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Seeing the Sense of Self - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on March 24, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Seeing the Sense of Self

I thought I would offer a meditator's orientation to the sense of self.

The sense of self is very amorphous. Psychologists who use this term sometimes define it as the collection of beliefs about the self. Some go a bit further to say it is the collection of personality characteristics, beliefs, values, morality, and choices. Others go even further, including hormones, thoughts, and all kinds of things. The important thing is that it is a collection, an amalgam of different things organized together to provide some amorphous sense of "this is who I am."

The collector collects things differently in different contexts and situations. Our sense of self can shift over the decades of a life, or over the minutes of a day, depending on the circumstances we find ourselves in—circumstances that gather together what we need to organize to meet the situation we are engaged in.

If we understand the sense of self as a collection that is gathered in different ways at different times, we can see why meditation provides a fascinating perspective. As we relax, de-stress, and calm down in meditation, there is less of this collecting going on. There is less organizing of things around a sense of self. Some of the collecting is done as an activity of active forces in our psychology, mind, body, and emotions; they are marshaled together to organize a sense of self. But if those things become quiet and still, they stop contributing to building that sense of self.

Organizing Around Safety

A common organizing principle for a sense of self is fear—the desire to protect. We search inside and organize ourselves to feel safe. This can happen quite independently of any conscious idea of who "I" am.

Every two or three times a year, I am hiking in the hills here and I see a twisted tree root on the trail. At first glance, I see a snake. It isn't just seeing a snake; there is a momentary physiological response in me—fear or concern gets activated. I look at it long enough to see, no, it is just a root. But something has been activated unconsciously to begin making myself safe, organizing me towards safety around the "snake."

Once in Thailand, I organized myself much more dramatically. I was walking down a wide dirt road in the jungle. It was dusk, so I couldn't see very well. I had a film camera with a strap over my shoulder. There was a branch across the road, so I stepped on it. It wasn't a branch; it was a big snake.

Something organized immediately—muscles, forces, everything gathered together. I jumped, spun in the air, and threw the camera at the snake. All that happened without planning or calculation. There was a tremendous amount of physiology involved, and probably some algorithms the brain has for figuring out distance and direction. It was a complex event where the usual idea of "me" was not operating.

However, we have all this "stuff" that can get triggered by the life we live, which contributes to this sense of self. Fear is one of them. When it is dramatic, we talk about fight or flight. When it is not so dramatic, we search for protection—people or things that will keep us safe. Our sense of self gets tied to these external things: "I need this to be safe."

The Seamstress of Desire

The Buddha emphasized how we collect this sense of self. He used the word khandha¹, which is often translated as "bundle"—how we bundle ourselves together. He also used the analogy of a seamstress sewing cloth together. This is a metaphor for how desire is the seamstress. Desires sew together the collection of things we want to create the sense of self. Desire is part of the collector, using attachment and clinging to keep it glommed together tightly.

It is easy in the course of a day to be organized as a sense of self by what we are driven by—our desires, what we are consumed with, or what we are oriented towards. I see this sometimes when I am at home doing research or writing. I enjoy doing it, and I get organized around that task. If my family interrupts me, I get disoriented. I have momentum in a certain direction. I have to take a breath and realize, "Okay, the family needs me now," and let go.

When I was fourteen, the momentum was to go through the entire phone book. Back then, phone books listed names and addresses. My friend and I started from opposite ends of the book because all we knew was a girl's first name and the street she lived on. We looked for all the phone numbers on that street and called each one asking for her. That is a bit of a drive to be organized around! After meeting her, for the first time in my life, I tried to light a cigarette to impress her—another sense of self, trying to be who I thought I needed to be. I didn't really know how, so I failed. That particular thing never worked out for me.

We organize ourselves by our choices and momentum. Some of these forces are not necessarily things we would choose, but we feel the force of desire, fear, anger, hostility, or even interest. That force is enough to gather these other things for that purpose. That forward-going momentum—the desire that sews it together—can feel like a real thing. "This is who I am. This is what I am about right now." But it is not; it can shift and change.

Identifying with the Experience

About ten years ago, I had surgery and took pain medication. I don't like taking it, so I took it for maybe two days and then stopped. The next day, while still recovering in bed, I had all these thoughts and feelings. I thought, "I am really going over the hill. I am on the way down to the end. My kids are on their way up; life is beginning for them, it's exciting. But for me, there is no point in doing anything anymore."

I called a friend and told her what was going on. She said, "Gil, that is the withdrawal from the pain medication."

That made a big difference. I still had those feelings and thoughts, but I had glommed onto them. I had gotten identified by them; my sense of self was defined by them. All she had to do was say it was withdrawal, and I didn't identify with it anymore. It still went on, and it wasn't great, but I wasn't making a "self" out of it. Within twenty-four hours, it was gone.

I have known others who, for medical reasons, had their emotions and drives shift around medication. One friend was given medically induced menopause in her thirties. She said this wonderful thing: "These thoughts I am having are not me." She had the wisdom not to get pulled into what was going on.

Making a self—"this is who I am"—is hard not to do when there is a lot of authority or force behind it. When we are afraid, everything gets organized around taking care of ourselves. But we rarely question if we have already created a sense of self around what is threatened. It could be status, attractiveness, intelligence, or where we live. We feel we need these things to be socially accepted or to fit in.

Psychological Development and the Self

Sometimes we are organized a certain way because of difficult life experiences. Children can grow up with their sense of self shaped by how their parents treat them. I see this regularly when people come to talk to me. People who weren't seen as children, who didn't feel loved or supported, or who were attacked and shamed when they tried to express their inner life, learned that who they were internally couldn't be expressed. It became all about pleasing other people or making themselves safe in relationships. Their sense of self was organized around the external.

Therapists often spend a lot of time supporting people to discover who they are by reconnecting to their inner drives, emotions, beliefs, and ability to stand up for themselves.

In my own life, during the early years of my Zen practice, I was unknowingly reorganizing and discovering my sense of self. I was living at the San Francisco Zen Center, a place where the ethos is to live for the welfare and happiness of the world—the idea of being a Bodhisattva². We lived like monks with vows of poverty and obedience.

At one point, I was working full-time five and a half days a week. Then, on Sunday—my day off—I had to buffer the floors. I did that for a while, and then I realized, "Wait a minute. No one here is going to say no for me." It was hard for me to say no because this was a great world religion. Who was "little Gil" to stand up to Buddhism? But I realized I had to stand up. That was an important step of asserting myself.

A year or so later, I went to practice in a monastery in Japan. It was the "Mother Temple," the heart of Zen Buddhism—a huge authority figure in my mind. I was set to be there for five months. Halfway through, I realized it was not the right place for me. You aren't supposed to leave in the middle, but it became clear I had to stand up for myself and leave. That was huge growth for me.

Then, an amazing thing happened. Once I made the decision clearly, with no doubt, it was a milestone. That clarity allowed something else to happen. I decided to stay, but not for my sake. A Japanese monk had sponsored me, and I knew that if I left, his reputation in his community would be damaged. Once I had the strength to leave, I didn't have to go anymore. I stayed for his sake. I became stronger as a person, and with that strength, I could use it for the benefit of someone else.

The Clay Pot and the Lake

At the same time, I had a clear sense that there was an attachment to self within me. I could feel that clinging had to let go, but I had no idea how. I was afraid that if I let go, I would fall into a great abyss. Eventually, I made a ritual for myself that on my second trip to Asia, I would "let go."

I never saw a moment of "letting go," but after a period of deep meditation and long retreats, that sense of attachment was no longer there. There was still a sense of self, but it was not being sewn together by desire and attachment. There was a freedom there.

When we meditate, it is not just about becoming stress-free. Stress reduction is the beginning of a deeper investigation. If we get quiet and still, we are putting to rest for a while some of the forces that collect the sense of self. The sense of self begins to soften and shift.

For some, the sense of self changes dramatically in meditation. The dissonance between who they feel they are in meditation and who they are in the busy world can be confusing. When I first started meditating regularly, I was living on a farm with friends. I would come out of morning meditation peaceful and calm, but "social Gil"—the one who played social games—wasn't operating. I would sit at breakfast content and quiet. After a few days, I felt I had to choose: either stop meditating or lose my friends. I gave up meditation because I wanted harmony. I didn't know how to make it work at that point.

Sitting and feeling the mind and body get settled provides a vantage point to be curious about what we are gathering together. We might see later in the day, "Wait a minute, I am back to business as usual." In the past, we might not have seen the water we were swimming in. We take our concept of self for granted.

As we get quieter, we have a contrast by which to see these forces clearly. We see that fear, desire, shame, or hostility organizes our life. When these quiet down, we see they are optional. They are not inherent. We don't have to believe them or make a self out of them.

A day will come when you observe the sense of self from a place of silence—a non-verbal knowing that is free from those thoughts and beliefs. You say, "Wow, look at that sense of self." You don't say, "That is my sense of self, thank you, I will keep it." You see it as a sense of self. It is known from a place of stillness that is independent of what is being seen.

Some people identify with that quiet awareness as the "true self." When I told my Buddhist teacher, "Everything else is not me, but this awareness is me," he just smiled and said, "Just keep looking." Sure enough, at some point, that also was seen as not self.

The Buddha sometimes referred to the bundling of the self as a clay pot. When we are enlightened, the metaphor shifts. Instead of being inside the pot, defined and limited by it, the image changes to a clear mountain lake. A person with good eyesight can see right to the bottom. On the floor of the lake are pottery shards. Now, the water is the container for the shards, rather than the pot being the container for the water.

In Buddhism, we are trying to set awareness free. What is left behind are the shards—the solidified ways we limit ourselves. The sense of self can be a limiting force, but it doesn't have to be. From a therapeutic point of view, developing a strong sense of self is important for maturity. People who become mature in this practice develop what a therapist would call a very strong sense of self—they know who they are, how to take care of themselves, and how to stand up for themselves. But it is not inside of a clay pot. The clay pot is shattered inside of awareness set free.

I hope this gives you some curiosity about observing your sense of self from a still, silent place. How do you know what happens when you watch the senses of self as they roll through your life? Can you become free of it, shattering the clay pot?

Q&A

Q: The idea of non-self or non-attachment to self is the most confusing concept in Buddhism to me. Is attachment and self the same thing for you?

Gil: I speak of attachment to a sense of self.

Q: So there can be non-attachment to a sense of self? That confuses me. For me, sense of self and attachment always go together.

Gil: Fantastic. You are in the right place. Keep looking.

Q: I have a question about how I deal with other people's projections of me. I am often the only woman in a group of businessmen, and they tend to underestimate me, which drains my energy. Other times, there is adulation, which feels even worse. Then there are moments of authentic engagement where I gain energy. How do I deal with these projections in terms of the sense of self?

Gil: There are always going to be projections. The ecosystem of self is complicated; it shifts in different contexts. That is part of the charm and the challenge.

We want to develop a lot of confidence in this practice—confidence in just being alive, present, and clear. Confidence that we can speak up, say no, or take care of ourselves. We can cultivate a confidence that we carry with us into difficult situations so that we don't become victims of projections. We don't get pushed around by them, believe them, or depend on them.

If we can observe our own sense of self and its shifting nature—the choices, emotions, and beliefs that come into play as we bundle together a "self" for a business meeting versus another situation—we make huge headway. Awareness and confidence can take you a long way.

Q: You talked about fear creating a sense of self. I experience an up-and-down nature—getting better, putting fear aside, but then going back down and fear creating a sense of self again. How do I not have this up and down?

Gil: The orientation of mindfulness practice is to see the pattern clearly. See how it operates—the beliefs, emotions, and organizing principles. We want to observe our fear in a deep way. The fear might need us. Until we understand it or bring attention to it, it will keep grabbing us.

There are two primary things to do with fear. One is to help the tendency to fear thaw and relax in a very deep way. The other is to understand why we pick up the fear—why do we believe it? If you can do those two things, you will go a long way to understanding what your ups and downs are about.