17 Mar Distracting ‘The Self’
In the last blog we looked at what the self is and touched on the discontent it can cause us.
For thousands of years Mystics, especially in the East have stated that the Self is an illusion. It seems to us that our Self is permanent and unchanging, but through years of meditation the Mystics claim to have seen though this illusion. They claim that in fact the Self is impermanent and constantly changing flicking into life when needed and switching off when not. In modern times they have been joined in this view by neuroscientists, psychologists and philosophers.
According to neuroscientists, there is no single place in the brain that generates a self. According to psychologists, there is no little commander in our heads directing our behaviour. According to philosophers, there is no ?Cartesian ego? unifying our consciousness, no unchanging core of identity that makes us the same person from day to day; there is only an ever-shifting bundle of thoughts, feelings and memories.
The Self distorts our view of reality and we suffer as a result. Those who suffer the most often turn to narcotics or alcohol to quiet the voice in their head. The majority of us turn to music, films and other forms of entertainment to distract the Self.
Athletes and artists are often aware how the self impedes their performance. In his classic book “The inner game of tennis” tennis coach Timothy Gallwey writes how he realised there was a narrator in his head and those of his students which constantly barked out orders and judgements and hampered their learning and match play. His solution was the give the Self a task to do to keep it occupied so it would not interfere. He would tell his students to say out loud “hit” at the exact moment the ball was hit and “bounce” the exact moment the ball bounced. He found this kept the self out of the way and his students improved at a rate 3 to 4 times faster then usual.
Art students are often told “just draw what you see” but they can’t because the Self interferes and they end up with a childish looking drawing. In her classic book “Drawing on the right side of the brain” Betty Edwards gets artists to do monotonous and seemingly meaningless tasks to bore the self into switching off. Once the Self goes to sleep the artist finds they can draw what they see with excellent results. Another trick she teaches is to confuse the self. If we try and draw a portrait from a photograph the self interferes and ruins the drawing. If you turn the photo upside down the self doesn’t recognise what we are drawing and gets bored and switches off and our finished drawing looks great!
When athletes free themselves from the self they enter what they call ‘the zone’. In this state everything feels effortless and natural and their performance often exceeds what they themselves felt they were capable of. Artists, too experience their version of the zone. Many find this state so blissful that they produce art just to experience this state.
The various schools of thought who have meditation at their core are more ambitious. They seek to extinguish ‘the self’ completely to become an ‘enlightened’ or ‘awakened’ being that lives in this state permanently. That will be covered in a later blog.
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