Is the Personality Like an Onion?

[Sunstone]

How deep does an individual's personality go? What, if anything, is at the core of an individual's personality?

If I recall, there is -- or at least there once was -- something of a debate in Japanese Zen circles in which one side to the debate has asserted that the personality is like an onion: Layer after layer after layer, ever going deeper, until in the end there is simply nothing at all. No more layers, no actual core, just nothing. I don't recall the position(s) of the other sides to the debate.

What do you think? Is the personality like an onion?

 

[Iti oj]

How deep does an individual's personality go? What, if anything, is at the core of an individual's personality?

If I recall, there is -- or at least there once was -- something of a debate in Japanese Zen circles in which one side to the debate has asserted that the personality is like an onion: Layer after layer after layer, ever going deeper, until in the end there is simply nothing at all. No more layers, no actual core, just nothing. I don't recall the position(s) of the other sides to the debate.

What do you think? Is the personality like an onion?

I thought you meant like the satirical newsite

 

[Milton Platt]

"is the personality like an onion?"

Yes, some of them stink.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

How deep does an individual's personality go? What, if anything, is at the core of an individual's personality?

If I recall, there is -- or at least there once was -- something of a debate in Japanese Zen circles in which one side to the debate has asserted that the personality is like an onion: Layer after layer after layer, ever going deeper, until in the end there is simply nothing at all. No more layers, no actual core, just nothing. I don't recall the position(s) of the other sides to the debate.

What do you think? Is the personality like an onion?

If compared to Zen and Onion, it means that our personality is shaped by outside environment; and, we don't have an inherit personality outside of what we learn growing up and adopted as our lifestyle and outlook later in life. Zen says if we peal the onion, we will go back to our true core/personality. Not "nothing" just clean blank slate.

If I compared it to Christianity, horrible for me to do it is a person without inherited sin. We are born into the influence of the outside world and that shapes our personalty and who we think or feel we are inside.

Meditation is the most highly distinct way The Buddha says to understand this core. By understanding that we are a blank-slate we can put things like compassion, respect, and community in its place. We still have a personality shaped by the outside world; that we cannot change. Just in Zen it's saying to acknowledge that we are not defined by the outside world (nor are we defined by emptiness) we "just are."

So, people usually do cry pealing their onions because it gets harder to shed the outside influence to find blank selves within and to acknowledge we have no inherit personality. Once we say "I know", we are a step ahead. Most of us like to define ourselves by our environment, our sacred books, people we love, and what we do for others and so forth. Nothing wrong with that.

It's just not the Zen train of thought. I used to practice Zen way back years ago. I may take it up again, who knows.

 

[psychoslice]

I believe that our personality is simply our persona, or mask, this persona is built from conditioning and programming over many years, and yes, it is not who we truly are. We are all one in Consciousness, or the Source, or even God if you like that label, which I personally don't. We all have arisen from this Source, we are like the waves on the ocean, each wave believing its separate from all other waves, when in fact we are all One with the Ocean.

 

[Rival]

Mine is more like an onion..bhaji. Still onion, but with lots of other crap thown in that probably shouldn't be there naturally. But it just tastes so good that anyone who comes into conact with it can't resist more.

Was supposed to be in jest, but perhaps I waxed more philosophical about myself than I intended...

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Or maybe it's more like a layer cake. I like layer cakes!

 

[crossfire]

I don't think its like an onion--I think it's more like a box with all of the different components inside. Naturally, some components are buried more deeply in the box, but the nature of the box is its emptiness--its capacity to hold and contain things.

Your mileage may vary.

 

[Rival]

I don't think its like an onion--I think it's more like a box with all of the different components inside. Naturally, some components are buried more deeply in the box, but the nature of the box is its emptiness--its capacity to hold and contain things.

Your mileage may vary.

Ah, you suggest a tabula rasa?

 

[crossfire]

Ah, you suggest a tabula rasa?

We have the subjective capacity for that by conceptually isolating the components of the collective unconscious through the not this-not that process, but this is usually something you have to work towards. In other words, you can create empty space within the box to work with.

 

[BSM1]

How deep does an individual's personality go? What, if anything, is at the core of an individual's personality?

If I recall, there is -- or at least there once was -- something of a debate in Japanese Zen circles in which one side to the debate has asserted that the personality is like an onion: Layer after layer after layer, ever going deeper, until in the end there is simply nothing at all. No more layers, no actual core, just nothing. I don't recall the position(s) of the other sides to the debate.

What do you think? Is the personality like an onion?

May be something to this. I have seen some personalities that have brought tears to my eyes.

 

[Brickjectivity]

A human head is a planet full of high pressure lava, and conscious thoughts are its volcanos which erupt occasionally. The rest of the thoughts (unconscious, partial bits of things and proto-thought material) remain unconscious and in darkness. If you get a headache this often means that the tectonic plates are shifting due to deep underground currents in the lava, so that instead of having a nice, healthy volcano you get earthquakes, geysers and steam. Personality is how all of this looks from outer space, far from the roiling surface.

 

[Timothy Bryce]

I actually really like the "personality is like an onion" analogy.

I'm my experiences, it's very true in two very prominent ways:

1. Eventually, once the personality is peeled away to its core - there is nothing (ego death); it can actually be the gateway to a state of transcendence;

2. The deeper you peel, with any person, the more tragedy and emotion you will undoubtedly uncover; the expression that comes to mind: "that cuts really deep" - the ego is almost exclusively a front; go deeper and you'll reveal any person's vulnerabilities and it gets really melancholy.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I actually really like the "personality is like an onion" analogy.

I'm my experiences, it's very true in two very prominent ways:

1. Eventually, once the personality is peeled away to its core - there is nothing (ego death); it can actually be the gateway to a state of transcendence;

2. The deeper you peel, with any person, the more tragedy and emotion you will undoubtedly uncover; the expression that comes to mind: "that cuts really deep" - the ego is almost exclusively a front; go deeper and you'll reveal any person's vulnerabilities and it gets really melancholy.

There may be melancholy, but there is also joy and wonder there, when it can be released from the cloying negativity.

 

[Smart_Guy]

It could be, if it makes you cry.

Some personalities make me cry with agony and desperation.

 

[Jedster]

I believe that our personality is simply our persona, or mask, this persona is built from conditioning and programming over many years, and yes, it is not who we truly are. We are all one in Consciousness, or the Source, or even God if you like that label, which I personally don't. We all have arisen from this Source, we are like the waves on the ocean, each wave believing its separate from all other waves, when in fact we are all One with the Ocean.

Indeed. And as Kabir has said "Everyone understands that the drop is in the ocean, but few understand that the ocean is in the drop".

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I think it's much more like a web than an onion.

 

[buddhist]

How deep does an individual's personality go? What, if anything, is at the core of an individual's personality? ... What do you think? Is the personality like an onion?

Yes, it is an apt metaphor which reflects early Buddhism's view adequatel IMO.

The "onions" with the most layers are those who exist in the lower realms, like the various hells.
Those with less layers then that are in the ghostly or animal realms.
With even less layers, one is in the human realm.
Those with the least layers are in the various heavenly realms.

The core consists of unlimited, unbounded, inactive consciousness (nibbana).

Even among humans, there exists individuals with varying number of layers. Those in the lowest humanly states are attached to many external things and identify with them as part of their personal identity. For example, those who place great importance on the neighborhood they live in, the size of their house, their flashy cars, their clothes, or shoes, etc. All these things they identify with as part of "self", and these exist as extra layers in their particular "onion".

Those who are more spiritually advanced have stripped off those baser layers from their own "onion"; they are not attached to those things, but may still be attached to body, emotions, thoughts, etc.