The Tug of Me: Exploring the Nature of Self and Other
byElizabeth Mattis Namgyel
The Prince, who was to become the Buddha, was driven to explore the nature of suffering. He searched for answers in the world of things and found nothing of lasting value. He entered altered states of consciousness through meditation practices aimed at transcending physical reality. But none of these practices addressed the nature of suffering and the path to true inner freedom. The Prince exhausted all views, assumptions, and possibilities.
Free of even the notions of enlightenment, the Prince rested in the mind of an open question. He trusted that something extraordinary was about to happen. And while sitting under the Bodhi Tree, the whole world opened up for him. This is how the Prince attained enlightenment and became the Buddha—the Awakened One. We might say that the Buddha”s awakening sprang from the wide-open mind of his very own question.
The Buddha realized that his search for an answer to the end of suffering assumed a self that sought after happiness, yet was haunted by extinction. He understood how we try to maintain the familiar presence of self, whatever that means to us in each moment. Sometimes, we affirm “me” and sometimes we protect “me.” We bring desirable things toward “me” and push unwanted things away from “me” so that the parameters of “me” keep expanding and contracting. All this pulling and pushing fans the flames of strong emotions, and we try even harder to drive home the point: “I exist.” Meanwhile, we live with the terror of an unavoidable death. We evaluate, organize, and struggle with everything we encounter in our attempts to substantiate the existence of a self. This is the relationship we have with our world.
Try to visualize your world without the tug of “me” with all its preferences: all its efforts to find stable ground in the world of things and protect itself from unwanted experiences. What would happen if, rather than organizing the world to suit the self, we stopped manipulating everything and instead just stayed present for our life
Staying present challenges our habitual reactive tendencies. You may recognize this scenario: You”re sitting at the dinner table, or in a room full of people, when suddenly everything falls quiet. The space feels pregnant, full of possibility ,and then that one person—it may even be you—gets overwhelmed, uncomfortable, and just has to talk. This is how we deal with pregnant moments—we try to escape them through the continual re-creation of the self. We are not accustomed to bearing witness to our own experience—our life—without putting a lid on it, manipulating it, reaching a conclusion about it, or ascribing meaning to it in some way. But in doing this, do we ever have a full experience
The Buddha wanted a full experience. He wanted to see what would happen if he stopped trying to escape the present through attempting to secure the self. Imagine him now sitting beneath the Bodhi Tree...
No Self in the Body
The Buddha goes straight to the heart of the matter, which, of course, is the self. The Buddha looks for the self. Where does it reside
Does it have parameters
We usually define the self as being whatever everything else is not. But where do we actually draw that line
Where do we stop and where does our universe begin
Here we find the Buddha just warming up . . .
The Buddha looks at his physical body. The self seems to reside within the boundaries of the physical form. Yet he observes the inhalation and exhalation of his own breath—an exchange of his inner and outer worlds. His awareness turns to the food that sustains him; again two worlds come together. He feels the outer elements of space, air, fire, water, and earth weave through the fabric of his physical …
《The Tug of Me: Exploring the Nature of Self and Other》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…