.
Why do we do it?! Isn’t it the height of insanity? Once it’s pointed out to us where we’re going wrong, this understanding alone may help pull the rug from under the feet of unhappiness. When our conviction deepens that no essential me exists that can be permanently afflicted, we are better able to cope with whatever horrors come our way. When we recognise the temporary, contingent, tenuous nature of reality – and our selves – we find it easier to tread more lightly, to step more freely.
A few words on the soul
I vividly remember the first time I came across the idea of ‘no‸ self’. It was in a cartoon-style book about Buddha’s teachings which, with the benefit of hindsight, didn’t handle the subject especially well. There was not a single caret to be found! It felt like a punch to the guts being told that my cherished, if tortured ‘I’ was a mere figment of my imagination. What about the soul, I remember my deeply irreligious but desperate ego wondering as I clutched at straws!
Given that so many of us live in a Christian culture I feel it’s important to address the ‘soul’ concept when talking about true and false ‘I’s. I am sometimes asked directly: do Buddhists believe in a soul? To which the answer is: that depends on what your definition of a ‘soul’ is.
If one’s idea of a soul is a permanent, inherently-existent entity, separate from body and mind, a self with immutable personal characteristics, of course Buddhism sees this as an impossible mode of being.
But if one is happy to use the label ‘soul’ for a subtle and formless continuum, an aspect of consciousness that continues from one lifetime to another, a psycho-energetic entity that we affect – positively or negatively – because it is mutable, dynamic and ever-shifting, then that is an understanding shared by the Buddha.
One we may like to ponder with him, if he were to pay us a surprise visit and share a cup of tea together sitting on the porch. Or perhaps if we ventured down to the street to offer carets to all the passing unicorns!
Dharma
From unicorns to their endangered relatives: rhinos. As you know, I donate half the subscription money I receive from you to a few extraordinary well deserving causes. These are usually the same not-for-profits, but I recently received an appeal from Nicholas Duncan at Save Foundation, which I have been a member of for many years. Save Foundation was raising funds to ear notch a bumper batch of baby rhinos who were recently born in Zimbabwe. Hurrah!
Ear notching makes it possible to identify and monitor every single rhino, and ensure that they are monitored and protected for the rest of their lives. While temporarily sedated, the rhinos also get a health check, and blood samples are taken.
I can’t offer too much more intelligence about the operation which is brief, efficient and effective. It involves a helicopter and highly mobile ground operation. Currently rhino horn fetches about US$90,000 per kilogram in various Asian countries, where it is a prized aphrodisiac, even though it is made from keratin - just like our finger nails. Rhino horns weigh three to four 4 kilograms.
Because of the massive financial incentive, what’s happening with rhinos in Africa is tantamount to a low level war. Sophisticated technology is used by both poachers and the anti-poachers who protect these extraordinary beings, whose numbers have dropped from 500,000 a century ago to around 30,000 today.
To fund the ear-notching operation, Save offers a naming program - for AUD$2,500 you can name a rhino. On behalf of us all, I asked Nicholas to name our calf ‘Dharma,’ not only because it is an auspicious name, but also because it’s a word that packs a certain punch and seems suitable for a rhino!
Photo: Dharma the rhino: in the Zimbabwe lowveld; now monitored, protected and with a real chance of life thanks to Save Foundation - and you!
This is a sedated Dharma, and in the months and years to come, I will share any updates I receive.
May Dharma, all rhinos, and those who protect them, have long, safe, healthy and happy lives.
And special thanks to you for subscribing. Without you, this simply wouldn’t have happened!
You can learn more about Save Foundation here.
Ho! Thank you David for post about “I “, “self” etc. My I recently underwent a change as a result of a stroke. I am aware that I am not the same person, in an odd way it is exciting to have shed the old self. I have no idea as to why I was “saved” through a medical procedure, to become this “other” person with different considerations. Regardless, I”the me that is currently typing this with a short term memory problem” am eternally grateful to the medical team, family and others who have enabled me to continue in a changed body, mind even so that I will and do approach all whom I come in contact with in an embrace of loving kindness, either mentally or physically. I am having to give up “why me saved” and instead simply feel an enormous life of gratitude, almost feels like a fresh start in this human form. Thank you David for your words of Buddha wisdom.
Thank you for a great explanation, so easy to understand and follow. I do have one question and you may have previously answered this but; I ask this with sincere respect, as well as desire for an answer. Since there is no "I" , how am I creating Karma for myself?
Sometimes I have a grasp on all this, and sometimes I struggle.
Thank You
JoAnn