Ever thought about making yourself a new, better person?

Is it possible to renew myself? How solid is my character? And what is it that makes me a different person, different from other persons? These are questions that I find very interesting. Because it touches something, it questions something, namely my 'me' that I often automatically assume as a matter of course. 

It seems often as if this 'me' is unchangeable.

Last week I saw on the dutch television a broadcast about 'the wondrous world of the brain'. In this broadcast they showed a part from a british documentary about a man (father of two children) that suffered from severe brain damage in the front lob of his brain because of a car-accident. 

The front lob of the brain is responsible for inhibitions. And is therefore very important for the way we act and for our character. This man was disinhibited. That was so obvious in this fragment. He shouted harsh and unreasonable to his children. It was out of normality. There was something awfully wrong in his behaviour. His wife said:'I don't know when which part of his character will appear. It is like Jekyll and Hyde. 

This man was sometimes his very self. And sometimes totally different. So....how solid is this 'self' of ours? 

Could you, if that was ever possible, give a person who (for example) suffers from depression, give that person new brains? And will this make him or her a totally renewed person? 

Before I started with (zen)meditation I had a very low self-esteem and was often quite depressed. I never saw meditation as a therapy. But nevertheless, I'm convinced that it helped me a lot to overcome these depressions. 

In zen-meditation we practice a lot with koans. Koans are like riddles that you can't solve with your logical thinking. And therefore forces you to go beyond your logical mind. And that is quite interesting. Because it enables you to go beyond the 'package' that you know so well. And I mean with 'package' the whole assembled image of who you think you are. Your name, age, profession, your uncertainties and successes, all that sort of things. Things that build  the idea/the sense of self. 

So in sitting with a koan you put this package for a moment aside. You forget it. Because it simply stands in the way when you want to solve your koan. 

For me this made my idea of the self that I am, much looser. I do see how relative it is. I do see that this package that is called 'marja timmer' , can easily change. 

I am convinced that we can define for a great part which connections our brains are making. Which paths they take. 

It is not the situation that defines our character. It is the way how we react on that situation that defines our character. 

(This is also published in the dutch buddhist newspaper)