What is the self?

Imaginary triangles, Buddhist texts, and psychedelic ego-death

An artist painting himself: his ‘self’ — whatever that means (Source)

We want to be ourselves, we want to love ourselves, we want to improve ourselves — despite the fact that we sometimes can’t help ourselves.

What is this ‘self’ that we’re so preoccupied with? We know that psychological growth involves a healthier and more appropriate relationship with ourselves. But what exactly that ‘self’ is remains elusive, obscure, and almost mystical.

In this article, we’ll read about the self as understood in psychology as the ego. Then, we’ll transition into talking about the self as a transcendental subject, using Buddhism as our guide. Finally, a trip into psychedelia will give us an understanding about how the ego can fade away and give rise to the subject.

Part I

The Freudian ego

We’re all familiar with Sigmund Freud’s tripartite division of the psyche into the id, ego, and superego. In this structure, the ego is a mediating factor which balances the wild and socially-unacceptable impulses of the id against the civilized demands of the superego.

But this technical picture shouldn’t detract from the sheer everydayness of the ego. In German the word for it remains Das Ich — simply, the ‘I’ — and in this formulation we…