Relative Self

Here's an important distinction.

Who are you?

When we answer its like the information we would give on a dating site. Things like what we want, and what we do. And for the most advanced dating site entries how we say it too reflects much about our intelligence, humour, creativity and education.

But all this is relative. We are trying to stand out from the crowd, differentiate ourselves from the crowd. Indeed when we have an "identity" it is relative like this.

We may select memberships of groups like the football team we support or religion we follow, but we do not wish to be seen as just another football supporter or religious devotee. We add that so that just a part of ourselves is illuminated, without obliterating the precious self that is "me".

But this is all just relative self. Self that exists in a society. Self that has been given a name by our parents that reflects our place in a family, and differentiates us from other people in our society.

This self also leads us down the most dangerous path of identity with a "permanent entity" we feel is "our" self.

I recently had reason to look at "To The Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf [pdf]. In the novel, Lily a local painter, is struggling with the idea of impermanence and whether humans can create something lasting in this world. Mr Ramsey wants to create a lasting philosophy, Mrs Ramsey some lasting memories and finally Lily wins by completing a painting of the lighthouse that outlives the book and presumably herself. Not quite sure how Woolf decides that art is any better than Emperor Chin looking for immortality at the inception of China, but the book has indeed outlived Ms Woolf.

But Buddha's great realisation is that all these endeavours at immortality stem from an already existing belief and identity with a permanent self. Because we already believe in a permanent self or identity passing through time, we are already set up to suffer and fail. We think inside the childhood me is the same person who is inside the adult me and the me right now. The person looking through these eyes and reading right now is the same person who stared through those child's eyes we see in photos of our past. A little homunculus taking a ride with us and other people through life. This is a fundamental error, there is no such person hidden inside us. We are just what we are right now. The past is gone and the future is yet to happen, and they exist only as imagination in this person we are right now.  

When we meet old friends and put a name on them we think that somehow this is the same person we knew as a child. It is the same person in the same way that the sea is all the rivers that flow into it. There is a link but you won't find a river in the sea. You won't find the child you were anywhere in yourself now. There is a continual flow of time that links all the people we have been but that time has very low fidelity. Every step of the way it changes something so that the person you meet after so many years is not the same person. Obviously this is not to say we are a completely different person at each stage, we stand on the shoulders of past selves in a huge tower and where we are and the height we now stand is because of them, but we are not them. If those past selves have been good and constructive our tower will be very high and we will see very far.

They say that every 7 years we change every atom in our bodies. It is the classic Ship of Theseus paradox. The things that look the same are the same in the way that twins are the same. But we don't say twins are the same person. Just because our future self bears resemblance does not mean they are the same self in any way.

All this is possible because of Relative Self.

We know that there is one universe. Its that little paradox we learn not to think about. There is one world, and yet we like to think it revolves around each person, and we like to give each person (well us anyway) the powers to be centre of that world and to decide how it is, and also to remain unchanged by it as a being somehow outside the world and looking in from a divine unaffected vantage point.

There is one world, and that world is a world of change, and a world of millions of people and other creatures. How can there be one homunculus here that is not affected and is somehow centre to that world. No! that "homunculus" is just a relative self and the rotating around it and orbiting it just comes from identifying with it.

When we let go of this (and that is not a simple process) we begin to see our relative self in its place alongside the bustling and swirling society in which it lives, rubbing shoulders continually with other relative selves, depending on them, being needed by them, being made from the food it eats, being born and ultimately dying. It is all relative existence. This body not that body, that body not this body. This person not that person, that person not this person. This self not that self, that self not this self. There is just one world of many people, but the this/that comes from identifying and grasping to just one of them.   

Being free from this we actually achieve that unaffected state we knew deep down was our true nature but we mistakenly tried to get using the vehicle of the relative self. The same struggle we see in Lily and Virginia Woolf and I wonder whether such concerns ultimately weighed her down to her death.

The unconditional, non-relative self is very unlike the relative self. It does not have any features that set it apart from other people. You can't grasp it, there is nothing to hold on to or grasp. And at the same time there is nothing to hold on to yank it away from us with. We can't affect it, it just is. We arrive at it through letting go of the grasp on the relative existence. That grasping as we enter into this issue can also become a throwing away and denial of relative existence. Buddha himself followed the path of self mortification to try and throw away the relative mortal self. What can be grasped so as to clutch close or throw away is not us. The true self is already being, and it is only a smooth rock face that you can't grasp hold of to either pull near or push away.

Questions like is the true self immortal, or is it a soul and do I live forever are questions only for the clinging to a relative existence. We let go of these concerns too.

But its not like we live forever. Instead we cease to identity and grasp to anything that doesn't. Its all in the grasping! All our struggles and concerns lie with whatever we grasp on to and identity with.

Is letting go the same as dropping out and giving up. Absolutely not! This is the same as trying to pushing away relative existence as already mentioned. That is just one relative existence being swapped for another. This way and that way are two sides of the same coin. Letting go is not a this way or that way. Its not grasping onto a new things. You can't measure it like that. Its not a lifestyle choice. Its just the seeing the relative side-by-side nature of what we previously grasped as the centre. Seeing the relative as it stands in a relative world along with all the other relative things. Once we see all relative things shoulder to shoulder then we are already letting go.