The I–Me–Mine Circuit: How the Brain Constructs the Self
Why Zen Dismantles Identity Instead of Refining It
Chan Buddhism and Zen Buddhism are essentially the same tradition, expressed through different historical and cultural settings. What is called Chan in China later became Zen in Japan, but the core emphasis remained unchanged: direct insight, ongoing practice, and the refusal to treat awakening as a final achievement. This shared orientation is especially clear in how both traditions understand enlightenment—not as a destination, but as an ongoing process that continues as long as life continues.
One of the quiet assumptions beneath most spiritual practice is that there is a self worth improving. Calmer. Wiser. More resilient. More awakened. Much of modern meditation culture inherits this assumption without ever questioning it.
Chan and Zen do not.
Rather than asking how the self can be refined, these traditions ask a more destabilizing question: how is the self being constructed in the first place? And what happens when that construction loosens?
Modern neuroscience offers a useful—if incomplete—window into this question.
The Narrative Self
From a neurological perspective, the sense of “me” is not a single thing. It is an ongoing activity.
Thoughts reference past and future.
Memories are woven into stories.
Emotions are tagged as “mine.”
Sensations are interpreted as happening to someone.
Together, these processes form what is often called the narrative self—the feeling of being a continuous individual moving through time. This narrative is not pathological. It is functional. It allows planning, social interaction, and coherence.
But it is also fragile.
When attention turns inward, especially during sustained contemplative practice, this narrative begins to reveal its seams. Thoughts comment on themselves. Emotions loop. Identity becomes something observed rather than assumed.
Chan and Zen practice begin precisely here.
Self-Referential Processing and the Default Mode Network
Neuroscience associates much of this narrative activity with what is known as the Default Mode Network—a set of interconnected brain regions active when the mind is not engaged in a specific external task. This network supports self-referential thinking, autobiographical memory, mental simulation, and evaluation.
In simple terms, it is the circuitry that asks:
What does this mean for me?
How does this fit my story?
What should I think or feel about this?
Meditation—especially forms emphasizing open awareness rather than focused concentration—often reduces activity within this network. The result is not blankness, but a loosening of commentary. Experience continues, but without constant reference back to “me.”
Chan and Zen have pointed to this long before the network had a name.
But here is the crucial distinction: these traditions do not aim to suppress the narrative self. They aim to expose its constructed nature.
Why Chan and Zen Do Not Refine Identity
Many contemplative systems attempt to improve identity: cultivate a better self-image, a more compassionate personality, a more regulated emotional profile. Chan and Zen take a different route.
Identity, from this perspective, is not flawed—it is provisional. The problem is not that the self exists, but that it is mistaken for something solid and central.
Chan and Zen training undermine this mistake by refusing to cooperate with self-reinforcement. Questions are returned rather than answered. Insight is not framed as achievement. Experiences are not validated as proof.
The effect is subtle but cumulative: identity loses its privileged position. It still functions, but it no longer governs.
This is why Chan and Zen dismantle identity instead of refining it. Refinement strengthens identification. Dismantling reveals contingency.
Hun, Shen, and the Movement of Self
In Chinese medical psychology, the dynamics of the self are often described through the relationship between Hun (魂)and Shen (神).
The Hun is associated with movement in the mind—imagination, vision, planning, dreaming, and the ability to project oneself into the future. It gives direction and continuity to personal narrative, allowing a person to envision possibilities and maintain a sense of trajectory.
The Shen, by contrast, reflects clarity, presence, and coherence in the immediate moment. When Shen is settled, awareness is direct rather than projected into stories or outcomes. When self-referential thinking dominates, the Hun tends to wander continuously through imagined futures and internal narratives.
Chan and Zen practice address this not by suppressing mental movement, but by anchoring attention in what is directly present. As narrative activity quiets, Shen naturally becomes clearer—the mind does not disappear; it simply stops narrating itself compulsively. This description is not metaphysical speculation, but a clinical and experiential observation of how attention and identity behave in practice.
When the Self Loosens
For many practitioners, this phase is uncomfortable.
When the I–Me–Mine circuit loosens, familiar reference points dissolve. Motivation can falter. Emotional reactions may feel unfamiliar. There is often disorientation—not because something has gone wrong, but because the mind is no longer organizing experience around a central narrator.
Chan and Zen do not rush to reassure this phase.
To immediately rebuild identity—to explain, label, or reframe what is happening—would be to restore the very structure being questioned. Instead, practice continues with attention that does not grasp.
What remains is not emptiness, but function. Thought still occurs. Personality still appears. But they are no longer treated as who one is.
What Replaces the Self?
Nothing.
And that is the point.
Chan and Zen do not replace identity with a higher identity, a truer self, or a spiritual persona. They leave experience uncentered. Action arises from conditions rather than narrative ownership. Responses become simpler because they no longer require self-justification.
This is not annihilation. It is de-emphasis.
The brain continues to use self-referential circuitry when needed. It simply stops running it continuously.
Why This Matters
Understanding the constructed nature of the self is not liberation by itself. But failing to see it ensures that practice becomes another project of self-improvement.
Chan and Zen dismantle identity not to destroy the person, but to free attention from constant self-maintenance. What emerges is not a better story, but less need for one.
Neuroscience can describe the circuitry involved.
Chan and Zen ask whether that circuitry needs to dominate.
And they leave the question open—not as a mystery to be solved, but as something to be seen directly, moment by moment, as life continues.
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