the sense of self, now and back then - part two

The temporary dislocation of the continuity of my ordinary self (see last post) may relate to what neuroscience seems to be telling us: that the ego, the strong sense of myself as a continuing presence, is re-constructed "as we go along," continuously. There is no solid place inside all this flux and change that is "me." "Me" is part of the flux. But that's OK, because out of the flux comes a pretty useful thing: the illusion that "I" is separate from everything else. Well - useful in a social sense, but not actually accurate.

(I don't know what the pretty patterns mean either, but it shows different areas of the brain lighting up, as different patterns of neurons fire, re-making "me" by the moment.)

I think that's what the unusual, alienating, dislocating state of mind I referred to in the last post comes from. Without any analysis on my part, and certainly with almost no understanding, my mind sets aside the usual clatter and chatter and exists in the present.

Although mindfulness meditation methodology has no doctrinal, religious content, it derives from Buddhist meditation practice. And maybe that's because it was Buddha who had the insight (revelation, nirvana, whatever you like to call it) that the self is an illusion - at least, the self as we usually inhabit it.And he did so once he'd given up starving himself and pursuing asceticism and bodily denial because it proved futile. He just meditated, and out of that came his enlightenment, his insights into human suffering and the nature of the self.

Understanding that the self as we usually think of it and feel it - i.e. as a constant entity - is an illusion, and living with that understanding, in the reality of the present moment, seems to yield great benefits. Even the NHS recognises that now. 

So there you are - from 12-year-old oddness through Buddha and neuroscience to the NHS. I have linked it all up for you.

 Is that my Nobel Prize you're holding? Oh no, it is Nurse Ratched with my medications....

Einstein and Buddha - and Alan Watts too.

"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description...if there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism."

Er, but - it appears Albert never said this, or at least not in this tidy form. He is usually described as a theist, or a pantheist, rather than an atheist, and he certainly didn't go for the personal God who is directly involved in human affairs, the "Lord please smite our enemies because we don't like them" sort of God. It would seem he approached Buddhism via Schopenhauer, and he does mention it favourably.

I think MythoAlbert, as quoted above, is right, in that the experience of a sense of unity above/below individual forms and processes, the "mystical" experience Alan Watts tried to describe (in my last posting here) sits better with Big Science than the Judeo-Christian family of faiths.

So Gautama Buddha* still gets top marks from me (and one or two others) for:

• not claiming divine origins or a pre-ordained mission
• telling his followers to find their own light, their own way
• giving them the astonishing** insight that the ego, the self, is transitory and not a consistent entity
• getting people to meditate their way to a better, calmer, more compassionate state of being

So well done GB, and AE!

* Many Buddhists believe in Buddhas before Gautama, and that there will be Buddhas in the future, e.g. the overweight cheerful bloke you see in China, represented in lots of little easy-to-purchase statues. See below.

** astonishing, because it seems to be confirmed, or at least supported, by psychologists and neuroscientists; they tell us that we continually recreate our sense of who we are, and that the feeling that "I," my sense of self, is a consistent thing- that's simply a sort of working assumption we need for social interaction etc etc. And GB had no psychologists or brain scanners to help him discover this insight. Just meditation.

The future Buddha, Maitreya; I have to say as an aesthetic experience I prefer Gautama....

but no doubt he'll be welcome, if/when he arrives!