MINDFULNESS, THE ‘SELF’ AND SERENITY

M I N D F U L N E S S,
THE ‘SELF’ AND SERENITY
By The Rev. Dr Ian Ellis-Jones

Many, especially those in Twelve-Step Programs, will be familiar with what is known
as The Serenity Prayer. The prayer was written by the famous 20th century
Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.

The short form of the prayer (see opposite) is usually employed but there is also an
extended version as well, the wording of which can be found on the link above to
The Serenity Prayer. Here is the form of the prayer that is most widely known and
used:

Some people have trouble with the word ‘God’. I always say to such people, ‘As
Krishnamurti used to say, 'The word is not the thing'.’ The word ‘God’ means ‘God as
you understand [God]’, and I have come to understand the word as referring not so
much to a supposed ‘Higher Power’ - for I dislike that expression as it tends to
suggest that there are supposedly ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ levels or orders of reality
(which I believe is not the case, on both philosophical and scientific grounds) - but a
‘power-not-oneself’.

I am very grateful, as are many others, to the late Rev. Dr Dilworth Lupton, sometime
minister of the First Unitarian Church (Universalist-Unitarian) in Cleveland, Ohio, and
later of Waltham, Massachusetts, who used, and perhaps coined, the phrase ‘a
power-not-ourselves’. (I am, of course, aware of Matthew Arnold's oft-quoted
‘definition’ of God as ‘the enduring power, not ourselves, which makes for
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righteousness’.) Lupton's delivered a very famous sermon, ‘Mr X and Alcoholics
Anonymous’ , on 26 November 1939 when AA was in its very early years.

In any event, Step 2 (‘Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could
restore us to sanity’) of The Twelve Steps refers to a ‘Power greater [NOTE: not
necessarily ‘higher’] than ourselves’. Also, there are only 2 places (on pp 43 and
100, respectively) in the 4th edition of the ‘Big Book’ of AA - entitled Alcoholics
Anonymous - where the actual expression ‘Higher Power’ is used, but there
are numerous other places in the book where other expressions are used to refer to
the need to find a ‘power’ or simply ‘Power’ (to overcome the problem of ‘lack of
power’) and to the ‘God’ of one's own understanding.

I have no difficulty in believing in a ‘power-not-myself’ or a ‘power greater than
myself’. Why? Because there is no such thing as ‘self’. Now, I know that is a hard
concept for many to grasp, but I firmly believe it to be true. Dr John Hughlings
Jackson (pictured below), who was the founder of the (then known) British School of
Neurology, wrote that there is something intrinsically wrong with our notion of the
‘self’. Jackson demonstrated - yes, demonstrated - that consciousness is neither a
fixed quantity or quality nor of fixed duration, but simply ‘something’ quite intermittent
in nature that undergoes change moment by moment.

The idea that there is no actual ‘self’ at the centre of our conscious (or even
unconscious) awareness comes as a great shock to many (except to Buddhists, who
rightly assert not a doctrine of ‘no-self’ but the fact of ‘not-self‘, and to various
metaphysicians), but it is the view held by most, but not all, neuropsychiatrists,
neuroscientists and other like professionals.

The truth is our consciousness goes through continuous fluctuations from moment to
moment. As such, there is nothing to constitute, let alone sustain, a separate,
transcendent ’I’ structure or entity. True, we have a sense of continuity of ‘self’, but it
is really an illusion. It has no ‘substance’ in psychological reality. It is simply a mental
construct composed of a continuous ever-changing process or confluence of
impermanent components (‘I-moments’) which are cleverly synthesized by the mind

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in a way which appears to give them a singularity and a separate and independent
existence and life of their own.

The Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote that we tend to believe that the ‘self’ is
real and one because of what we perceive to be the ‘felt smoothness of the transition
which imagination effects between point and point’, but all that we are dealing with,
he said (as have many others over the years such as Friedrich Nietzsche
and Bertrand Russell), is a bundle of experiences which have the illusion of
continuity about them. The truth is that the ‘self’ is not an independent ‘thing’
separate from the various aggregates of which we are composed as persons.
Indeed, every attempt to postulate or assert the existence of a ‘self’ is self-defeating
(hmmm) as it inevitably involves an element of self-identification. (According to
Buddhism, there are 5 such aggregates: form or matter, feeling or sensation,
cognition or perception, volition or impulses, and consciousness or discernment.)

So what gives us this sense of mental continuity? How does it arise? Russell and
others have written that our mental continuity is simply the result of habit and
memory. Each one of us is a person in our own right - I am not denying that.
However, the person which each one of us is recognizes that there was, yesterday,
and even before then, a person whose thoughts, feelings and sensations we can
remember today ... and THAT person each one of us regards as ourself of
yesterday, and so on. Nevertheless, this ‘myself’ of yesterday consists of nothing
more than certain mental occurrences which are later - say, today - recognized,
interpreted and regarded, and, more importantly, remembered, as part of the person
- which each one of us is - who recollects those mental occurrences.

Now, let's get back to this supposed ‘I’ (and ‘me’). Actually, within each one of us
there are literally thousands of ‘I's’ and ‘me's’ ... the ‘I’ who wants to go to work today
and the ‘I’ who doesn't, the ‘I’ who likes ‘me’ and the ‘I’ who doesn't like ‘me’, the ‘I’
who wants to give up smoking and the ‘I’ who doesn't, and so forth. Think about it for
a moment ... how can the ‘self’ change the ‘self’, if self is non-existent? It can't. End
of story. I love what Archbishop William Temple (pictured below) had to say about
the matter. He said, ‘For the trouble is that we are self-centred, and no effort of the
self can remove the self from the centre of its own endeavour.’ Therefore, let us free
ourselves from all forms and notions of self-identification, self-absorption, self-
obsession and self-centredness.

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Are you familiar with the Zen kōan about the goose in the bottle? The goose grew
and grew until it couldn't get out of the bottle. The man didn't want to break the
bottle or hurt the goose, but he did want to get the goose out of the bottle. So what
did he do? Ponder on that one for a day or two ... but please do not email me for the
supposed ‘answer’! Here's a simpler piece of Zen. A disciple asks, ‘Master, what is
my Self?’ The master replies, ‘What would you want with a Self?’ Indeed.

Now, if we want change - especially positive change - in our lives, we have to rely
upon a ‘power-not-oneself’ ... that is, the power of ‘not-self’. Your such power may
well be different from mine. That doesn't matter at all ... as long as we realize that the
so-called ‘I’, as Krishnamurti used to point out, is simply a habit and a series of
words, memories and knowledge ... which is the past. Note that - the past. The ‘I’
and ‘me’ of us - and even the belief (actually, misbelief) ’I am I’ - are simply brought
about by thought ... and thought is always a thing of the past as well.

The Serenity Prayer recognizes the importance of Mindfulness. Let me explain.

The prayer begins with the words, ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I
cannot change’. What are those things? Without attempting to give an exhaustive
list, here are some of the biggies ... there is no ‘self’ which can change ‘me’ ... I have
no power to change myself (my ‘self’) nor other people ... I cannot change the past,
and that includes my past actions and my past intentions, as well as the
accumulated results (karma, if you like) of those things ... although there is
something that can be done about the latter. Thank goodness Mindfulness is all
about the present.

The prayer continues with these words ... ‘courage to change the things I can’. What
are those things? Again, without attempting to give an exhaustive list, here is
perhaps the most important thing of all ... my present and, as a consequence, my
future. How? (I know we should never ask ‘how’, but, be that as it may ... .) By being
mindful in the present moment ... moment by moment ... and by mindfully making
choices in the present ... I can, and will, gain insight and understanding into the
person which I am, as well as other persons to the extent that it is possible to truly
understand (that is, ‘get into the mind’ of) others. (By the way, insight means seeing
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the way things really are. Understanding is ‘learning’, something which Krishnamurti
described as being ‘movement from moment to moment’.)

The short form of the prayer concludes with these words ... ‘and [the] wisdom to
know the difference’? How do we gain that wisdom? (There's that word ‘how’ again!)
Well, by means of the regular practice of Mindfulness we gain, as already
mentioned, insight and understanding into the person which each one of us is. That
insight and understanding brings us wisdom ... NOT book knowledge, but true
spiritual (that is, non-material) wisdom.

We are then able to know the difference between, to use some expressions
commonly used in Buddhism, what is ‘wholesome’ and ‘skilful’, and what is
‘unwholesome’ and ‘unskilful’, for each of us.

Amen.

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MINDFULNESS, THE ‘SELF’ AND SERENITY

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MINDFULNESS, THE ‘SELF’ AND SERENITY