Child Found Within the Tree, 51st Day of Summer, 525 M.E. (Electra): Not to be deliberately vague, but I saw someone post something on some social media about stoicism. Emphasizing self-control, they said that if someone offends or triggers you, don't react immediately. Count to ten, take a breath, and think before you respond. Your immediate reaction, they argued, isn't the real "you" - it's the flush of emotions in your brain, the cocktail of neurotransmitters and synaptic impulses that make you want to strike back immediately.

Zen teachers have told me just the exact opposite. The first emotion, the first instinct, is the real "you." Everything else is the manufactured bullshit of the conscious mind.  You want to shout back, "fuck you," but then you catch yourself and, not wanting to be thought of as the person who screams out "fuck you!" in public, so you suppress your impulse. You want to be perceived as a caring, thoughtful person, so instead of swearing, you respond, "I'm disappointed by your comment, but will carefully consider what I've said or done that would make you want to say that." But that's not "real" - that's the polite mask you wear to trick others into believing you're whatever it is you're pretending to be.

As a contemplative Stoic, I think there's a middle way in this matter. I agree the "real you" isn't the adrenaline and cortisol squirted out of the amygdala in fight-or-flight reaction to a threat, but it's not the mask of who we want others to think that we are, either. The "real you" was in fact offended and triggered and wants to strike back, but the real you is also intelligent enough to also recognize that the first impulse isn't necessarily the best or most effective. So instead of either "fuck you" or "I'm sorry I made you feel that way," perhaps the "real you" should say, "Your statement triggers me and offends me deeply, and I feel very angry and resentful right now" (assuming that's actually how you feel). "Perhaps we should bring up this matter at a later time after I've cooled off."    

Beyond thoughts of the "real you" or our social masks, Zen Master Dogen wrote (Zuimonki, 1-10) that if someone says something unreasonable, "it is best to just leave the matter alone and stop arguing. If you act as if you had not  heard and forget about the matter, he will forget too and will not get angry."  

"This is a very important thing to bear in mind," he wrote.