Self-Improvement

Self-improvement:

an upcoming year, just days away now, and many people will set their goals and resolutions. It's a worthy thing to do, embarking on some better habits, dropping unwanted traits that no longer seem to serve. I've read that not many stick with their self-improvement plans past a few weeks, a month or more at best. Forcing change is difficult, will-power is a useful tool, but limited for short-term use, hard to maintain and bring to daily play and practice. 

perhaps there's a better way?

maybe there's no self that needs to be improved?

, or the self we seek to change doesn't exist at all? 

it's a simply inquiry, looking for our truest self, an ancient practice of asking who we really are. Spiritual seekers have been asking this question since the dawn of time. It's worth pursuing, and more so to explore the silence that follows after asking. It seems there is no ready answer, the self is illusive, never quite exactly as expected, offering no real location. 

illusory.

at least in a certain sense.

but this isn't to debate the issue of self vs. no-self, everyone should find out on their own what's real and what isn't, answers are only meaningful through our own personal investigation and experience. Let's look for ourselves, exploring what's present, and dismissing conjecture's and beliefs. My own inquiry leads me to something quiet remarkable, a selfless nature serving in capacity for a self appearing to and as the world. This is seen through the simple act of pointing, a direct search for self by pointing to where we've long assumed it's found. Philosopher Douglas Harding called this the Headless Way, to first look at any object and note its basic qualities of form, then moving on to the body and similarly finding it's distinctions, solid, separate from other objects seen near by. They're all things, objects, even the body appears as so. Except the head. This is what we now point towards, going only on what's verified by our own eyes, direct experience, evidence - and what do we find? 

by our own evidence, we're headless, an actual look to where we're pointing reveals nothing found, at least nothing the resembles our long believed description. This can only be experienced, an experiment performed through the clinical trials of our own experience. 

look. 

what I find is emptiness, no head, no self, and yet through this space a world appearing. I find capacity, without limit to its hold. As well, I find a multiple of selves existing for just a moment, thoughts, beliefs and long cherished identities that once informed my world. Everything appears here, capacity open, welcoming to it all. 

nothing is denied, nor excluded.

so which self needs improving? 

we're too fluid for self-improvement, not suited by our very nature to lend ourselves to any real effort of a lasting change. Seen through capacity, all there is is change, motion, selves appearing for an instant, vanishing once the moments gone. It's all just an experience, life happening right now, continuous only  in the changes that it offers. 

motion.

nothing really needs improving, least of all a self that's always changing, never lasting past any one experience. Yet we can introduce an intention, a wish, prayer, or desire, casting it without attachment to the selfless void from which the world appears. Let the universe resolve these issues and concern, allowing ourselves to be part of whatever process unfolds from here. We may find ourselves inspired to new activities, healthier options that better suit our needs, opportunities being offered for a new direction to be explored. It's a more imaginative way of living. 

~

Peace, Eric