The Practice of Those Who Keep Changing — Living with a Self That Never Reaches Completion

"One day I will arrive at the finished form" — when we speak of self-transformation, we unconsciously assume this. Once I master that, once I pass that stage, I will become the true self — we suppose. What this final reinforcement of the series puts forward is the opposite of that assumption. There is no completed form of the human being. As long as one lives, change continues. That change continues is itself the structure of life. Drawing on nine traditions — Heraclitus, Kamo no Chōmei, Buddhist impermanence, Jung's lifelong individuation, Erikson's eight stages, Kierkegaard, Rogers, Sen no Rikyū's Shu-Ha-Ri, and Dōgen's unity of practice and realisation — this volume assembles the practice of living with a self that never reaches completion.

01The Illusion of "Completion" as a Goal

When we speak of self-transformation, an implicit premise often slips in — the figure of change as a motion toward a goal. "To become a deeper reviewer"; "to become a calmer person"; "to become a self who better understands the other's feelings" — behind these words is the assumption that a finished form to arrive at exists somewhere.

That assumption is a propelling force in the early period of change. Only because there is a concrete goal does one begin to move. But beyond a certain time, the assumption of "completion" becomes the force that stops change itself. "Almost at the goal"; "soon I will be complete" — while one believes this, the self as a process that ought truly to be moving comes to a halt. Anyone who has worked long in the pharmaceutical field may recall the moment when, at some point, one begins to feel "I understand." That is not the destination of wisdom, but the beginning of the end of change.

02Heraclitus's "All Things Flow" and Kamo no Chōmei's "The Flowing River" — The Universality of the Stream

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus (c. 540 – c. 480 BCE) expressed the root structure of the world as "all things flow" (panta rhei). One cannot step into the same river twice — because the second river is no longer the same river, and the "I" who steps in the second time is no longer the same self.

"You cannot step twice into the same river. For it is no longer the same river, and you are no longer the same you." — fragment of Heraclitus (transmitted by Plato's Cratylus and elsewhere)

To Heraclitus's intuition, a Japanese of the Kamakura period, more than a thousand years later, replied in echo. The opening of Kamo no Chōmei's (1155–1216) Hōjōki (1212):

The flow of the going river is unbroken, yet the water is no longer what it was. The bubbles that float on the still pools now vanish, now form again, never lingering for long.
— Kamo no Chōmei, Hōjōki (1212)

Both Heraclitus and Kamo no Chōmei saw within the stream the coexistence of continuity (remaining a river) and non-identity (not being the same water). The same holds for the human being. While remaining the same I, one is not the same I. Change is not an event that "happens" in life; it is the very structure of life. This is the foundation of every argument in this volume.

03Buddhist Impermanence (anicca) — Change Is Not Defect but Structure

Buddhism placed change at its core as "all conditioned things are impermanent" (sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā), one of the Three Marks of Existence. All that is formed is impermanent — this is not an expression of pessimism but a description of the structure of reality.

"All conditioned things are impermanent — all that is made will pass and change." — from teachings transmitted in the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, said to be among the Buddha's last words

The important implication of the Buddhist view of impermanence is that change is neither defect nor deviation but the very structure. We exhaust ourselves seeking what does not change. Health, youth, relationships, position, our capacities — all continue to change. The more we resist the fact of changing, the more suffering increases. The more we accept it, the more we can dwell within the stream.

In the pharmaceutical field, regulation, industry structure, technology, organisation, one's own physical strength — all continue to change. Merely turning the energy of resistance ("it should not have changed"; "it used to be different") into the direction of moving along the stream changes the weight of work greatly. To awaken to impermanence is not to renounce a world without change; it is to hone one's craft as a dweller of the world that goes on changing.

04Jung's Individuation — A Journey of the Heart That Lasts a Lifetime

Carl Jung (1875–1961), already cited in Vol. 1 of this self-transformation series, depicted individuation as a process that lasts a lifetime. He himself, into his last years, continued to analyse his own dreams, to face his own shadow, and to dialogue with the unintegrated elements that remained within him.

"The process of individuation has no end. It is a lifelong work, and often the deepest insight arrives only as one approaches the bed of death." — paraphrase from C. G. Jung's late autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)

Jung's significance lies in clinically showing that psychological development does not end in adolescence or youth. In middle age and in old age, the human being enters new stages of integration. In fact, Jung depicted the psychological crisis of middle age (the source of the concept of midlife crisis) as the entrance to individuation in the second half of life. The question "is this how it should be?" that arises in the pharmaceutical field from the forties onward can be re-read, in Jung's framework, as the arrival of a new stage of individuation.

05Erikson's Eight Stages — The Phases and Tasks of Life

The American developmental psychologist Erik H. Erikson (1902–1994), systematising Jung's intuition, divided life into eight psychosocial stages (Childhood and Society, 1950). Each stage has its own developmental task and psychological crisis.

What Erikson's model shows is that the task of change changes form with age, but the task itself continues to exist through a lifetime. The self-transformation of the twenties and the self-transformation of the sixties are not the same process, and should not be. The one who keeps changing is the one who accepts that the task of change changes with age.

06Kierkegaard — To Become a Self Is to Continue Becoming

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) grasped the self not as a substance but as a relation (Verhältnis). In The Sickness Unto Death (1849) he defines the self: the self is the relation that relates to itself.

"What is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself, or it is in the relation that the relation relates itself to itself; the self is not the relation itself but is the relation's relating itself to itself." — Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death (1849)

The wording is difficult, but the implication is simple. The self is not a fixed substance but the very manner in which one relates to oneself — that act of relating. One is not completed once and for all; one is a self only so long as one continues to update the manner of relating. In Kierkegaard's terms, the moment one feels "I have already become a self," being a self ceases. Only continuing to become is the path of continuing to be a self.

07Rogers — The Human Is Not "Being" but "Process"

Carl Rogers, cited in Vols. 1 and 4 of this series, also grasped the human being not as substance but as process. The title of his 1961 major work is On Becoming a Person. Literally, "becoming a person."

"Life is a flowing process. Not a settled state but the very direction in which one flows — that is life itself." — paraphrase of Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person (1961)

Rogers's clinical experience showed that a healthy personality should be grasped by the verb "becoming". Not "what I am" but "what I am becoming" is the indicator of the health of personality. When one considers in the pharmaceutical field "what kind of reviewer am I?", rather than a list of fixed properties, looking at in what direction I am now changing is the healthier self-understanding.

08Shu-Ha-Ri — The Three Stages of Learning, and Beyond

In the Eastern lineage, another important framework. Shu-Ha-Ri (守破離), shared in the Japanese traditional arts and martial arts. In tea (Sen no Rikyū), in Noh (Zeami), in swordsmanship, in calligraphy — across many disciplines, learning has been said to advance in three stages.

The important fact Shu-Ha-Ri shows is that "Ri" is not the destination. The one who has arrived at "Ri" often returns again to the "Shu" stage on their own road, passes through "Ha" again, and heads toward another "Ri." Shu-Ha-Ri is a spiral structure. It does not end. A veteran of thirty years in the pharmaceutical field, on stepping into a new domain, again returns to the "Shu" stage. This is not regression but the normal form of lifelong development.

09Dōgen's Unity of Practice and Realisation — Practice and Awakening Are One

One more, from the Eastern lineage. Dōgen (1200–1253), the founder of the Japanese Sōtō Zen school, in Shōbōgenzō set out the singular proposition of shushō ittō (修証一等, "practice and realisation are one"). Practice (shu) and awakening (shō) are not separate stages but one and the same.

To think that practice and realisation are not one is the view of those outside the way. In the Buddha-dharma, practice and realisation are equal — they are one.
— from the gist of Dōgen, Shōbōgenzō, "Bendōwa"

The significance of Dōgen lies in not separating the midst of change from the completed form. It is not that "when practice ends, awakening is reached." The moment of practising is the realisation of awakening in that moment. Applied to the pharmaceutical field: it is not that "when I become a deeper reviewer, real work begins." Right now, the moment in which one carefully faces the single judgement before one is already the realisation of real work. That one keeps changing is already the appearance of completion — this is one of the most beautiful answers Dōgen reached.

10Four Practices of Those Who Keep Changing

To bring the same place to which the nine traditions pointed down into daily practice, four practices are set here.

There is no completed form of the human being. This does not mean that life has something missing. Rather, it means that continuing to change is itself the highest structure of life. From Heraclitus to Dōgen, nine traditions have pointed, in different words, to the same place. When we can receive being within the stream not as a defect but as a gift, we can — quietly but surely — update ourselves while continuing to be ourselves.

"I am not yet complete" — when you are about to feel this, remember. Not being complete is the structure of the human being. Living together with the self that never reaches completion — this is the core of the practice of those who keep changing, to which the whole series has pointed.