Be Nobody (13 page)

Not a pretty picture, when we actually think about it—which we definitely don't like to do, especially in the throes of either narcissistic self-admiration or sexual longing for another.

One of my teachers used to argue that supermodels, as they promenade down the runways exhibiting their external exquisiteness (
here's me on the outside!
) should also be mandated to carry and display a colostomy bag (
and here's me on the inside!
). But that would sort of spoil the show, wouldn't it? Our attraction to the physical body as something “pure” and desirable requires a dose of fantasy and a dollop of willful overlooking of the disagreeable details.

While it's important to maintain a certain level of self-acceptance when it comes to our own bodies, and while there's nothing intrinsically wrong in being appreciative of or attracted to the physical beauty of another man or woman, our ignorance comes in being unrealistic about what the human body really is. We suffer because of our illusions about our physicality. And these illusions include thinking that beauty, youthful appearance, strength, and flexibility are inherent and unchanging in ourselves and in others. (See above for mistaking impermanent things for permanent ones.)

3. We believe what will bring suffering will bring happiness.

This one is sort of a catchall category that describes our ignorance when it comes to what we think will really pay off for us. Throughout
our lives, we scurry about pursuing money, things, experiences, and other people, in the hopes that somehow they will make us happy. But instead, we are repeatedly let down and perpetually left dissatisfied. What we thought would bring happiness ends up leaving us feeling unfulfilled and discontent.

We've set things (and people) up to fail. External things and beings don't have it in their power to make us happy; at best, they can only bring a temporary spike in pleasure. Only we have the power to create real, deep, and lasting satisfaction within ourselves and our lives.

True happiness can only come from within. It's not “out there” somewhere, oozing out from something or someone else. And when we go looking for it in other people or external things, instead of discovering happiness we find ourselves disappointed, disheartened, and sometimes infuriated.

4. We believe what is without an essence has an essence.

When it comes to ignorance, this one's sort of the “root of the root” and will lead us directly to our mistaken view of ourselves: We think that things that have no “essences” (the word in Sanskrit is
anatman
, often translated as “no self”) do have some kind of enduring and definitive quality or characteristic (an essential “self” or
atman
).

Here's an example of this kind of mistake. Just imagine that you have an annoying person in your life—an angry boss, an exasperating ex, or a troublesome relative. When we encounter (or even think about) such challenging people, we feel strongly that
it's obvious
to us that they are
defined
by the traits we ascribe to them: they are irritating, exasperating, or troublesome (or provocative, mean, hurtful—pick the adjective that is
apropos
of your own annoying person). Any fool could see it! That's the way they really are—
essentially
.

The proof that there actually are no
essentially
angry, exasperating, or troublesome people in the world is rather obvious, although we choose to ignore it all the time: These people have friends. They have loved ones. They have loads of people in their lives who do not find them angry, exasperating, or troublesome.
^III

This some find perplexing—so much so that they go to the bother of trying to convince this annoying person's friends, family, and acquaintances how wrong they are.
How can you be friends with her? Let me tell you the real deal about him!
But alas, the annoying person's friends, family, and acquaintances often persevere in their error, don't they?

I once had a student raise his hand in class and say what we all think before the filter goes up that prevents really stupid things from coming out of our mouths: “I know someone who
everyone
would find annoying.” Like we should all get on a bus and go on a field trip to visit the one
essentially
annoying person in the world. We'd all file by that innately objectionable person and go, “Ooh, yeah, that's right . . . so annoying!” Like a lighthouse casting its beam, this annoying being would just exude annoyance, and whenever we entered the purview of The Essentially Annoying Person, we could not help but
be annoyed
.

This is a self-justifying fantasy, and one that's often fortified when we find a few other people who agree with our evaluation of the person in question.
See
, we say to ourselves,
she really is annoying. It's a groundswell, a veritable movement, a bandwagon of right-thinking folks, all of whom agree with me!

Well, in fact, no. It's not that you and your fellow travelers correctly see some definitive unsavory essence that eludes the perception of others. It's that you (and, OK, perhaps some others)
respond
in a certain disagreeable way to some aspect of the personality of another. It's not that someone is annoying; it's that you are
annoyed
.

We don't see the world and the people in it
as they are
; we see them
as we are
. There are no difficult people in the world until and unless you find them to be so.

And as a result of not comprehending this fundamental fact of life, we suffer. Instead of working on what it is in us that is aroused by the annoying person, instead of locating and then fixing the button inside of ourselves that gets pushed, we just complacently assume that the difficulties we experience with our annoying person are the annoying person's fault—because “annoying” is
what they are
, not just what they seem to us to be.

The same error can be made in reverse. Let's say you enjoy Ben & Jerry's ice cream, as I do. Chunky Monkey flavor, let's suppose. Mmmm. Tastes so good!
It is good-tasting ice cream
, and anyone in their right mind would agree!

And then we encounter someone who
doesn't like Chunky Monkey
! Maybe they don't even like the Ben & Jerry's brand. Possibly,
they don't care for ice cream at all
!

If Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream had the essence of being tasty, everyone with working taste buds, and who was not insane, would find it so. But (amazingly to those of us who like B&J's CM), there are people of apparently sound mind and taste buds who don't take a shine to it.

The qualities that we assume are
in
the people, objects, and experiences in life are
not really there
. These qualities are coming
from us, not at us
. We're projecting them, not perceiving them. Sure, we have our reasons. They say this or do that, and this pisses us off. But others hear or see the same things and don't get pissed off. We find a person “difficult” only because
we have difficulties
with him or her. They are not intrinsically, inherently, or essentially “difficult”—in spite of the way they may appear to us.

Thinking otherwise is a serious blunder, and one that we make all the time, much to our detriment. This kind of error is the condition of possibility for the kind of judgmental attitude we talked about in chapter 2, and for all the nastiness that comes in its wake.

This is, bottom line, raw and unadulterated ignorance. Wisdom 101 is the dawning of the realization that we got it all wrong, all back-ass-wards.

There's an even more fundamental application of our tendency to err in our perception of how things and people really are, one that lies even deeper than the mistake of thinking that our “annoying person”
is
annoying, or that Ben & Jerry's ice cream
is
delicious.

If the Mother of All Mental Afflictions is ignorance, the Mother of All Ignorance is the belief in a kind of a “self” that has never existed. What we have called the “root of the root” when it comes to ignorance—thinking things have an inherent essence when they do not—has a root of its own: the “root of the root of the root” is ignorance about the nature of the self.

We believe that we ourselves have a fixed, inherently existing, definitive essence, a self (
atman
)
^IV
, when there actually is no such thing (
anatman
). And it is really this foundational error that not only undergirds all our misperceptions but also undermines any chance we have for finding true happiness and real self-knowledge.

The “self” here is not what we've been referring to as the
true
or
higher
self (the Self, Buddha nature, or soul) that we can and do access when we cease thinking we're
somebody
and relax into being
nobody
. What is meant here is an individual, particularistic lower sense of identity—the egoistic self, the
being somebody
self, the little-voice-inside-your-head self.

It's “you” (say your name to yourself) that we're talking about here. It's the self that rises up in defense of itself when falsely accused—“
You
stole my car!” “No, no,
I
didn't!”—it's that “I” we're now focused on. It's the self that has a birthday, and so will have a death day. It's the “itchy self” that's unhappy, discontented, and dissatisfied, and that, fortunately, has no essential existence as such.

And until we see this caterpillar for the chimera it really is, we'll only have a passing acquaintance with our true butterfly nature, that part of us that is free, spacious, and unbounded, that real Self who has never been born and so will never die.

Trying to locate the individual “somebody self” that we're so sure, in our ignorance, is really there is like trying to find that bespectacled little guy with the red-and-white striped shirt and beanie known as Waldo (aka “Wally” in some markets), hidden inconspicuously within a vast crowd of people.

Only it's worse, because in this case “Waldo” isn't there at all. No needle to find in the haystack. Attempting to locate the self that we are so convinced really exists but can't be found is like playing the “Where's Waldo?” from hell!

•  •  •

When we think of ourselves, who is it that we are thinking about?

Who is it that we think sticks his or her head inside those carnival cutouts: the groups we identify with, the jobs that help define us, the roles we assume in our skein of relationships (father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, friend, enemy)? Who is it that we think is angry, jealous, proud, envious, or depressed?

Beneath all the superstructure of personality makeup, memories, emotions, conditioning, and role-playing, who is the “I” that
has
a personality, a past, mental afflictions, an occupation, a set of relationships, and all these various roles to play?

In the Buddhist scriptures, it is said that the self we think exists but doesn't exist is one that (if it truly existed) would have three essential traits: it would be
unitary, independent, and unchanging
. But a particular, individual self—the “you” that your name refers to—with any of these three qualities is totally
unfindable
.
^V

Now, dear reader, be forewarned: you might not appreciate how the proof for this unfolds. Your egoistic, self-infatuated but ultimately imaginary self will try to protect itself from being exposed for what it is. It will protest; it will feign boredom; it will say,

Oh, whatever. Let's take a break from reading this bit and get something to eat!

However, ignorance is
not
bliss. The truth is what will set you free. But first, as Gloria Steinem once observed, it will piss you off.
⁵

So here we go . . .

Unitary
means we believe there's only one of us. Unless you have a serious case of multiple personality disorder, you think of yourself in the singular, not the plural. When we think or speak of ourselves, we say “I,” not “we” (monarchs using the royal “we” excepted).

The classical analysis when it comes to trying to find this particular Waldo is called “The One or the Many.” Is the self one thing, or is it many things? If the self were to exist in the way we think it does—as a real thing, something perceptible—it would have to be either one or the other.

Although we normally assume that the egoistic, personalized self is unitary, we should ask ourselves, “Does this supposed singular thing have parts?” And yes, we could say we are indeed made up of two main components: physical and mental, the body and the mind.
^VI
And we do, at different times, identify with one or another or both of these parts.

If I were to ask you, “How old are you?” and you gave me a number in response, you would have just identified with your body. And if in reply to the question “How are you?” you said “
I am
upset, aggravated, pleased, OK,” or whatever, you would have identified with your feelings, with your present state of mind.

So already there is a problem here. How can the one self be
both
the body (“
I am
six feet tall”)
and
the mind (“
I am
stressed out”)? That's two things, not one—two kinds of selves, one physical and one mental, but not a unitary “I.”