The Illusion of "I" and the Reality of "We"

I was astonished by the endless, often contradictory thoughts which appeared when I first began meditating (they are still endless and often contradictory after many years of meditating, but that no longer astonishes me.) I soon began to wonder who "I" was. Was I the person making all kinds of internal comments and evaluations about everyone and everything around me? Was I the addict who loved getting high and going for a walk in the woods? Was I the the angry guy who felt resentful when others didn't drive the way I thought they should? Or was I the man sitting quietly on a cushion with nothing much going on in his mind?

From moment to moment, who I was shifted from thought to thought, never graspable and never observable. I was not my body; it could be hurting one day and feeling no pain the next. I was not my feelings; who I was when sad was not who I was when happy. I was not my thoughts; they appeared out of nowhere and then quickly disappeared only to be replaced by other thoughts that had nothing to do with the first ones. The more I tried to discover who or what "I" is, the more elusive it became.

The Buddhists say "I" is a delusion. Seeing the world through the eyes of "I", "me", and "mine" is the major source of our suffering. 12-Step programs say that "ego deflation" is essential to the path of recovery. It is the key to letting go of harmful behaviors and accepting the world as it is rather than demanding it be the way we want it to be. Even philosophers of computer technology talk about "I" being an illusion. Douglas Hofstadter says in his new book, I am a Strange Loop, The "I"--yours, mine, everyone's--is a tremendously effective illusion...

Relationships are not about "I". They are not about "me and you". They are about "we".
The first word in the 12 Steps is "we". "I" and "you" do not appear in any of the steps. Nor do "me", "mine", or "your" appear in those steps. That is because, as one of the many 12-Step slogans puts it, "We can do what I can't."

Every relationship has 3 elements: him, her, and the relationship itself (sometimes it might be him, him, and the relationship or her, her, and the relationship.) When I am working with a couple, my relationship is with the relationship rather than either partner. I have learned both in my marriage and in my work that the relationship and its needs are every bit as important as the needs of each partner. In fact, it is often as important to consider the relationship's needs first if it is to survive and prosper.

A session a few months ago provides a good example of how sometimes one or both partners must consider the well-being of their relationship when making an individual decision. Adam and Marie have been married a little more than a year. It is a second marriage for both of them, they each have children from prior marriages, and both are fairly new to recovery

Adam's ex-partner, who is not in recovery, does not fully accept Marie as his new primary partner. Recently, this ex-partner asked a favor from Adam that seemed innocuous to him, and he readily granted the favor. But Marie saw the ex-partner's request as a ploy to maintain favored status with Adam and was quite hurt and angry that he had granted the favor.

In almost every second marriage, there comes a moment when one or both partners need to demonstrate to an earlier partner (and sometimes to the children as well) that their primary loyalty is to the new relationship. At first, Adam couldn't see why Marie was making such a big deal about the favor. But as we worked our way through the session, he came to realize that this so-called minor favor had enormous implications for his relationship with Marie. Adam saw that it was time to draw an unmistakable boundary making it clear to everyone that his primary allegiance is to the "we" that was created when he married Marie.

When N and I married many years ago, I read a paragraph from a wonderful little book entitled Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. That paragraph is even more pertinent today after 20+ years of marriage, so I will close this post with that quote--
Now I would like to talk about our zazen (meditation) posture. When we cross our legs like this, even though we have a right leg and a left leg, they have become one. The position expresses the oneness of duality: not two, and not one. This is the most important teaching: not two, and not one. Our body and mind are not two and not one. If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one. We usually think that if something is not one, it is more than one; if it is not singular, it is plural. But in actual experience, our life is not only plural, but also singular. Each one of us is both dependent and independent.
Substitute the word "relationship" for "life" in the next to last sentence, and this paragraph describes the reality of a healthy relationship.