So often in life, we feel that we don't have a choice—whether it's how to react to something or what to do with our lives or whatever.  That is because we are captives of our ego-mind; it's the only thing we know, it's what we have identified with our whole lives.

But the teachings of the Buddha, and indeed the mystical traditions of all the world's great religions—both Western and Eastern—teach that you do have a choice.  Though it's not easy to realize it.

The choice lies in the fact that in addition to our ego-mind, there is a true self inside each of us.  Whether you call it Buddha nature, the divinity within you, or your heart, this is the person you were when you were born, before being impacted by the negative aspects of so much of your life experiences.

Not only is your true self full of light, love, and joy, (the full list of attributes is: light, love, faith, trust. compassion, humility, gratefulness, joy, strength, courage, and wisdom), but it is still there and will always be within you, waiting for you to rediscover it, to connect with it.

There are many posts on this blog that address the issue of how you separate yourself from your ego-mind and reconnect with your true self, your heart. Because of the power of the ego-mind and its deep roots within you, this is not an easy matter and takes courage, discipline, and time.

As a motivator to take on this task, it's not just a matter of being able to realize you have choices, it's about ending the suffering that results from being under the control of your ego-mind's feelings, perspectives, and cravings.  All the frustration and anger you experience results from the cravings and feelings of the ego-mind. And that is suffering.

For starters, you might read,"True Self."  "How to free yourself from the control of your ego-mind," and "Freeing yourself from suffering"

I just realized that although I have written many posts that talk about aspects of the true self, I have never written a post that explains all aspects of true self in one place.

My understanding of true self has been an evolving process, which I will describe.  It started with the Buddhist teaching that we are all born essentially perfect with the Buddha nature inside us.  This is how we started life—as little Buddhas filled with light, love, faith, trust, compassion, gratefulness, joy, contentment, strength, courage, and wisdom.  This is our true self and it resides in our heart.

But from the moment we are born, and often even while still in our mother's womb, we are impacted by negative experiences.  Initially these experiences do not have a permanent effect on us.  Think of all the smiling toddlers that you've seen.  These are not children who have had no negative experiences in their short lives, but children who are remarkably resilient, because the ego-mind has yet to be formed.

Around age 3, though, the ego-mind forms, gathering all the experiences we've had and giving them names, labels.  This is when our emotions, judgments, and perceptions—above all, our insecurity—are codified and become our frame of reference.  And it is this frame of reference that determines how we react to future experiences. 

Because of this process, most of us are filled with negative feelings about ourselves through no fault of our own.  Our ego-mind has absorbed the negative things that have been said or done to us—often by family—and the negative messages we've received in the broader world and made that negativity our self-image.  If there's a way of interpreting an experience negatively, that is what the ego-mind will usually do.  The ego-mind becomes the source of our cravings and resulting suffering. 

This self is sometimes called the "false self."  False in that while it certainly defines who we appear to be and who we feel we are—it's all we've known our entire lives—it comes from outside us and is vastly different from our true self.

Many people think that regardless what they were like when they were born, that purity and innocence is irretrievably loss.  Not so. Our true self, regardless how obscured by the detritus of our lives, is always there for us, even as we lose all conscious knowledge of it.  

Think about the experiences you, like everyone else, have had of conversations within yourself, which are often thought of as being between the good you and the bad you.  In cartoons, these conversations are depicted with an angel sitting on one shoulder whispering in one ear, and the devil sitting on the other shoulder whispering in the other ear.  Where do you think those voices come from?  The good you is the guidance coming from your heart; the bad you is the guidance coming from your ego-mind.  So your true self is still there; it's guidance though is usually overpowered by the force of the ego-mind.

For years I believed in the truth that my true self is my heart, but it did not move my practice forward.  I just couldn't wrap my head around what that was.  Then one day when I was meditating an image came to me of me as a toddler, smiling and laughing for no reason at all, just for being.  As soon as I saw that image, I knew that was the avatar of my heart, and I wept.  (I was able to have that image because my mother had sent me photos from my baby book just days before.)  That image is still with me today, every day, and is helpful in grounding my practice.

Since that time, my connection with my true self has undergone an evolution.  The first was my realization that the elements of Buddha nature are really aspects of the divine (see my post, "Buddhism and the Divine').  Thus, not only am I born with Buddha nature within me, but with the divine essence within me.  This, by the way, is the teaching of the mystical traditions of all 3 Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Islam, and Christianity (Kabbalah, Sufism, and Gnosticism). 

For those of you shaking your heads who were brought up in churches that teach that man is born with Original Sin, that was a concept that developed in the 4th Century and adopted at that time by the Catholic Church and 10 centuries later by many of the Protestant churches that developed after the Reformation. It was not a teaching of early Christianity and is not a teaching of the mystical traditions.

Many years later, I was developing a project to help children who felt bad about themselves in a middle school where I was teaching.  The idea was to help them feel good about themselves by teaching them that all the negative feelings they have about themselves are not aspects of their true selves.  But I had to do this in a secular way, with no reference to any religion or spirituality.

And so I came up with the concept of tying the idea of true self to the miracle of creation.  We, as well as all plants and animals, develop from a single fertilized cell; everything about our body and all aspects of its functioning are contained in that single fertilized cell.  That is a miracle of the Universe, and so each of us is a miracle of the Universe.

How can it be otherwise then that each plant, animal, and person is born essentially perfect with the force of the Universe embedded within them?  This is your true self. While one may be born with abnormalities caused by things that happen while in the womb or from genetic sources, spiritually we are all born essentially perfect.

The final thing I want to share with you, you might find somewhat strange.  One day I remembered the scene in Close Encounters of a Third Kind where the little boy comes out of the mothership and returns to his mother's arms.  When I watched that scene again, and saw the beatific smile of that child, it became for me the avatar of the child of the Universe within me.  And like the image of me as a toddler, that image is with me every day when I meditate/pray and is an important element that grounds my practice.

Your true self is there to guide you; talk to it, have faith in it, listen to its guidance. Let the force be with you. You will attain a level of peace and happiness, a quality of life, which you never felt was within your reach.
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When most people set out to do something, regardless the nature of the project, they want to have a feeling of certainty that their effort will be successful.  And the more someone is invested in the activity, the more needed this sense of certainty is.

This is an inevitable component of a craving.  Because a craving is something that you feel you must have.  There is no equivocation.  And so when something happens that removes this feeling of certainty that you need, it is devastating.  And you suffer.  What you feel is beyond frustration because this was something you felt you must have ... or else.

So if you are walking the Buddhist or any other spiritual path to end your suffering, you must remove the need for certainty from your life.  You need to be able to say, "If it happens, great; it if doesn't, that's ok too."  Which means that it is no longer a craving.  You approach whatever the project or thing is with equanimity.

Ending your suffering is, of course, the goal of Buddhist practice and the Buddha dharma; it is not a quick and easy thing to accomplish.  It requires much work and discipline, because you are entering a worldview very different from that in which you were raised and the culture within which you live.  I have written many posts about ending cravings and suffering, but perhaps the most useful in this connection are, "Craving 'Survival' Condemns You to Suffering," and the "End of Suffering Cheat Sheet."

But there is something you can do as you are working on this long-term project to help change your perspective: the things you say to yourself.  It is very common for people not only to focus on whatever is negative in their life, but to verbalize that negativity and how they feel about it.  The problem is that when you do this, it increases the impact on you of your negativity, it becomes a kind of obsession and increases your suffering.

What you must do is stop saying negative things to yourself.  I do not mean that you should lie to yourself about what you are experiencing, but you should express your reaction to it in a very different way.  For example, instead of saying, "I'm going to be ruined,"  or "I won't live this way," or anything similar, you should say to yourself, "It's ok; I'll be ok; it's not what I wanted but there are other options I can pursue." 

Even that statement will be difficult if you are dealing with a craving.  But by purposefully saying to yourself that you'll be ok—numerous times—you have the ability to change the way your mind is reacting to your experience.  Lessening its force as a craving without actually freeing yourself from it.
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