Solitude and Self‑Forgetfulness 忘我

Have you ever doubted your own being?

Nov 17, 2024

In the previous three posts, we explored Chuang Tzu’s innovative approach to wu-wei — to be at ease with life. In other words, wu-wei is a state of free and easy wandering (逍遙, pronounced as xiaoyao).

Then, we examined his idea of living spontaneously by connecting with our natural endowment and disposition. In the third post, we looked at the famous Cook Ding and his lessons on mastery as an extension of living naturally.

In this post, we are going further to explore the idea of forgetting the self 忘我 — crucial to understanding Chuang Tzu’s philosophy. Through the words of a Taoist master, Chuang Tzu informs us of the price of getting true clarity: to be reborn from the past version of oneself and accept the state of solitude. This is the first layer of forgetting the self.

In the following piece, we will focus on the deeper level of forgetting the self and its direct consequences. Through this concept, Chuang Tzu challenges us to restructure our modes of thinking, reestablish our relationships with the world, and rebuild our life’s meaning that is aligned with the Tao.

If we accept his challenge, we get to experience temporary discomfort because his idea will penetrate us at the core — the ego-centric way of looking at the world and self-righteousness. But if we go through it, we can experience mental and spiritual growth (true transformation is never comfortable).

Have you ever had the experience of waiting for the dawn in the early morning? How did you feel about it? Were you aware of your state of mind at that particular moment?

Did you reflect on the past? Or did you yearn for personal changes while looking into the future?

Were you able to be at peace with your existence? What is it that disturbs your mind and makes your heart restless?

Sooner or later, we all encounter a wake-up call in life. Perhaps it is a crisis at work, a sudden change in interpersonal relationships, or a personal realization that we must change and act now. In these moments, we awaken to the fact that we have somehow deviated from the natural course we are supposed to follow. We were so involved that we just let things happen unconsciously.

It’s too late to rectify things, so we think. The past cannot be rewritten. The ink is dry. We live in endless regret and pain. Our spirit is anchored to the deep-seated emotions inherited from the past, the memories, and the experiences.

That opportunity could have been yours to seize and make impactful changes to your life. That project could have turned into something that makes you proud. That relationship could have lasted into something beautiful that makes you happy.

So, you see, we are endlessly entangled with the outside, the changing circumstances with everything in it. We have not been exposed to the reality of life’s impermanent nature. We have not grasped that to let go is to liberate ourselves.

Yet, we have easily allowed ourselves to live on a shaky foundation—our relationship with the world depends on something beyond our control. We let social conventions, someone else’s opinions, and fleeting desires control how we live. We allow external forces to define and dictate our life’s meaning and purposes.

The inner self is concealed by a collective effort—our unconscious decisions in life and the allure of the world.

When we peel off these external layers, we see the aloneness of the true self within, not attached to our obsessions and fixations. We see that it has always been like this.

When we walk on the spiritual path, we are returning to the core, to the world of the inner self, and to rise above the attachment to that self. We see glimpses of those passing us, wondering where we are going. We have gone separate ways, in reverse directions. This is the spiritual process of reaching the state beyond the self.

When we embrace the process of letting external things pass, we can see through the past versions of ourselves and the manufactured meaning we have given them. We are essentially redefining our relationships with the world.

True clarity

But we don’t want to forsake those layers—the labels, memories, experiences, validation, and the good and bad feelings that result from being entangled.

So, we continue to be attached. We continue to get defensive when things related to our perceived identities are attacked. Any external triggers can mess with the inner thorn, making us uneasy and insecure.

Still, we do not realize that those things are trivial. They provoke emotional reactions because we are tethered to layers of artificial meaning imposed on us. Accordingly, we structure and interpret our relationships with the world and others based on those unverified and unexamined assumptions and beliefs.

The critical step of dissolving the self on the surface is to reexamine our own perceptions, opinions, and adopted beliefs. Do they truly capture the truth of reality and the world? Why do we accept those specious ways of understanding the world?

People search for meaning to fill the void within and justify their actions for all kinds of reasons, such as to get away from unbearable loneliness.

For instance, from the perspective of finding shelter in artificial meaning, communism and terrorism are the same thing. The carriers of radical ideologies assume they are fighting for a rightful cause because they have the “truth.” Yet they do not realize that, fundamentally, their actions are based on a fatal conceit, an ego-driven way of doing things.

Thus, the grandiose propaganda and popular movements that can generate strong emotions from their followers belie the fact that they dare not face the reality of getting their pursuits (the supposedly meaningful cause) taken away from them.

To suffer the long-lasting sense of aloneness while refusing to add layers of manufactured meaning is, in essence, a dangerous yet liberating path.

You begin to destroy, bit by bit, the particular way of looking at and interacting with the world and the very foundation of that particular worldview. You start recognizing the absurdity of the perceived reality, and you understand that perceptions lead to judgment, and judgment can lead to closed thinking.

Naturally, in the process, you will alienate yourself from those around you, from the circumstances that force you to conform in a subtle manner.

You see people fighting against each other over those flawed arguments and rigid doctrines. Deep down, you know that this is the battle between different modes of thinking. Even further, you see that this is the doing of self-righteousness arising from an ego-centric habit that is present in all of us.

Chuang Tzu told a story about a Taoist master named Nu Yu and his disciple; through the master’s words, we see the experience of following the Tao to arrive at true clarity about oneself.

“Once I had encountered a person who was named Pu Liang Yi. He had the genius of a sage but not the Tao. I have the Tao, but not the genius. I wanted to teach him in order that he might become a sage. It seemed as if teaching the Tao to a man of genius would be easy. But no!

I taught him for three days, and he was able to ignore the whole world. Having put the world outside himself, I continued to teach him for seven days so he could ignore all external matters. Having put things outside himself, I continued to teach him for nine days, after which he could put life outside himself.

Having discerned his own self as irrelevant, he was able to achieve the brightness of dawn (朝徹). Having seen the dawn (true clarity), he could see his own aloneness (見獨, to see the One/Tao). After he had managed to see his aloneness, he could do away with past and present (無古今). Having ignored both past and present, he was able to enter where there is neither death nor birth (不生不死).

That which kills life does not die; that which gives life to life does not live (殺生者不死，生生者不生).

He would follow anything; he would receive anything. To him, everything was in destruction, everything was in construction. This is called tranquility in disturbance (攖寧). Tranquility in disturbance means perfection.”1

The price of freedom

What do you miss the most from past experiences? A specific achievement that made you proud? A rewarding experience by trying something new, or a bittersweet relationship that became a beautiful and regrettable memory?

We hold onto memories from the past because they make us believe we have lived. As time passes by, with the vicissitudes of changes we have gone through, we can still look at the past with gentle, loving eyes.

Yet, as the Taoist master Nu Yu’s experience shows, we tend to hold things in our minds too tightly. We love and hate too much, preventing ourselves from seeing truly. We create various sorts of “this” so that we don’t have to resort to the many other types of “that.” We corner ourselves into a self-created shackle.

Kill the self that still lives in the past. Embrace the new self that is yet to come.

Forget what is destined to be fleeting. Look at the world with new eyes.

Aloneness is the nature of reality.

Being at ease with this is the path to spiritual tranquility. There is nothing to fear but only the harsh truth to see.

The knowledge of the ancients was perfect. How perfect? At first, they did not yet know that there were things (未始有物). This is the most perfect knowledge; nothing can be added. Next, they knew that there were things, but did not yet make distinctions between them. Next, they made distinctions between them, but they did not yet pass judgments upon them. When judgments were passed, Tao was destroyed.2

This is what the state of self-forgetfulness is about: making no distinctions because the “I” that used to see things with a subjective lens is already dissolved. What then follows is seeing through the act of having expectations of things and people. This is the essence of forgetting the self. No more clinging, no more resisting, only agreeing, observing, and accepting.

When we rise above the appearances of reality, nothing stays, and nothing bothers us. The past does not linger in the mind. We are not to pass judgment on things because our existence is interconnected with the myriad of things destined to perish and be reborn. We are liberated within.

We can transcend the limitations imposed on the old self, get disenchanted with the self-centered way of looking at the world, and, no matter how painful that can be, reestablish our relationship with the world. That’s the price we must pay for inner freedom by going beyond the self.

When we realize everything is fleeting and impermanent, we see that life is just a temporary experience in the endless evolution of time. Disturbances will still come back. But, we can no longer be shaken.

The same question revolves back to you. What do you miss the most from the past? The person that I loved dearly. I know what I miss the most — the shared space we have been together in all those moments of life. But you have changed, aren’t you? Is it not an illusion, a false sense of reality you are still attached to?

Are you still bothered by opposing views on a matter you care about? Can’t you see that you all perceive things through a peculiar and subjective lens, even if the claim of being objective is still grounded in an ego-driven and self-righteous assumption?

When you crawl from the abyss of suffering and go through the darkest period alone, you get to experience the elevation of your spirit by seeing the autonomous Tao. You realize you can control your heart to face any chaos in the rest of your journey.

To arrive at true clarity, therefore, requires embracing the inescapable sense of aloneness, non-attachment, and disenchantment. This experience is painful, disturbing, and unbearable but brings back inner peace. It is dangerous and unconventional but also fundamentally encouraging and liberating.

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