By RAJ GOYAL

Last year, I made the uncommon decision to step away from my professional life to study the Self.

It wasn’t because I was burned out or dissatisfied with my work. It came from something quieter and more personal. I wanted to become a better version of myself for the people I love most—my wife and my daughters. I wanted to understand why, in moments that mattered most, I could still get triggered, and why familiar patterns of reactivity and inner drama continued to surface even after years of personal and spiritual work.

In an earlier conversation, Fred said something that stayed with me: much of the drama we experience isn’t imposed on us—it’s something we participate in, often unconsciously. And if we participate in it, we can also learn to relate to it differently. Hearing this was both unsettling and oddly relieving. It suggested that a calmer, even more blissful way of living wasn’t dependent on circumstances changing, but on how clearly I could see my own mind. If I truly wanted to show up differently in my relationships, I realized I needed to slow down and look more deeply.

Throughout the year, one teaching Fred often quoted quietly accompanied me, from Zen Master Dōgen: “To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.” At first, these words lived mostly in my head. Over time—and especially through a recent retreat—they moved from concept into lived experience.

The container for this year was a yearlong Intensive led by Fred called Deconstructing the Myth of Self. The structure itself asked for patience. The work unfolded in three phases, weaving together Western psychology, Buddhist psychology, and sustained meditative inquiry. Rather than offering techniques to fix ourselves, the Intensive asked something simpler and far more challenging: to observe honestly how the sense of self actually operates.

Part One focused on investigation and emotional alchemy. We learned to become detectives of our own experience—turning toward sensations, emotions and reactions with curiosity instead of judgment. Intellectually, I understood the approach right away. Practically, I found it much harder. In real-time [Continued from Mindfulness Matters] interactions, especially with my family, I often noticed my reactions only after they had already taken over. Still, over time, something softened. I began to recognize patterns that had been running quietly in the background for years.

In Part Two, we were invited to choose a specific area of study. I chose to focus on several core schemas—mistrust and abuse, unrelenting standards and hypercriticalness, and entitlement and grandiosity—and to examine how they shaped my communication and relationships. Alongside continued observation of “I,” “me,” and “my,” I worked with these patterns through inquiry and study, including the book Emotional Alchemy.

Then, around the third week, something unexpected happened. It wasn’t dramatic, but it was unmistakable—things began to click. I started to see, in real time, how much of what I said and did was shaped not by the present moment, but by long-standing beliefs and protective strategies. Slowly, those patterns began to loosen. I noticed myself responding differently with my family—pausing where I once reacted, listening where I once defended.

In a previous retreat—Untangling the Knots of Self—which took place midway through Part Two of the Intensive, much of my work had centered on early wounding, especially around mistrust, and on developing a more compassionate relationship with younger parts of myself. That healing loosened knots I had carried for decades and, in subtle ways, weakened my attachment to a fixed sense of self. It created a foundation that allowed this year’s inquiry to go deeper.

Together, Parts One and Two emphasized seeing the self clearly. Using Western psychological frameworks, we explored conditioning, core beliefs and the ways we generate much of our own inner drama. The self began to feel less personal and more patterned—something to be understood rather than defended. My daughters even commented that they noticed how much more calmly I responded to them, something that touched me deeply.

As the Intensive moved into Part Three, the inquiry turned toward Buddhist psychology, particularly Yogācāra, and a more fundamental question: what is the structure of the self itself? Month by month, we explored awareness of self, the development and structure of self, and finally the compositeness of self—looking closely for something solid and enduring, and finding instead a process assembling itself moment by moment.

The retreat in December felt like a natural culmination of this yearlong inquiry. From the first morning, we engaged in self-investigative meditation using the Wheel of Analysis—a way of examining experience through sensation, feeling tone, perception, mental formations, and identity. Before the retreat, I understood the Wheel mostly as a conceptual map. Through sustained practice, it became something lived—a direct way of seeing how the sense of self comes together, again and again.

It was during a Friday morning self-investigative meditation, working explicitly with the Wheel of Analysis, that I experienced a moment of clarity. Without effort or seeking, a clear problem surfaced, followed by an equally clear solution and path forward. What struck me wasn’t the content of the insight, but its quality. It felt received rather than generated—quiet, grounded and aligned with my lived experience and values. I had stepped away from my work with a promise not to begin anything new unless it arose from genuine alignment and a sincere aspiration to benefit others. This insight felt like it honored that promise.

On Saturday evening, between 8:00 and 9:00 pm—the night before the retreat concluded—Fred guided us through a meditation focused on body and mind. What unfolded was one of the most powerful meditative experiences of my life. As attention rested with the body, I directly experienced its non-solidity. The body no longer felt bound by the skin, but open and continuous with what surrounded it. When attention turned toward the mind, a similar recognition arose—the mind felt expansive, without clear edges.

I had touched experiences like this before, but this time felt different. It wasn’t fleeting or overwhelming. It felt stable and accessible. Simply resting attention with the body allowed this openness to return. That evening, the following day, and in the days since, I’ve returned to this meditation and found it surprisingly easy to access. It feels less like a peak experience and more like a capacity that had been quietly cultivated over the year and revealed at the retreat.

As in past retreats, I felt deeply supported by the sangha, whose steadiness and sincerity made this level of inquiry possible. And as always, my family remains my deepest motivation. My wife and daughters continue to be the mirror in which these teachings come alive.

What I’m exploring now is how this practice lives beyond the cushion. The deconstruction of the myth of self doesn’t end in meditation—it shows up most clearly in relationship: in conversation, disagreement, collaboration and care. The Wheel of Analysis now accompanies me into daily life, helping me notice when schemas activate, when identity tightens, and when communication slips into habit.

Dōgen’s words feel closer now—not as a conclusion, but as an ongoing invitation: to study the self, to forget the self, to be enlightened by all things. I’m still amazed by how much my interactions have changed. I’m calmer, more centered, and better able to stay present even when things get heated. I still slip up—but now I can return in minutes rather than stewing for hours or days. The work continues, not as something to finish, but as a way of meeting life more honestly and gently, one moment at a time.

Raj Goyal began his practice in 2017, starting with yoga and moving toward longer meditations. He found FCM about two or three years ago and has embraced its community ever since. He live in Odessa, FL, with his wife and their three daughters (ages 5, 13 and 15). He has dedicated a year of deep self-work for his own growth and for his family.