Your ‘Self’ Is an Illusion You Keep Reinventing—Here’s How to Do It Better

Introspection, Vol. 15

Hello friends. In this article of the Introspection Series I want to focus on one of the most important lessons I have learned from Zen teachings. And it is a lesson I have expanded more in Psychoanalysis.

This lesson centers on the self-concepts we develop, mostly unsocciously, and how they take us away from our center and prevent us from expressing ourselves naturally.

In Zen teachings, and not only, this is one of the essential lessons that one must experience, in order to remove some veils of illusion…

Before progressing further, I want to start with a Zen story.

The Storekeeper and the Thief

In Edo-era Japan, merchants were seen as timid souls, and one storekeeper despised this reputation. To shatter it, he trained obsessively at a martial arts dojo, grinding through kata-s until his hands bled. Years later, he earned the title of expert.

One moonless night, as he and his wife walked home, a thief lunged from the shadows, knife glinting. “Your money or your life!” he barked.

The storeke…