The map of the self (04)
A complete meditation practice trains five elements: attention, intention, attitude, action, and impact. It helps to understand them as the upper triangle which (the first three), the lower triangle (the last three), and the skeleton of the self (the two triangles together) with attitude connects both triangles.
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But what is the self? Let me start our understanding of the self by introducing these two drawings which easily describe what we mean at this moment by “the self”.
Never mind if you have a male experience, a female experience or something in between (left: “the form outside”), you will be able to identify these five experiences within you (right: “the form inside”):
1. the situational experience, or the situational self, which illustrates what you experience in a situation made of time, space, objects, and relationships.
2. the mental experience, or mental self, which illustrates what you are thinking at any situation.
3. the emotional experience, or emotional self, which illustrates what your emotions are at any situation and with any thinking.
4. the physical experience, or physical self, which illustrates what your physical body feels at any situation, with any thinking, and with any emotion.
5. the energetic experience, or energetic self, which illustrates what is your energy field at any situation, with any thinking, with any emotion, and with your physical body.
These five elements of the self-experience are organized around two axes:
· the horizontal axis refers to the time: “the past” is in the left; “the future” is in the right. Of course, as the only real thing that we can experience is “the present moment”, I write “the past” or “the future” meaning what are those experiences about “the past” or about “the future” which are consciously or unconsciously included in my “present” moment.
· the vertical axis refers to the energy in life: “the masculine yang” is up; “the feminine yin” is down. These by themselves could be confusing, even conflicting, but I would like to ask for some faith here. So please, accept them in the narrowest understanding, where “masculine yang” refers to how consciously or unconsciously “closed” I am regarding the current experience, and “feminine yin” refers to how consciously or unconsciously “opened” I am regarding the current experience.
· the crossing point is “the present” where “energies meet and get in balance”.
This third drawing fully integrates these concepts and illustrates what I mean when I think about “the self.” I feel that “naming” can be slippery, but it is key to better communicate among ourselves. However, sometimes, we also referred to “the self” in a more descriptive way, like “the 5 levels of the self”, “the 5 experiences of the self” or “the form of the self”.
Once we have a mutual understanding of the self, we come back and recall “the skeleton of the self.” Let’s remind for us the definition as “that something hidden but omnipresent in all (human) beings which is key to explain any experience or movement.” Additionally, let us remember that it has also five elements: attention, intention, attitude, action, and impact. Just in case, it is a coincidence that in both cases we are talking about five. Please, note that there is no matching at all and that this is just a beautiful coincidence.
At this point, it is especially important to notice that it is attention, and only the movement of attention, what will help to be aware of the five levels of the self. In fact, the three basic mindfulness practices (focus attention, open awareness, and body scan) share this common goal and train us so we can voluntarily:
1. move our attention towards surroundings (which is our situational experience);
2. move our attention towards thoughts (which is our mental experience);
3. move our attention towards emotions (which is our emotional experience);
4. move our attention towards respiration and physical sensations (which is our physical experience);
Of course, it is also important to notice that focus attention is about “closing” or narrowing attention towards something (like breathing) and open awareness is about “opening” or broadening attention to everything (like whatever comes to your mind). These match with the training of the two basic manifestations of our energetic experience: “to close” and “to open.”
Additionally, more complete mindfulness practices guide us to go back and reflect over past experiences, or to move forward and envision future scenarios.
On the other hand, whatever of the basic movements in the skeleton do manifest in a push and/or pull movement of several of “the 5 levels of the self”. These are easy examples:
· directing your attention moves mental-self and physical-self;
· raising an intention moves mental-self and emotional-self;
· embodying an attitude moves emotional-self and energetic-self;
· performing an action moves physical-self and energetic-self;
· monitoring an impact moves mental-self and energetic-self.
So, this drawing becomes “the map of the self” inside (built as “the 5 levels of the self” plus “the skeleton of the self”) which gives full meaning and order to concepts and practices for “self-awareness”, “self-knowledge”, and “self-management”.
Before we close this analytic reflection, it is particularly important to recognize that everything we just said about the self should not be understood at all as an absolute truth. On the contrary, everything we have said about the self is just a small perspective of an infinite truth. No thought, no words and no drawing could ever embrace the infinite. Reality is a unified wholeness. The self is a unified wholeness.
But we only have thoughts, and words, and drawings to communicate among us. And thoughts, words, drawings do fragment reality. Yes, we know. This maybe brings false perceptions about the fundamental truth of unified wholeness, like any belief that it can be splitted and separated, and that each part has autonomy and can be treated individually.
However, we deeply feel that this simple view of what we are (as human beings) is helping us and others in the integration and evolution of our meditation practice. We also feel that when it has seeded inside deep enough, it helps in many ways to walk the path of becoming a better human being and contributing to a better, more beautiful world.
So, we hope and wish that it also helps you and others.
Next chapter: Self-centering and presence (05)