Be Nobody (30 page)

In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the concept of the
bardo
is meant to explain where we go in between lives. In a system that presupposes rebirth, the
bardo
is thought of as a sort of a purgatory, betwixt and between the end of one life and the beginning of another.

But there is also a larger and more inclusive understanding of the term
bardo
. While living, we are in between birth and death; when we're middle-aged, we're in between youth and old age; when we're asleep, we're in between the end of last night's waking consciousness and the beginning of tomorrow morning's. And in this very moment, we're in between the past and the future.

So, from this point of view, we are
always
in some
bardo
or another. We're always “in between.”

The “somebody self” is who we are in between experiences of being nobody, and the “nobody self” is who we are when we are in between being somebody. That's the simplest way to answer the question “Who da hell am I when I'm not somebody?” You're nobody when you're in between being somebody.

The remarkable ancient Indian scripture that we'll use for the meditational exercises at the end of the book points to any number of these in-between states where we drop into our true nature of being nobody. What the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra calls “the omnipresent state of ultimate reality” is continuously available: it is “on the radar even of ordinary people.”
¹⁵
Between the polarities and dualities—between “this” and “that”—is the potential for the “highest realization”:

One should meditate on the perception of two things, and then place oneself in the middle between them. Dropping the two of them simultaneously, reality appears.
¹⁶

Or:

When the mind leaves one object and then is restrained from wandering to another object, being in the middle between two objects the highest realization then unfolds.
¹⁷

All day long, every minute, we have the opportunity to revisit and commune with our nobody self. It is who we are in between being aware of ourselves as somebody. This state is even findable in the gap between every breath we take in and let out.

It is in those in-between moments, in the gaps between being somebody self-consciously doing something, that our ever-present true nature shines through.

•  •  •

The two kinds of self, somebody and nobody, are mutually exclusive when it comes to our awareness of them. We can't be conscious of
being nobody when we're thinking we're somebody, and we aren't consciously somebody when we've dropped the self-awareness and become nobody.

And although we really
are
nobody all the time, we can't
be
nobody all the time. Our somebody and nobody selves exist, like everything else, interdependently—you can't have one without the other.

We're the kind of somebody we are—a changing, conceptualized self—because we really are nobody. But it's also true that we can only
be nobody
when we stop being somebody.

And we have to be somebody in order to
stop
being somebody!

The point is not to attempt to be nobody all the time. That's impossible. We'll always be somebody in between being nobody, because we're always in between. We alternate between our two selves, and each serves an essential purpose. We self-consciously plan our schedule and, if we're practicing karma yoga, unselfconsciously but mindfully carry out each task with our full attention, wholly integrated into the activity, like a child at play. We might make a decision to read a book, but, if we are self-consciously reading each word instead of getting into the flow of the story line, we're not really enjoying what we're doing.

Alternating between the somebody and nobody selves is just in the nature of change, and our lives are in constant flux. Things arise, last for a while, and then end. And then there is the gap—the in-between state—before a new cycle begins.

People who completely lose touch with their individual sense of self over a long period of time are, to put it bluntly, crazy. Clinical psychology calls such an unfortunate malady “depersonalization,” and this condition is “associated with such unpleasant states of mind as fatigue, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, anxiety, depression, temporal lobe migraine, temporal lobe epilepsy, and so on.”
¹⁸

It is healthy and normal to identify, at least to some degree, with the somebody self, and to rotate between it and the always present, unchanging, and eternal nobody self. As enjoyable as it is to be “in the flow,” if we were
always
in the flow there would be no one to emerge from the experience refreshed, revitalized, and energized. If we were in a state of self-forgetfulness all the time, the experience of self-loss would not result in any kind of self-transformation, for there would be no return to the self that could be transformed.

Neuroscientist Susan Greenfield remarked in an interview, “There are moments in most of our lives when we want to ‘let ourselves go,' ‘blow our minds.' ” But such Dionysian experiences of self-transcendence, enjoyable and rejuvenating as they are, cannot realistically be extended indefinitely, any more than it is healthy to only remain in the Apollonian state of uptight self-control:

If someone said to you, “I want to do that all the time, I want to go to the rave every single moment I'm alive,” on the whole, we'd feel rather sorry for someone like that, just as we'd feel sorry for someone that proudly declared they'd never let their hair down, they'd never let themselves go, they'd never had a sensational time in their whole lives.
¹⁹

No one really knows what happens to us after we die. Perhaps then we permanently merge into the nobody state forever and ever. But in this life—and in future rebirths, if there are any in store for us—we will always be somebody when we're not being nobody.

So the spiritual goal is not to somehow disappear the “somebody self” but rather to know it for what it is and detach from the belief that it's the only self that there is. Depictions of the enlightened state—the person who is “liberated in this very lifetime” (
jivanmukta
) or one who has gone into “nirvana with something
left over” (i.e., one who still has a body and continues to appear in this world)—do not suggest that somebody who is free ceases to be somebody entirely.

But such a person is not only free from the illusions the rest of us carry around, he or she is also free from the grasping onto and full identification with those illusions. The liberated person has realized the true nature of both the individual self (transient, changing, finite, and restricted) and the universal self (eternal, unchanging, infinite, and universal).

The free man or woman lives “like an ordinary person” but also “is completely different.”
²⁰
And the difference lies in how they think of themselves—or, we might say, how they
don't
think of themselves. The liberated person has emancipated herself or himself from the prison of a restricted self-conception that completely identifies with one's own individuality, distinctiveness, and separation from others—and also from all the unhappiness that attends such a delimited understanding of the self.

•  •  •

The spiritual quest is ultimately not the freedom
of
the individual; it is the freedom
from
the individual. And one of the main reasons we are not free is that the “somebody self” resists its own dethronement as the sole monarch ruling the Kingdom of Me.

“You” (say your name to yourself) will not somehow gain liberation as “you.” The “somebody self” will not become some supersized version of itself in nirvana or heaven; such a fantasy is just spiritual megalomania.

As the great modern Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche famously observed, enlightenment will be the ego's “ultimate and final disappointment.”
²¹

Actually we cannot attain enlightenment until we give up the notion of me personally attaining it. As long as the enlightenment drama has a central character known as me, who has certain attributes, there is no hope of attaining enlightenment, because
it's nobody's project
.
²²

Awakening is not
somebody's
project but
nobody's
. Salvation or liberation is freedom from both the complete association with the “somebody self” and the alienation from the “nobody self.” “He who knows the true self is blessed,” says one Indian text, and “because of who he is”—because of this radical de- and re-identification—“when acting in everyday life he does not suffer like ordinary people.”
²³
He or she has discovered and abides in the Great State of Itchlessness.

Such a person continues to “act in everyday life”; he or she remains “a somebody” in the world—going to work, interacting with others, leading a life. But the liberated man or woman is a completely
happy
somebody, knowing he or she is just in between being nobody, and not grasping onto an illusory version of his or her identity:

One whose mind is completely at peace stays happy in his everyday life. He sleeps happily, he comes and goes happily, he speaks happily, and he eats happily.
²⁴

We are all split personalities when it comes to our identity. There are two of us within each of us—the ever-changing “somebody self” that exists only conceptually, and the “nobody self” that truly exists but cannot be named.

Remember the two birds sitting on the same tree we encountered back in chapter 1? They are described, you may recall, as “inseparable
friends,” not as irreconcilable antagonists. One of them is actively engaged in the world (that's the lower, individual self) while the other only passively “looks on” (that would be the Higher Self). When the “somebody self” birdie perceives the “nobody self” birdie and “realizes that all greatness is his, then his despair vanishes.”
²⁵

The personal self, being changing and therefore changeable, is improvable. But as we have seen, improving the “somebody self” is not accomplished through further inflating the ego in the attempt to
become more of a somebody
. Rather, it is by systematically deflating the self-centered self, and accessing the ever-present reality of
being nobody
, that we move forward in the reconceptualization of who we think we are.

It's when our two selves are reconciled and coordinated that we truly become complete. The two birds then sing in harmony; somebody and nobody peacefully coexist as inseparable friends.

•  •  •

Our dual selves are spoken of in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition as two versions of our “Buddha nature,” that “element” (
dhatu
) or “propensity” (
gotra
) within every living being that serves as the “womb” for birthing an Awakened Buddha (
tathagata-garbha
). As it says in the Uttara Tantra,

It should be understood that the propensity comes in two types. . . . There is the propensity that is naturally present from time with no beginning, and that which has been perfected through cultivation.
²⁶

The “somebody self” possesses the “developable” Buddha nature—“perfected through cultivation”—which is said to be like a
seed. When watered and given sunlight—when we cultivate the virtue that pivots on the development of humility, kindness, empathy, selfless action, and compassion and love for others—this sort of Buddha nature is nurtured and propagated. We improve ourselves by learning to let go of our selfish needs and wants and the mental afflictions inevitably associated with them. The inner potential is activated little by little as we drop the ego's
What about me?
imperative and turn our attention to the
What can I do for you?
directive.

The second sort of Buddha nature is said to be “innate” and is in no need of improvement or development whatsoever. It is always and unchangingly present, eternally perfect, but also usually unrecognized. It's said to be like an undiscovered treasure trove of riches buried under a poor man's home.

Although we may be unaware of its existence, we all have within us this precious treasure, which is our true nature, our “nobody self.” It is always with us, right under our house; it is always available and accessible. But we need to notice, embrace, and identify with it if we are to partake of this inner abundance.

“There is nothing whatsoever that needs to be removed from this, and nothing whatsoever that needs to be added,” the text says. The innate Buddha nature within us—our “nobody self”—is always and already perfected. Simply by fully realizing who we truly are, we are freed from the monopolizing tyranny of who we think we are: “It is from seeing reality that the seer of reality is really and completely liberated.”
²⁷

The integrated self is less fully identified with somebody and more with nobody. It is only our desperate clinging to the ego, and its insatiable desire to be a “real someone,” that keeps us from realizing our deeper identity and the balance that comes when the two selves are in harmony.

When we commune with the “self with no name,” we immediately gain what Jesus called the “peace that surpasses understanding.”
²⁸
Realizing who we are when we're not being ourselves, experiencing the great relief and itchlessness of
being nobody
, is thus more a matter of emptying than filling.