Persona and personality

These notes are part of a talk given by Namgyal Rinpoche, 12 May 1983 during a retreat in Singapore, as heard by Mana Waite. Most of us want to 'get in touch with our true selves' - or something like this - at some stage or another. Many find this talk a refreshingly clear and succinct account of persona, personality and what we take to be 'self'. The emptiness Rinpoche speaks of here is not actually empty of anything other than divisions and identifications - contrary to what many people new to buddhist practice imagine, the emptiness we speak of is full of richness and fecundity beyond imagination. Some of Rinpoche's comments on intuition and discursive thought are included as these can be openings into or retreats from deeper experience of our true nature. If you like you can look up the Pali terms Rinpoche uses here.

'Take personality – what do we mean by some of the words we use…?

To me the best way of teaching this is that you have two problems:

i. Persona – outer
ii. Personality – inner

I.e. you have inner and outer personality. You have your relationship vis-a-vis others, and you have inner dialogues and inner states, the primary personality.

The basic personality grows through crying etc alone or with mum in the house. Persona develops as you go outside the house – your peers come into play here.

Persona means mask. You become the mask, it is not so much that there are emotions that are masked. As the persona or mask develops, you develop sets of notions that are relevant to different social milieu.

Occasionally you lose your temper and scream and so on. You say ‘that’s not like me’. Thus there is a sense of isolation from yourself. The pool or womb of emotional pattern is disturbed.

There is also an inner persona – you wear a mask to yourself. You hasten to get back to it when it is disturbed.

There are two main problems.

First there is a general fear to drop the mask and betray the inner personality. Second, there is a fear to drop the inner personality for something felt to be much more primordial. These are the basic problems of life.

What we often call ‘personality’ is the standard type of behaviour when dealing with the outer. Thus persona on the outer when held long enough becomes a personality. And similarly on the inner plane: personality, when it becomes a habit, becomes persona.

These four – the outer and inner personality, the outer and inner persona – are all conditioned. There is no chance of getting to the true personality.

You are no-one.

Anatta.

…….

The false self: In order to get love you have trained yourself into certain patterns. There are many such patterns – sick child, healthy child, precocious child, bad child, mummies darling, etc etc. Each child has found an ‘ecological niche’.

When you liberate a being from these it is very difficult to produce the true self.

True self: might be a person who never meets another being and operates instinctively. Relating, relativity always implies shaping. In order to survive you compromise.

You can imagine what it would be like if we were all actually acting independently. It is highly unlikely that there would be any electricity to light this room. No services, no buildings, and so on. Humans are communal beings. We continually compromise between the extreme of independence and the extreme of dependence.

False self patterns are highly rigid. There is ongoing search for this relating to mummy or that relating to daddy. This rigid patterning is ultimately not good for the defence of the being. Beings should be capable of meeting with a variety of beings and dealing with many kinds of situations.

Freud’s term ‘weak ego’ is like the false self. I appears strong, but this is not so. It can only respond in a very limited number of choices. The false self cannot see the other beings around – it always has this particular need.

When a being leaves the family s/he tries to recreate this family outside and this is impossible. People often say to me when they’re being vulnerable they are being their true self. I think being vulnerable can be merely a justification to continue neurotic dependence. A truly sensitive being would be highly flexible.

It is only awareness that brings you any chance of hearing what is happening, Hearing here is more or less sati sampajañña, mindfulness with knowing in hearing. If you are a collected being you build up knowing.

The intuitive, the overview is based on awareness. A highly intuitive being is a highly aware one. Intuition is based on a silent hearing or awareness. What is called women’s intuition could be hearing arising from diminished external contact. Until recently, women were not encouraged to have any outer focus. The focus becomes the inner. I don’t think there is any such thing as women’s intuition. Women’s or anybody’s focus can change into science or artwork. Then you don’t have feminine intuition, just intuition.

To hear there must be emptying, suññata.

There’s nothing wrong with discursive thought, it is only that it is generally done with so little awareness.'