The Transformation Of The Self: A Zen Parable

About a sword blade, a ship from Greek mythology, butterflies, frogs, the Porsche 911, and the transformation of the self according to a Harvard psychologist.

An ancient Zen parable asked the following question: If you change the blade of your sword and then change the handle, will you still have the same sword?…

The Zen Sword is similar to the Ship of Theseus, one of the oldest thought experiments in Western philosophy, having been discussed by the likes of Heraclitus and Plato by c. 500–400 BC, and which raises the question of whether an object that has had all of its components replaced remains fundamentally the same; if you take away the old planks as they decay, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, is the ship the same or not — and, if not, at what point did it stop being the same ship?

The cells that constitute our bodies are similar to this sword (colon cells last only about four days, skin cells two to three weeks, …).

Our values, habits, behavior and the memories of the experiences that build our identities can be like this sword.

Also our careers — what we do for a living, such a central theme in our life-stories (on average, according to…