Merging with the Divine: Zen's Path to Sacrificing the False Self

Making Everything Personal

Everything is always only about us.

Whatever happens, we take it personally.

Whatever we do, we do it because of ourselves, because of what we can gain from it. When we look at the world, we don’t see it just as it is, we see it as we want to see it. It’s always only about our small self, our separated sense of self, our personal “I.”

Lost in the Pull of the Ego

If we look at it carefully, we can see that we are purely motivated by what we think is best for ourselves.

Even if we don’t want to admit it, we reduce everything to our best interest. And when we do something for someone else, we only do it because it gives us a nice feeling, or because “we” think that it is the right thing to do.

Every motivation truly comes from our I-sense, from our small self.

Through our upbringing, we have learned different strategies on how to get what we want, but in the end, they all come from the same motivation—what’s best for us? Sometimes, these motivations can be more pure, like wanting food when we are hungry, and sometimes they can take on very unconscious forms. We may feel angry all the time, or we feel sad all the time. Not because we are forced to, but because we unconsciously want to feel that way. When we go through our lives, we are bounced around by these personal wants and desires.

Have you ever done something that had no purpose at all? I mean, we wake up in the morning, and we put clothes on. Why do we do it? Because we want to feel warm, and maybe because it’s socially appropriate. Then we brush our teeth—why? Because if we didn’t, it would inflict too much pain and we don’t want to feel this pain. Then we have breakfast—why? Because we want energy. Then we leave our home to work at a job. Why? Because we want the money to keep repeating this pattern. Then, we might go into spirituality and do certain spiritual practices. Why? Because we want to feel good all the time.

Have you ever wondered who you are doing all of this for?

It’s all about the "I," the me, the mine, our small and separated sense of self. Our whole life is a reaction to what this small self wants. Even if we are having a nice vacation and feeling wonderful, we are only following our unconscious motivations. This way, we are not free. We are only products of our wants and desires.

The True Meaning of Sacrifice

There is this idea of "sacrifice" in spirituality. It has been around for a long time, and it is a very misunderstood concept. It’s derived from the two Latin words “sacrum facere,” which basically means “to make sacred.” Not such a bad concept at all, right?

“To make sacred.”

Most people live in the delusion that we are not already complete, whole, or divine.

Because we have seemingly separated ourselves from source, from the godhead, from our buddha nature, we also think of everything else as being separate, incomplete, and profane.

Like a wave that has risen from the infinite ocean, we only identify with the wave, and we only do what’s best for this particular wave. We take this little wave, which is basically the small self, as its own thing, separate from the ocean. The illusion is that this wave has been cut off from the ocean, that it’s apart from it, and now it tries to survive on its own. Compared to the vast, infinite, divine ocean, the wave is incomplete, separate, profane, mundane, and ordinary. How can we reunite the wave with the ocean again?

Since the wave has always been part of the ocean, made from the same substance, there is nothing we need to do except let go of the idea, of the illusion, that it’s separate.

We sacrifice the wave for the ocean.

We sacrifice the profane for the divine, the relative for the absolute.

We sacrifice the personal for the impersonal.

Sacrificing the Small Self in Everyday Life

How can we apply this wisdom to our lives, to our spiritual practice?

In Zen, in the lineage I was trained in, there was a great deal of chanting. We’d basically stand or sit, holding a chanting book with the text in our hands, and chant the words out loud to the sound of the Moktak, which is a wooden instrument used for creating a rhythm. With the exception of the Heart Sutra, which was chanted in the native language, the other texts were in a mix of ancient Korean and Chinese. This means that we’d basically chant words we had no idea what they meant. And their meaning is of no importance at all, because what happens is this:

Instead of being busy only thinking about our small self, fantasizing about something, regretting the past, dreaming about the future, or staying entangled in delusional thinking, we’d orient our awareness toward the chanting of these texts.

There is really no purpose in chanting these texts, there is nothing to gain from it, and there is no reason why our small self would ever want to do this. And that’s exactly why it's so powerful. We’d sacrifice our small self for something other than that.

From the selfish thinking mind to the proper chanting of these words, in harmony with the rhythm and with the others who are chanting as well. Turning the focus from our habitual thinking to just doing the activity—holding the book, reading, and chanting the words.

Becoming completely empty of ourselves, only chanting.

This way, we go beyond our small self, beyond our personal motivations or ideas, and by doing that our minds will open.

Our minds will become free from our tendencies, from the grip of our ego, and open up to something that’s not personal, but universal.

It will open up to something that has neither desire nor aversion.

Doing this kind of practice, we sacrifice the small self for the big self, the wave for the ocean. And it’s not a violent act. We don’t force ourselves to turn off our thinking and only chant. We are completely there, in this situation—holding the book, chanting. Thoughts may arise, we witness them, but we let them go and reorient ourselves to the chanting.

We don’t fight these thoughts, we just witness them. Just standing there, chanting, we will make mistakes, we will think many thoughts, have many feelings, and we don’t deny them. We stand there as we are, with all our imperfections, but we don’t get stuck in them. We let them be, and we reorient ourselves toward something that’s beyond it all.

We use the chanting to make ourselves sacred. And we don’t have to chant to do this. Whenever we do something, let's say we wash the dishes, we do it fully. We don’t get stuck in our thinking about how uninteresting washing the dishes is, but we see it as a sacred ritual.

But we also don’t see it as something we can gain anything from either, because this motivation would belong to the small self.

Just washing the dishes. Sacrificing yourself completely to do only what you are doing. When washing, only wash. When walking, only walk. When eating, only eat. Some Zen master once said that Zen is not like peeling an orange and thinking about Buddha when you do it, but about peeling an orange and only peeling an orange.

Everything else is just a motivation from our small self—the small self that has to die in this process, that has to give itself to the activity 100%, without holding anything back.

When you do something, you just do that. That’s the meaning of sacrifice.

The small self dying to the Big Self.

Wishing you all the best on your path.
Your friend of the way, bye.