Finding your essential self: the ancient philosophy of Zhuangziexplained

Loosing yourself in the Here and Now

the Master concerns himself

with the depths and not the surface,

with the fruit and not the flower.

He has no will of his own.

He dwells in reality,

and lets all illusions go.

No-self doesn’t mean disappearing off the planet or not existing. It is neither being self-centered nor other-centered, but just centered. A life of no-self is centered on no particular thing, but on all things—that is, it is nonattached—so the characteristics of a self cannot appear.

We “rid ourselves of conceptual thought” when, by persistent observation, we recognize the unreality of our self-centered thoughts. Then we can remain dispassionate and fundamentally unaffected by them. That does not mean to be a cold person. Rather, it means not to be caught and dragged around by circumstances.

The Zen master Dogen said, “To know yourself or study yourself is to forget yourself, and if you forget yourself then you become enlightened by all things.” Knowing yourself or studying yourself just means that it’s your experience of joy, it’s your experience of pain, your experience of relief and ventilation, and your experience of sorrow.