Introduction
I was raised with a strong sense of “self”. I was told to understand my “identity”, and through it, build strong “self-esteem”. I believed in a “self-esteem" rooted in reflection, improvement, and drive, and a selfhood created and developed through understanding, labeling, and explaining. “Ally is a student; Ally is truthful, empathetic and kind; Ally is good at basketball.”
In class, our study of Buddhist annattā — “not-self”, revealed a different framework of thinking, espousing that belief in a self that is a singular, enduring, core entity is at odds with reality; it is this constant search and identification of “me and mine” that perpetuates suffering. Here, Ally does not need to be “empathetic.” Ally is just “Ally” –– and even then, scholars have long contended that Buddhist discourse around denying the self vary in meaning, and the ‘Ally’ that is denied could range from a denial of Ally as biological experiential self, Ally as a permanent being, to Ally as a subject with self-esteem (Rudd, 2015; Gethin, 1998). Yet craving and selves related to “me and mine” - ideal, relational, narrative selves (Gallagher, 2013), are crucial aspects to ideals of selfhood that I hold sacred. The western construction of self and Buddhist practice of not-self are so diametrically opposed: Is there some way we can reconcile those divergences?
Within a broader Western tradition of self-cultivation, I’ve chosen to focus on self-esteem. The reason is because I’ve always seen it as an end goal of knowing and cultivating the self; I seek to understand “me, myself and I” with the purpose of navigating the world with more confidence, empowerment and happiness, and hence has always been a significant subject of interest. Consequently, one of the central questions of my paper is as follows: Is Buddhist practice of Not-Self compatible with Western model of Self- Esteem?
The literature on Self-Esteem and No-Self is robust and extensive, and a significant effort of this paper will begin by outlining the scope of the definitions around Self-Esteem and No-Self that will be critiqued and compared. Subsequently, three key tensions between the two models will be explored, namely 1) tensions around the egoic and hypo-egoic self, 2) the role that permanence plays in both models, and 3) the clinical and phenomenological effects of practicing Not-Self through mindfulness and how they relate to self-esteem.
Defining the ‘Optimal Self-Esteem’ model
The study of self-esteem continues to remain top-of-mind because longitudinal studies have shown that high self-esteem has salutary effects in an individual’s relationships, work and health (Orth & Robins, 2014). Most scholars understand self-esteem in terms of subjective feelings of self-worth (Rosenberg, 1979), and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES; 1979), the most frequently used self-esteem scale, measure an individual’s feelings of acceptance and respect (Rosenberg et al. 1995). There are many ways scholars have further dissected and defined core dimensions of self-esteem and how to build a “high” self-esteem (see The Six Pillars of Self Esteem, Fragile self-esteem, Pursuing self-esteem). Research by Stets & Burke (2014) synthesizes a lot of the literature by suggesting three dimensions: worth-based, efficacy-based, and authenticity-based esteem. These dimensions are each linked to the three motives of the self. The first is the self-enhancement motive (Leary, 2007), which is a desire for individuals to act in a way that maintains and enhances a positive self-view and self-worth. Another motive is self-efficacy, which is the desire to be able to have an affect on one’s environment and to have capabilities to bring about desired outcomes (Burke, 2014). Burke’s more recent study in 2014 proposes a third buttress to self-esteem: authenticity. This is driven by the coherence motive (Swann and Bosson 2010), where individuals strive for “meaning, coherence, and understandings about the self.” (Stets and Burke, 2014).
Overall, the most common view is that the higher the self-esteem the better. However, Kernis (2003) shows that high self-esteem can be fragile or secure depending on whether it is conscious or non-conscious, whether it is contingent on external factors, and whether it requires constant validation. Instead, he proposes the model for “Optimal Self-Esteem”, which this essay will center around. In this model, “Optimal Self-Esteem involves favorable feelings of self-worth that arise naturally from successfully dealing with life challenges; the operation of one's core, true, authentic self as a source of input to behavioral choices and relationships in which one is valued for who one is and not for what one achieves” (Kernis, 2003).
The crux of this definition is in authenticity - an aspect that is also emphasized a decade later through Burke’s definition of self-esteem, as explained above. Within Kernis’ definition, authenticity has four components: awareness, unbiased processing, action, and relational orientation. Authentic awareness is where an individual is in touch with one’s strengths and weaknesses, emotions, traits, and self-relevant cognition; in some ways, it shares similarities to a broader definition of mindfulness, and blockages occurring at the “awareness” stage may manifest as people not attuned to their motives and feelings. A second component of authenticity is unbiased processing, which relates to not denying and distorting internal experiences but rather having objectivity and acceptance of one’s positive and negative aspects. An example of biased processing is when someone rationalizes outcomes instead of acknowledging that they may not be skillful at something. A third component revolves around behavior and acting authentically in accord to one's “true self”, and acting in accord to values, preferences and needs. Blockages at this stage may be a result of defensive, contingent and fragile self-esteem, where individuals suppress behaviors that represent themselves in exchange for more socially palatable behavior. Finally, the fourth component of authenticity is relational through achieving openness in one’s close relationships by valuing the importance for close ones to see the real you, and blockages here may be due to fear of rejection and other social factors (Kernis, 2003).
Another piece of ‘Optimal Self-Esteem’ deployed by this essay is on the rejection of the pursuit of self-esteem and feelings of self-worth and self-efficacy as an end goal. The same Kernis paper explains: “Doing well is valued because it signifies effective expression of one's core values and interests, and it is this effective expression that is valued, not high self-esteem per se. Directly pursuing high self-esteem reflects contingent, not true, high self-esteem.” This interestingly intersects with the research of Crocker (2003), who states that “Optimal Self-Esteem is paradoxically achieved when we are not pursuing self-esteem. Goals emanate from our inner values, are larger than the self, and do not have the superordinate goal of self-worth.”
It is helpful here to mention identity theory, because it relates to how an individual engages with the three core tenets of self-esteem. First, an individual creates an ‘identity standard’ (‘I am philanthropic’), whereupon they will perform actions that they believe are consistent with those standards (donate food and clothes) and monitor others’ feedback to to determine whether meanings implied by their behavior match the meanings in their identity (“they saw I donated food, and they think I am a highly philanthropic person”)(Stets & Burke, 2014). When the individual thinks that others observe them and assign their actions meaning in the same way they want to be observed and labeled, there is a perfect match between identity standard and the feedback received, which is called identity verification. If there is a mismatch, there is identity non-verification. It is in this state of non-verification that individuals want to pursue certain actions to achieve verification, and it is the verification of identity that lead to feelings of self-worth, self-efficacy, and authenticity, which form the pillars of self-esteem as laid out earlier (Stets & Burke, 2014). This is supported by research; one example is how a longitudinal study following married couples showed that “individuals report increased feelings of self-esteem when their spousal identity is verified and decreased feelings of self-esteem when their spousal identity was not verified” (Stets & Burke, 2014).
The Optimal Self-Esteem model rejects the strive for self-esteem and by extension the strive for verification as a legitimate superordinate goal. You are not saying “why is my self-esteem so low” and “how do I improve it”; thoughts like “if I achieve X, my X identity will be fulfilled and my self-esteem will improve,” will fundamentally hinge on certain outcomes and actions and are discouraged by this model. Rather, the goal here is to think about what one can create or contribute that is greater than the self and consistent with our core values, instead of maintaining and protecting self-esteem (Crocker, 2003). Upon considered a wide range of views on self-esteem, this paper has come to define Optimal Self-Esteem as something achieved when individuals strive to act in accordance to an authentic core self instead of out of desire to achieve higher self-esteem.
Defining the ‘No-Self’ model
The Pāli term anattā translates into English as ‘no-self’, ‘non-self’, or ‘not-self’ (Lindahl and Britton, 2019). One of the central questions behind defining the ‘No-Self’ model is to understand what buddhists are denying when they deny the self. Once again, this is a subject on which philosophical and religious scholars have spent considerable time, and hence, within the context of our comparisons to self-esteem, I have found it helpful to formulate a framework that separates the denial of self into four main ‘layers’.
The most ‘extreme’ rejection of the self begins with Siderits’ rejection of consciousness, who claims that ‘there is no experiencing subject” (Rudd, 2015). It is difficult to see how this is a desirable goal, for even if my consciousness is an illusion, I would rather hold on to it. Hence, this interpretation of no-self will be acknowledged but not extensively explored in this paper.
On a more plausible level, no-self constitutes a denial of boundary around ‘me and mine’ that recognizes the reality of conscious experience but denies that there is an abiding, singular self. As captured in the Samyutta-nikaya, “The eye, material shapes, visual consciousness, impression on the eye - all these are empty of self and of what belongs to self” (New York Philosophical Library, 1954). The five Khandhas, which comprise of matter, sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness, together constitute our function of self, can be understood as biological experiential self that predates the self-as-subject. However, none of it individually or collectively is a Self. Within anattā, you no longer ask questions such as “am I, or am I not? What am I? Why am I?” Statements like “this is mine” is not helpful because there is no such thing, and these are all questions lead to craving which in turn lead to suffering (Ryan & Brown, 2003). A key pushback to this conception of self is a question posed by Rudd (2015): if we all agree there are thoughts, how we can suppose there are no thinkers? Furthermore, if we are meant to take a step back from first-order feelings and cravings, there necessitates a subject who can even step back to be aware of those feelings, to observe the presence of everything felt and thought. There is an agency that is undeniable here, and hard to reconcile with the lack of a self-as-subject.
Hence, taking one more step back, we arrive at a definition of ‘no-self’ that denies the self as an enduring substance (Gethin, 1998). Hamilton (2001) also claims that anattā's understanding of an impermanent self is as much a commentary on the changing, impermanent core in everything. Shinzen Young, an esteemed Buddhist meditation teacher, describes that the self is not extinguished, but rather that it is elastic and can expand or contract without an enduring entity:
Through consistent practice we develop the skill of mindfulness which allows us to detect with great clarity the often nebulous self-referential ideas and body sensations as they arise in each act of perception. We also develop equanimity so that we can allow these ideas and body sensations to expand and contract without suppression, interference or clinging. Eventually contact with the sense of self becomes so continuous that there is no time left to congeal or fixate it. The self then becomes clarified in the sense that it is no longer experienced as an opaque, rigid, ever-present entity, but rather as a transparent, elastic, vibratory activity. It loses its "thingness." We realize that it is a verb not a noun, a wave not a particle (Young, 2017).
Finally, one of the most specific interpretations of denial of self is the denial of self-esteem: Asmimana, ’I am’-conceit. Cutting off “me and mine” at the root can also be understood as a denial of self-esteeming processes; "self-esteeming processes are themselves just mental activities that play out on the screen of awareness that the deeper self can observe” (Brown & Ryan, 2003). “All the facts are friendly” (Rogers, 1961, p. 25), and we do not need to attain, protect and enhance an ideal self. Buddhist approaches view both high and low self- esteem as problematic, because we should not even have a self-esteem to protect. As long as one is invested in maintaining “I am X”, there will be times when one is not X or one does not live up to the image one has created, which will create desire and hence suffering (Ryan & Brown, 2003).
Having outlined four key layers and interpretations of the No-Self model, we can proceed to explore their compatibility with the Optimal Self-Esteem model. This paper will not limit the comparisons to a sole interpretations (or ‘layer’), but will rather consider them holistically and draw similarities and differences across the board.
Key tensions between No-Self and Self-Esteem
Three key tensions lie between the two models: namely No-Self’s hypo-egoicism, emphasis on impermanence, and relationship with mindfulness. This is contrasted with the Self-Esteem model’s fundamental egoism, permanence, and positive effects of mindfulness on Optimal Self-Esteem.
Hypo-Egoic vs. Egoic Self
First is the tension between the self-as-object that engages the hypo-egoic self and the self-as-subject that engages the egoic self. Upon initial survey, Optimal Self-Esteem appears to necessitate an egoic self capable of engaging with reflexive thinking –– take oneself as the object of one’s attention and thought –– to create and evaluate self-images and self-concepts. Likewise, ’No-Self’ appears to necessitate only having a hypo-egoic self that is de-individualized and focused on the present (Lindahl & Britton lecture, 2021). If we view hypo-egoicism and egoism as permanent traits, the No-Self and Self-Esteem models are unreconcilable. However, I argue instead that they are mindsets that can be operationalized by both models at different points in time. For example, the Optimal Self-Esteem model asks us to act in accordance to goals greater than the self and consistent to our core values - in many ways, drawing upon tenets of a hypo-egoic self that call for low ego-involvement, low susceptibility to ego threats, mental clarity, and no concern for other people’s opinions.
Similarly, the case can be made that No-Self does not fully reject a self with egoic qualities that engage reflexive thinking, since self-examination through mindfulness is central to Buddhist practice. Influential contemporary Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh (1976) describes mindfulness as “observing and recognizing the presence of every feeling and thought which arises in you” which insinuates the existence of a reflexive self that is capable of stepping back and being aware of feelings as they arise and subside. One can argue that the strive towards a self that is “wise” and characterized by “vigour, mindfulness, restraint, and self-control” as described in comments from the Dhammapada, one of the most revered early Buddhist texts, is comparable to a strive towards an ideal self. Buddhists would be hesitant to coin it as an ideal ‘self’, but the fact that this is an ideal ‘state’ suggests some formation of an identity standard within identity theory that is tied to self-esteem.
The matter of Impermanence
The second tension point is in the matter of impermanence. A characteristic of Buddhist No-Self is about having no enduring self. Optimal self esteem on the other hand is non-contingent and independent of external factors, and instead centered on the operation of one’s core, true authentic self. The existence of an authentic self seems to necessitate some kind of permanence that is irreconcilable with the ever-changing, fluid, elastic no-self. Once again, I argue that there may be middle ground that can be attained here. In both models, there is a shared obsession with ‘truth’ that I believe has some shared aspect of permanence. A passage by scholar Wolfgang Fasching analyzing Advaita Vedanta, a school of no-self realization, states:
Liberation lies, on the contrary, in becoming aware of the true self (ãtman or purusa). . . . This 'self is, of course, radically different from what we normally experience as 'ourselves': It has no qualities at all . . . and neither does, nor wants, anything. ... [It is] the very process of experiencing itself . . . which is the constant ground of our own being (Rudd, 2015).
This goes back to my previous comment of how No-Self shares some characteristics of an ‘ideal’ that in addition to suggesting some existence of an egoic, reflexive self, also suggests that the ‘goal’ of the no-self doctrine is in-of-itself a permanent idea; it is a permanent state of impermanence. In that same way, the Optimal Self-Esteem model asks individuals also to act in accordance to values, preferences and needs in line with a ‘true self.’
On the other hand, there exists the question of whether Optimal Self-Esteem makes room for a willingness to embrace impermanence and fluidity. I argue that within the goal of authenticity, the core tenets of awareness and unbiased processing defined earlier in this paper suggest a self-awareness that is rooted in learning, adaptability, and detachment from ego-defense mechanisms that arise from defending an individual’s perceived permanent characteristics. The second tenet of Optimal Self-Esteem –– rejecting the pursuit of self-esteem –– encourages individuals to welcome critiques of their work as opportunities for learning, instead of seeing them as threats to their worth and focusing energy on counter arguing them (Crocker, 2003). While the goal is still to realize and act in accordance with our ‘true’ selves, there is acknowledgement that this self is subject to change; “Identities may feel new or experimental in these novel contexts. They can reflect authenticity, however, to the extent that they are informed by what one knows to be true of the self” (Kernis, 2003). The Optimal Self-Esteem Model may believe in a true, permanent core self, but also gives room for its impermanence and openness to change that resembles Buddhist insistence on elasticity of non-enduring self. There is impermanence to this permanent state; like Shinzen Young’s description of no-self, there is a shared sense of continuity –– that the self is a “wave not a particle”. “Authenticity is not reflected in a compulsion to be one's true self, but rather in the free and natural expression of core feelings, motives, and inclinations” (Kernis, 2003).
The role of Mindfulness
The third tension point is in the role mindfulness plays in both models. In mindfulness, there is no fixed concept of self to protect or enhance. Yet, mindfulness also leads to increased self-esteem, which is experienced through fixed conceptions of self. What are the phenomenological and clinical outcomes of mindfulness, and how do they map to ‘No-Self’-ness or self-esteem?
Before we investigate its effects, we start by giving some boundary to what this paper will refer to when it references mindfulness. The meaning of mindfulness has evolved since its original source of inquiry from the Pāli Canon, and has many applications and practices in the Western tradition that are beyond the Buddhist goal of arriving at no-self. The Buddhist practice of mindfulness, as included in the eightfold path, rests on four establishments. The Satipatthāna Sutta, one of the most influential texts in the Pāli Canon on the practice of mindfulness, outlines them to be mindfulness of body, feelings, mind, and phenomena: “A monk dwells contemplating the body in the body . . . feelings in feelings . . . mind in mind . . . phenomena in phenomena, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having removed covetousness and displeasure in regard to the world” (Bodhi, 2011). Mindfulness of body is achieved through controlling breath, posture and activity; mindfulness of feelings through acknowledgment of pleasant, painful, or neutral emotions; mindfulness of mind by freeing it from lust, hatred and ignorance; and mindfulness of phenomena (dhamma) through understanding the world through Buddha’s teaching of Enlightenment. (Lindahl & Britton lecture, 2021).
Within the western tradition, mindfulness takes on a broader definition and is commonly described as ‘paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally’ (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4). Among the many scholars who have described and measured mindfulness (see Brown & Ryan, 2003; Bishop et al., 2004; Germer, Siegel, & Fulton, 2005; Keng et al., 2011), Baer et al. (2006) deconstructs it into five tenets that hold similarities to the four establishments of Buddhist mindfulness. The five factors are observing, describing , non- judging of inner experience, acting with awareness, and non-reactivity to inner experience (Baer et al., 2006, 2008).
Much evidence attest to the positive effects of mindfulness on self-esteem. The Pepping et al. paper (2013) in particular shows the relationship between mindfulness, as measured by the five facets of mindfulness defined earlier by Baer et al. (2006) and self-esteem, as measured by the 10-item Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale. The study showed that individuals high on non-reactivity, awareness, labeling, and non-judging of experience were higher in self-esteem, with non-judging being the largest predictor of high self-esteem. Non-reactivity’s positive effects on self-esteem are “possibly because the harsh and self-critical thoughts associated with low self-esteem are treated simply as thoughts, rather than a true reflection of reality” (Pepping et al, 2013). Here, “true reflection on reality” again highlights the important search for the authentic core self in Optimal Self-Esteem, and that mindfulness practices rooted in (or at least inspired by) no-self are helpful for individuals to move closer to it. Similarly, the ability to act with awareness and label thoughts and feelings with words was shown to also have a positive effect on self-esteem, conjectured by the author to be because “capacity to maintain present-focused attention may assist with an individual’s ability to transcend deep-seated negative beliefs.”This relates to the first two step in recognizing authentic core self, namely authentic awareness and unbiased processing. Finally, individuals high on non-judging are less likely to get caught up in harsh judgmental thoughts about the self (Pepping et al, 2013). This harks back to the no-self denial of self-esteem which denounces judgments made around “I am X”, which can lead to biased processing and hinder the search for an authentic core self that is core to Optimal Self-Esteem. The positive effect of the four tenets of mindfulness on self-esteem shows us that a hypo-egoic mindset that denies a core self can still help individuals in their search for a true-self to attain Optimal Self-Esteem.
Interestingly, the same study showed that the ability to notice internal and external experiences through observing did not lead to more optimal self-esteem. “This may be because it is not the ability to notice self-critical thoughts and difficult emotions per se that has implications for self-esteem, but rather the attitude or stance taken towards these thoughts and emotions” (Pepping et al, 2013). This is an important comment; “observing” is the biological, experiential self-as-object component to mindfulness that predates the self-as-subject. Mindfulness as a concept is also meant to be largely rooted in a hypo-egoic mindset that should not have a self-as-subject at all. Yet, “attitude or stance taken towards these thoughts” suggests the existence of a reflexive self even within the practice of mindfulness; it harks back to our earlier discussion of how stepping back from first-order feelings and cravings requires a subject. This leads us to make a couple of conclusions. First, if the hypo-egoic aspect of mindfulness is the one tenet that does not correlate with higher self-esteem, then the process of arriving at optimal-self-esteem through mindfulness is fundamentally a process that engages the self-as-subject. Second, it raises questions about whether the mindfulness process itself is purely hypo-egoic or as hypo-egoic as it is meant to be, especially if this study separates it into two components of “recognizing emotions” and “attitude and stance towards these emotions.” Hence, if we think of mindfulness as the ultimate practice to achieving No-Self, that means by extension, while no-self insists on not protecting and enhancing a core self, it can still engage an egoic self. The strive for a hypo-egoic mindset through mindfulness creates systems of thinking and “attitudes and stances towards emotions” that do engage the self-as-subject, but would not be attainable without this initial denial of the self-as-subject.
Concluding thoughts: middle ground and an unattainable equilibrium
We have laid out major tensions between the No-Self model and the Self-Esteem model. Within those tensions, we have found middle ground that bridges seemingly irreconcilable difference, suggesting perhaps that someone who has Optimal Self-Esteem may also be a practitioner of No-Self, but simply do not use the same language to describe the same phenomenological experience. The limitations of language in comparing phenomenological experiences will always be present, but this side-by-side comparison is at least a starting point to discussing these two very complex and nuanced models.
This comparison also suggests that both models may exist in a space of the ideal that practitioners want to strive for but do not need to truly attain. For the Optimal Self-Esteem, the unattainable equilibrium is the “core, authentic self” on which one bases all of their relationships, actions, unbiased processing, awareness. At what point have we hit our “core” self? Our acknowledgement of its lack of permanence also suggests that this authentic self may be like a fuzzy core that we are constantly trying to define and inch towards, like an asymptotic line towards an equilibrium.
For the No-self model, that unattainable equilibrium is “no-self” itself. The self-less experience appears intelligible, and self-less experience frankly undesirable (Rudd, 2015); instead, it’s the constant strive towards this direction that matters that also unlocks definitions of no-self that are much more appetizing, such as denials of self-esteem and denial of permanence of self. It is the process of transitioning human experience from self-centeredness to reality-centered that unlocks the many benefits of mindfulness, such as self-esteem as we explored above.
In both models, there is a shared goal of transcending one’s ego and experience the world in a way that is truer to its real nature. There is a shared solace found in truth-seeking: for self-esteem, it is the elusive goal to discover the ‘true-self’, and within no-self, it is finding aspects of experience that are reliable through awareness that are True to reality.
One key learning and direction for the future is to interrogate the difference between acting in accordance to the authentic self versus protecting an ideal self and the self-esteem that follows. What happens when one’s actions become consistently different from what one’s authentic self would perform? Does that process of course-correcting become classified as “protecting self-esteem”? What both the No-Self and Optimal Self-Esteem models may be telling us (in a combined way) is to be less quick to labels actions as indicative of some kind of “self” we have, but instead to evaluate our actions on whether they are true to who we believe we are through this core, authentic self. If I have misplaced an item and cannot find it, my immediate reaction should not be “I am a scattered person” but rather that “my action was irresponsible and may not align with my authentic self.” Our goal should not be to constantly define, label and protect selfhood, but rather to embrace its impermanence and fluidity to more authentically experience and navigate the world.
15 pages, 4817 words
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