If There Is No Self,
Who Is Born, Who Dies, Who
Meditates?
Joseph Goldstein
tricycle
ONE OF THE MOST PUZZLING aspects of the
Buddha's teachings is the idea of no self. If there's no self, who
gets angry, who falls in love, who makes effort, who has memories
or gets reborn? What does it mean to say there is no self?
Sometimes people are afraid of this idea, imagining themselves
suddenly disappearing in a cloud of smoke, like a magician's
trick.
We can understand no-self in several ways.
The Buddha described what we call "self" as a collection of
aggregates—elements of mind and body—that function
interdependently, creating the appearance of woman or man. We then
identify with that image or appearance, taking it to be “I” or
"mine," imagining it to have some inherent self-existence. For
example, we get up in the morning, look in the mirror, recognize
the reflection, and think, "Yes, that's me again." We then add all
kinds of concepts to this sense of self: I'm a woman or man, I’m a
certain age, I'm a happy or unhappy person—the list goes on and
on.
When we examine our experience, though, we
see that there is not some core being to whom experience refers;
rather it is simply "empty phenomena rolling on." Experience is
"empty" in the sense that there is no one behind the arising and
changing phenomena to whom they happen. A rainbow is a good example
of this. We go outside after a rainstorm and feel that moment
of delight if a rainbow appears in the sky. Mostly, we simply enjoy
the sight without investigating the real nature of what is
happening. But when we look more deeply, it becomes clear that
there is no "thing" called "rainbow" apart from the particular
conditions of air and moisture and light.
Each one of us is like that rainbow—an
appearance, a magical display, arising out of the various elements
of mind and body. So when anger arises, or sorrow or love or joy,
it is just anger angering, sorrow sorrowing, love loving, joy
joying. Different feelings arise and pass, each simply expressing
its own nature. The problem arises when we identify with these
feelings, or thoughts, or sensations as being self or as belonging
to "me": I’m angry, I'm sad. By collapsing into the identification
with these experiences, we contract energetically into a prison of
self and separation.
As an experiment in awareness, the next
time you feel identified with a strong emotion, or reaction, or
judgment, leave the storyline and trace the physical sensation back
to the energetic contraction, often felt at the heart center. It
might be a sensation of tightness or pressure in the center of the
chest. Then relax the heart, simply allowing the feelings and
sensations to be there. Open to the space in which everything is
happening. In that moment, the sense of separation disappears, and
the union of lovingkindness and emptiness becomes clear. We see
that there is no one there to be apart. As the Chinese poet Li Po
wrote: "We sit together the mountain and me/ Until only the
mountain remains."