“So, tell me about yourself,” is a common enough question on a first date. But we don’t launch into a description of our organs and appendages—liver, spleen, toes, ears, or the teeth we just flossed. Those are very different from what we hold so dearly as our “me.”

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     So instead, we launch into a recital of our personal history, likely including where we’re from, the places we’ve been, jobs we’ve had, hobbies, schooling, degrees, awards and other things we’ve attained; the languages we may speak, the instruments we may play and some of our accomplishments in our field. Blah, blah, blah.

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     Of course, on a first date we may not mention those other features of our personal history–our worries, our fears, our loneliness, our concern that others may not like us enough. Blah, blah, blah.

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     Such self-images of ourselves—both positive and negative—all have something thing in common: They have no "certainty" outside our heads. They have no substance, no being.  Yet they are the cause for most of our suffering.

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      This lesson follows nicely on the previous one, where Lao Tzu addressed our "first-hand-self," what he calls our 自zì 然rán, or self-so-ness. In this lesson Lao Tzu addresses our many delights, and also those quiet, internal sufferings we experience because we confuse our "me" as our first-hand-self.

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