This chapter is an interpretation of passages in early Buddhist writings centered on the terms atta “self” and an-atta “not-self.” Readers already familiar with modern Buddhist writing will probably have heard these passages interpreted as a doctrine denying the existence of a self. In this book I understand most of these passages to be addressing issues surrounding the concepts of “identity” or “self-image.” Attachment to some particular identity makes me vulnerable to deep Distress when conditions change make it impossible to maintain this identity.
I might for example be Attached to an identity as “a wealthy man,” “a successful teacher,” or “an always-calm person.” Maintaining any such identity is dependent on certain conditions in the world remaining reliably the same. I cannot maintain an identity as a wealthy person if I lose all my money, cannot maintain my identity as a teacher if I lose my teaching job, cannot maintain my identity as an always calm person if I lose my temper. Kisa Gotami could not maintain her identity as mother-of-a-son when her son died.
Inviting muderers into one’s house
The suttas tell a story (SN 22:113, p. 933) dramatically illustrating this point, about someone who, wanting to murder another person, first presented himself at the door offering himself as a servant. Once he becomes accepted as a trusted member of the household, then he pulls out a knife and murders his host. Buddha points out: “Wasn’t the man a murderer before he entered the house?” The lesson: making something Impermanent (something belonging to the five khandha-categories) an essential part of an identity or self-image I am attached to, is like inviting a murderer into my house.
Craving and Attachment to an idenity.
We can regard all this as an elaboration on teachings regarding Craving and Attachment. We all have an instinctive Craving to establish an identity for ourselves. This Craving assumes that the world out there represents everything real and important. Just as the Velveteen Rabbit could not feel really real until it found a child to love it, I feel insecure about myself, not quite real and substantial, unless I can locate myself somewhere in the world out there, find something that represents me in this world.
I could place myself in the world, as Kisa Gotami did, as a “parent of a child.” I could also place myself out there as “a person with a beautiful face,” “a wealthy person,” “a great athlete,” “a well-respected person among my neighbors,” “an always-calm person” and so on. This gives another dimension to Craving, as the compulsion to reach out to find sources of validation in the world out there.
Often this takes the form of a need to “prove oneself,” by having “something to show for myself.” Sometimes this takes the form of competition for social status. My need for confirmation takes the form of a need to have some attributes or achievements that make me stand out above others in the eyes of the general public. But at least I want to have some attributes that make me “someone special” in my own eyes.
So on the one hand, I feel driven to find an identity for myself, defined in relation to something in the real world out there. I feel insecure, insubstantial, not solid, if I cannot place myself somewhere in the world that gives me a sense of solidity that I lack when unconnected to something in the world.
On the other hand, I also find myself living in a world that only appears solid. It is actually a world of illusory solidity because the entire “world” I live in consists after all in a collection of things, events, and conditions that are Impermanent and ever-changing. Every time I try to gain a sense of solidity by identifying myself with something out there in the world, I make myself vulnerable to having that apparently solid and meaningful identity completely and painfully undermined by changing conditions in the world.
Being flexible about changing identities.
Not being Attached to any identity does not mean never having any identity. Every concrete person always exists with some characteristics, relating to the world in some particular way, playing some particular role in the world. Achieving the ability to “regard everything in the world as “not-self,” “not essential to my identity,” would in practice result in an indefinite flexibility to switch from one identity to another. If circumstances change to make it impossible for a star athlete to maintain this status, the person could easily and flexibly adapt, and be the best self she could be in new circumstances thrust upon her. No changing circumstances would ever be a deep threat, all circumstances would present new opportunities for finding new identities new meaningful ways of relating to the world.
This assumes that the possibility of taking on an indefinite number of different identities, playing an indefinite number of different roles in the world, is something inherent in the being of human beings. From this perspective, being inflexibly Attached to some particular identity represents a kind of self-limiting, a shrinking of otherwise potentially unlimited possibilities. This could be positively expressed as release from this self-limitation, a fuller realization of the expansive capacities that Buddhism says are inherent in the being of all human beings, but normally hidden and unrecognized.
An “objective double” that mirrors me back to myself
Another concept helpful in elaborating on the concept of personal identity is one based on a particular passage in the Suttas [% sutta ref] involving a woman “youthful and fond of ornaments” looking at her face in mirror. The sutta says she is looking in the mirror “with Attachment, not without Attachment.”
The image of “seeing myself in a mirror” is a paradigm case of self-object-ification. Here is “me,” seeing a face that is an object-of-awareness for me, which mirrors me back to myself, enabling me-as-aware-subject to see “myself” as an object-of-awareness, belonging to the world that I live in.
When I look in the mirror, what I see is “myself” in a trivial sense, that I see myself rather than my cat or my sister. But in the Buddhist context, the question is whether what I see in the mirror is “myself” in a more pregnant sense. Does the face I see in the mirror satisfy the desire described above, the desire to find something to represent me in the world that I live in–something which will provide me with a source of self-esteem and meaning in life that I feel lacking if I have nothing in the world to represent me?
“Objective double” seems an apt phrase to describe this phenomenon. I have difficulty maintaining a sense of self-esteem unless I can locate myself somewhere in the world out there.
“Appropriating,” and the illusion of inseparability.
Bikkhu Bodhi suggests another way of conceptualizing the phenomena involved here. He describes this as two modes in which Attachment can manifest itself, “identification with” something in the world, or “appropriating” something in the world. “Identifying with” some part of the world-perceived can be pictured as self-object-ifying or self-externalizing. “Appropriating” suggests “taking into myself.” It suggests not “externalizing” myself in terms of some X, but “introjecting” some X into my own being. “Appropriating” or “introjecting” is a different metaphor useful in describing the same phenomenon, which can also be described in terms of an “emotional illusion of inseparablity.”
Suppose for example I “regard ‘being a parent” as essential to my identity. This means that I have tried to “introject” being-a-parent, tried to bring being-a-parent into my very being. It means coming to feel that being-a-parent is so essential to who-I-am, that “I” and being-a-parent are inseparable. To feel that “I” and being-a-parent are inseparable is to feel that “I” will never be forced to exist without being a parent.
But one can easily see how illusory this is, if it is true that there might be occasions in which my children die or reject me, and I am forced to exist no longer able to function as a parent. This is the practical import of the Buddhist doctrine that being a parent, like any other identity I might become Attached to, is Impermanent.
The important fact here about the Impermanence of being-a-parent is not only that being a parent is Impermanent, something that might not last throughout my lifetime. The important thing is that, if I “appropriate” being-a-parent, introject this identity into my sense of who-I-am, this bond I feel with being-a-parent is Impermanent.
This deep bond I feel can be described then as a kind of Attachment to being-a-parent, motivated by insecurity-driven Craving, so that when this bond with being-a-parent is broken and I am forced to exist unable to function as a parent, this can cause me deep Distress (dukkha). I can feel that my very being is being ripped apart.
But as noted earlier, Buddhist teaching applies all these ideas equally to everything I can perceive or be aware of about my own mental/emotional being. They can apply, for example, to a feeling of calmness or general feeling of happiness and well-being that I might achieve through meditation.
But also it seems true that everyone probably has what might be called a particular “sense-of-self” that might be difficult to define exactly, but which is assumed when someone wakes up in the morning and says “I’m not myself today.” “I’m not myself today,” assumes that this individual has a subtle but more or less constant perception of her own being, which on most occasions passes unnoticed and taken-for-granted in the background, but becomes noticed when it is absent, replaced by some other sense-of-self which feels very different, and makes a person feel uncomfortable “not myself today.”
To return again to the idea of “appropriation” discussed above, it could be that I have so appropriated or “introjected” the role of being-a-parent, or some particular sense-of-self, that I have come to feel these as so bonded to “me,” that they are part of my very being, leading to an emotional expectation that being a parent, or having some particular sense-of-self, is something so much a part of me that I will never be forced to exist without them. This can be called “the emotional illusion of inseparability.”
Seen in this way, these examples serve as further illustrations of what it might mean to “regard some Impermanent X as atta” – essential-to-me – and how all this is connected to the basic core Buddhist teachings regarding Clinging, Impermanence, and dukkha. The strong bond I might form with being-a-parent, or with some particular sense-of-self, is a form of Clinging to the Impermanent objects-perceived involved – whose Impermanence means that Clinging to them makes me vulnerable to dukkha when I am forced to exist without them.
Clinging to a particular persona or self-image.
So far I have tried to elaborate on the meaning of the an-atta teaching by means of a number of different abstract descriptions illustrating different facets of this teaching. I would now like to elaborate further by means of a number of more concrete examples.
One further explanation can be given in terms of the concept of a persona, made popular in the writings of psychotherapist Karl Jung. Persona was a term applied in the ancient world to masks that actors often wore, giving visual representation to some character a given actor is supposed to be portraying. “Persona” is thus the “face” that I project to others, a face that represents me to the world. And again, most people feel a need to project a face that they can be proud of, that will attract recognition and admiring attention from others.
“Self-image” is another concept closely related to persona. For example, I might Cling to a self-image as “a competent person.” This might mean that, when I am going on a trip, I have a stake in asserting that the route I have chosen is the best route, better than others who disagree with me. I feel such disagreements as an attack on “me,” my self-image as a competent person.
Attachment to a private self-image.
But Buddhism has to do, not only with the face I present to others, but with even with any private self-image I might have. That is, if I receive no attention and respect from other people, I might be tempted to form a self-image that at least I in my own private world can find admirable.
The problem with this concerns again the universality of Impermanence, the extension of Impermanence to include absolutely everything I can be aware of, externally or internally, and regard as inseparable from “me.” For example, I can become Attached to a self-image as “an always-calm person,” or “an always happy person,” and these too might become important sources of self-esteem. No matter how private or how internal my sources of self-esteem might be, it is always possible that changes in my internal life might compel me to continue to exist in a state separated from these inner sources of validation.
A sense of entitlement.
“Entitlement” is another concept helpful in this regard. A person with a strong sense of entitlement goes through the world with a sense of being entitled to a relatively high level of respectful treatment by others and by the world in general. Not only am I deserving of respect from others, I need to actually get this respect, because it serves as an essential validation of my sense of self worth.
Failure to get this respect – being “dissed” (disrespected) in modern jargon – is felt then as an attack on “me,” often provoking angry response. An insecure person is more inclined then to “take things personally,” to perceive the actions of others from the perspective of someone in constant need of approving recognition and respect of others.
One very common manifestation of this today concerns driving in a car. When I am driving to a particular destination, this becomes “my trip,” and I take any interference with my trip as a personal affront, a failure by the world to accord my and my goals the respect I and they deserve. This extends to mild anger at being stuck in traffic, to so-called “road-rage” that sometimes results in violent attacks on others who get in the way of a person with a strong sense of entitlement.
This extends also to such impersonal factors as the weather, as it when it rains on my birthday or wedding day. Then thoughts occur like, “This shouldn’t be happening to me,” “I don’t deserve this,” “I deserve better treatment than this.”
At the most general level, a sense of entitlement causes a person to become identified simply with any project or goal this person has decided “this is what I want.” Then the person becomes Attached to “getting my way,” and regards any interference with getting-my-way as a personal affront. Anything that I have decided to regard as “my way” represents “me” in the world, so any interference with “my way” is a personal attack on me.
A “self-referential” attitude.
An insecure and self-conscious person goes through life with a “self-referential” attitude. “Self-referential” means that I see everything, and measure everything I see, from the point of view of its relation to things I need as confirmation of my own sense of self-worth and meaning in life. When someone else is promoted and gets a raise, but I do not, I cannot celebrate this person’s good fortune, because my thoughts go to “Why her and not me?”. When Kisa Gotami’s son died, her grief was not just the normal grief of a parent losing a child. The fact that she had become so dependent on the status that being mother-of-a-son gave her, made her experience his death in a very self-referential way, and grieve for herself and her loss of status, rather than for her son.
In this context, the self-contained self-confidence that is part of the Buddhist ideal would allow an individual to relate to others with a less self-referential attitude. We have no good English word to describe the opposite of this. “Other-centered” might do if properly understood. This ideal would also involved increased empathy, the ability and habit of being able to put oneself in another’s shoes, imagining how this other person is experiencing life at the moment, undistracted by self-referential preoccupations about what their present situation in life means for me.
Taking things personally.
It seems built in to normal human nature that I tend to regard my material possessions as extensions of “me.” If someone wrecks my car or my stereo equipment, or breaks into my house, I again take this personally as an attack on “me,” a failure to accord me the respect I deserve.
Another good example here is fear of speaking in groups, motivated as it often is by a feeling that my ideas represent “me,” to this group. This is also often the cause of heated arguments, driven by a need to have my ideas respected because they are “my” ideas, independent of any intrinsic worth they might have in themselves. Disrespect toward my ideas is disrespect for “me.” Progress in the ability to “regard my ideas as an-atta ‘not-me’,” would ideally diminish such feelings, and make a person less prone to “taking it personally” when her ideas are met with rejection or derision.
This often applies to other people, my spouse, my children, my relatives, my church, my nation, or even a sports team that I regard as “my team.” I regard any criticism of these as disrespect to “me.”
Parents often have a big stake in the success of their children, because the way a child turns out is felt as a reflection on a parent’s own sense of self. A successful and well-respected child is a source of added self-esteem on the part of a parent, which also of course makes their sense of self-worth vulnerable to being deeply undermined if the child turns out a social failure.
A good Buddhist parent would still feel and cultivate closeness to her children, and do all she can to promote their welfare as they grow up. She would just do this because it is good in itself, not because she needs it to protect herself from a sense of worthlessness or lack of meaning in her life. Thus a parent well-along in the Buddhist path would not experience the “empty-nest syndrome,” feeling useless after her children leave home, because her identity has become so essentially connected to “being a parent.”
Playing a particular role.
Another way of stating the Buddhist ideal relevant here is to describe it in terms of possible attachment to “playing a role” in the world. Kisa Gotami became attached to playing the role of “mother of a son.” Other people become attached to playing a particular role connected to a job or career, such as playing the role of “teacher,” “writer,” “doctor,” “CEO of a company,” “musician,” “football player,” etc.
“Taking care of others” is also a role that a person can come to “regard as atta,” “essential to my identity,” so as to find it difficult to adjust to the role of a patient in need of care from others.
Consider for example a person going for a job interview. A person who is unusually insecure, unusually lacking in self-confidence, will also tend to be unusually “self-conscious” in the interview. Her attention to answering questions asked will be distracted by concern about the image she is projecting to the interviewer, “What is she thinking of me?” A person who has more genuine self-confidence will also be less self-conscious, less nervous and preoccupied with thoughts about “how I am coming across,” and so more able to give full attention to answering questions appropriately. She will be free to treat succeeding in the interview as a purely practical matter, free of the defensive need to protect her self-image from deeper existential threat due to disapproval coming from important others. She can give her all, being confident that in the end however, “No matter what happens, I can handle it.”
