Sunday, July 6, 2008

Who Am I?

When there is recall, there are memories of being a child, and there are memories of joys and fears. When there is recall there are memories of teenage and college years. But, whose memories are they? They are certainly not mine!

Whoever I am now, which is more like no one, nowhere, I am not that child, not that college kid, not any of those memories. The memories are there, this body/mind can recall them, but there is no one here to own them.

Long ago I wrote an autobiography. It seemed really important at the time. The problem is that I waited too long to publish it. Now, the person that wrote it is no longer here. Now there is no motive to publish it. Who is it important to now? No one! Whoever wrote it has long since died.

The body/mind remains. It is here at this computer typing these words. And though memories attest to experience, they don't attest to what remains: nothing definable as the person who experienced them.

From here, this body/mind has enough distance from itself to ask, who is here now typing this? Rather than answer directly, a little trip into the future will certainly reveal that whoever thinks they are writing this now, will not be here in the future. So, is there really anyone writing this?

Bodies are born and mindfields form around them. If they are unchallenged, they stabilize and a person is born. But the person that is born is just thoughts, opinions, ideas, nothing one can put in a box and keep.

Suffering is good at dispelling long held cherished beliefs. Suffering breaks up cherished positions, thoughts and ideas. The suffering is equal to the strength of the chains of thought. So much suffering to keep from seeing, to keep from changing.

There is a cool wind blowing where the web of thoughts used to be. With no web, no chains, what can stick? Where am I? Not here, not there, perhaps only everywhere.

1 comment:

Ron Marson said...

I was rather shocked and excited to notice, for the first time, that I disappeared. Just a simple lapse of memory, a short mental pause in which seeing was still happening, but there was no seer. Exploration of this thoughtless, attentive "space" reveals that this is always so, the utter simplicity of NOW unobscured by mental self-invention.

Robin Dale at http://nonduality.com/robindale.htm, says it this way:

Seeing that there is a gap between thoughts is the first step. Then it becomes obvious that the whole thing is one big gap with thoughts appearing on top of it. Then you find that you are that gap. Then you can't find a gap between thoughts, because the thoughts themselves are made of 'gap,' which you are; it is like an eye trying to see itself.