Born with a mind and body, we are destined to develop a personal identity as a vehicle for living human life. It can be no other way. The personal self is an evolving compilation of our experiences, preferences, habits of perception, and modes of reaction that determine the character and course of our life. It’s an acquired mental structure that assists us in navigating daily life.
No personal identity is perfect. We mistakenly experience the personal self as an autonomous, separate, and independent entity that is distinct from others and the outer world. At its core nature it is self-cherishing, self-righteous, protective, and defensive. Regardless of our efforts and achievements at self-development and self-improvement these core elements of a personal self persist, with great subtlety even in the most evolved individuals. As we gain greater consciousness, we recognize the limitations and pitfalls of identifying with a personal self, as if it was our true self rather than a mental construction.
We are not born with a personal self. We are born into presence, a simple awareness. Our personal identity is acquired as we age and gain life experience. Simultaneous with the emergence of our personal self, our simple presence is slowly covered over and obscured by the investment and identification with this personal identity. It becomes who we believe we are and is supported and cultivated, throughout our lifetime, by individual effort and cultural practices. We gain a personal identity while losing touch with our deeper and more expansive essence. We mistake a fraction of consciousness for the whole. We gain day-to-day function at the cost of essence.
As we repeatedly collide with the pitfalls of our personal self, we increasingly remember, ever so subtly, our obscured fundamental nature. We know that there is more to life than our personal self can imagine. We have a vague sense of loss, of emptiness, of a time gone. As the poet Wordsworth says of “a moment of splendor in the grass.”
Time and aging teach us, if we are fortunate, about the futility of an outer search for what can only be found within. We progressively lose interest in the temporary “highs and lows” of ordinary life and increasingly seek an inner self that is stable and independent of the ever-changing mind/body and material world. When the frustration level is sufficient, we are finally ready to turn inward towards an authentic and sustaining self and life.
We turn away from grasping at unstable and exhausting outer satisfactions. We become disenchanted and bored by the usual activities, achievements, and material gain. We increasingly desire the great treasures of life – inner serenity, delight, wisdom, selfless love and compassion, and freedom from the known. Paradoxically, these great treasures are already and have always been within, waiting to be recognized and revealed when we sweep away the obscuration of the personal self and turn inward.
What has kept us from our true essence? Why have we not seen what is already there, complete and whole? We have been too busy chasing our desires outside with the encouragement and support of the institutions of culture. The tenacious and dysfunctional habit of mistakenly projecting our desires outward will end, when we realize that the true aim of all desire is the desire to return home to our center, to presence, and beingness. Desire seeks not “some thing,” but simply to be.
The turn inward is thus counter-cultural. The support must come from contemplative philosophies, teachings, and communities of spirit.
Meditation is simply a way of clearing the obstacles to recognizing our true nature. That is the only authentic aim of meditation. The most profound meditation is no more than directly experiencing the essence of our being. What is profound also turns out to be the most effortless, natural, and simple of all meditative approaches.
The only meditation instruction is “do nothing and don’t identify or grasp on to anything.” That’s it. It’s that easy. We drop into the present moment, experience an observing awareness – which is natural – and allow whatever arises in the mind to come and go on its own, as it will if you do not feed it with attention. Here the old Zen proverb is helpful, “allow all mental activity to come in the front door, go out the back door, and don’t serve it tea.”
Of course, this takes practice, as we have to overcome the long-practiced habit of chasing after everything that moves in our mind and feeding it with attention. We soon recognize that we are not our mental activity, that all mental activity is memory and when left alone is fleeting. To be precise a thought or emotion unelaborated by mental commentary has a lifespan of about 200 milli seconds. Left alone, it remains about as long as a line made with the finger on water. There is nothing we need to do except be aware and observe the natural flow of life.
Over my years as a physician and teacher my clients have taught me that mental techniques, aimed at calming the mind, although helpful at one level become obstacles to the true aim of meditation. These techniques or methods often solidify an endless struggle with the mind, cultivate feelings of failure, unknowingly stop our progress at lower levels of relaxation, and block entry to the profound treasures of the inner life.
When teaching meditation, I have learned to start at the end, with a state of presence and beingness and a correct relationship to the natural movements of the mind. The shift from Person to Presence begins not with a struggle with our false persona but rather with an immediate immersion into a simple, pure awareness. Properly guided at the onset, it is simple, effortless, profound and the true aim of meditation.
You may wonder how you can function in day-to-day life when you turn inward. The answer is – very well. It is not as if you need to give up your personal identity. What we give up is the belief that our personal self is who we are. When our authentic self reestablishes itself at the center of our life, we can effortlessly manifest and play with our identity in worldly life. Our true self remains in the background, pervading our day-to-day life with its wisdom, serenity, selfless love, and freedom from the known.
In this way our personal self becomes a tool with which to navigate life. But our center, the hub of our life is once again our essence, our heart, our spirit. That is the true perfection of health and well-being.
Elliott's Web Site with Resources