About Ego, Am I my Body, and What is This Me?
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The following two articles are from the book "The Silent Question: Meditating in the Stilness of Not-Knowing" by Toni Packer while the last article is by the same author in the book "The Wonder of Presence". I was first introduced to Toni Packer by Thusness who thinks her writings on Presence and non-duality is quite good.
About Ego
Can we start with distrusting ideas about others and ourselves the next time we feel their oppressive weight? Statements like “I’m no good at this” or “I’m too good for this” or “People don’t like me – they don’t talk well about me” can be questioned for their validity. “How do I know that this is true?” Questioning not only the relevance of such statements but also the soundness of the emotions and tensions that grow out of labelling each other “good” or “bad.” Can we look and listen inwardly to track down this “me,” this “I,” every time it makes itself painfully or pleasantly felt? What is it really?
New space creates itself out of genuine curiosity, serious questioning. What is this “me” that seems so much at the center of our stories – creating conflicts, suffering, unfulfilled wanting, pleasures, and a sense of insufficiency resonating deeply within us?
Does everybody know and experience feelings of insufficiency? Very likely we all do. We are born as helpless, vulnerable creatures. Though the newborn baby is amazingly whole and complete, it can’t fend for itself, and it does not “know” about itself. It’s totally at the mercy of other people’s feedback, gathering and embodying in a growing sense of personality (“me”-ness) whatever judgments, descriptions, and labels have been given it by others: “You’re a good baby,” “You’re a bad boy,” “You’re so cute,” “You are smart, talented, clumsy, lazy, angry, bright, dull.” These verbal attributes build up a construct of “self” in the brain that causes alternating pleasure, pain, sorrow, and infatuated attachment. We are deeply convinced that we actually are those different images, aren’t we?
But we are also free to question the validity of self-images. If it becomes increasingly transparent how much they dominate our thinking and reacting, space may open up to actually see them and see through them as sheer imagery bare of reality. Then the question arises naturally: Is that what I am – a buildup of images, stories – or is there something true to this “me” other than projection upon projection?
Last night during group dialogue, somebody reported feeling painfully rejected when her husband didn’t happily accept the leftover soup she had offered him for supper. He just said, “I’ll cook for myself.” Hearing this as a participant in someone else’s story, we may think, “What an unkind response!” We will remember our own experiences of “rejection” and sympathize with the person, entering into someone else’s story like stepping onto slippery ice.
But first let’s wonder for a moment if it is really an insult to be refused an offer of leftovers with the comment, “I’ll cook for myself.” Is it inevitable that one would feel rejected and hurt by that remark, with all that goes with feeling hurt? How easy living would be if we stayed off that slippery ice of vulnerable self-images?
Reactions of hurt arise from habit. There is also the tacit assumption that we ought to feel rejected and ought to show our hurt to the “offender.” Then things either run their course through pouting or hurting back, or the whole reaction can be seen at one glance, with the liberating question “Does it really have to keep on going that way?”
The difficulty in our relationships is that we don’t see our mutual images as transparent projections, but take them personally as truth and thus keep smarting in their wake: “That person doesn’t appreciate me; she is moody and I can’t deal with moody people. I’ve got to stay away from her and talk to others to find out whether they agree with me about her.” We attribute things to others and to ourselves that may not be accurate at all.
No need to make matters complicated. Just to keep open the simple question whether one needs to feel rejected, or whether one can see a situation factually the way it is: “He doesn’t want me to fix him leftover soup but rather wants to cook for himself.” That’s clear. Finished.
There is tremendous investment in this “I,” the center of the story, longing for gratitude and love. This person herself admitted after a moment of reflection, “I was probably not intending kindness toward him at all. I was doing it for myself. Yet I wanted to be seen as a nice, thoughtful, helpful wife.” Then what happens when our desire to be seen as kind and thoughtful falls flat?
Can we let go of the expectation of gratitude? How quickly can it drop? It takes a flexible, “seeing” mind to let go of a story about “me,” the victim. Story making is one of the most favourite occupations of the brain, but it needn’t become emotionally entangling. Awareness need not be clouded by emotional reactions. When self-centered (emotional) stuff is left out of the picture, our relationships become easier and lighter.
All of us walk around wrapped in all kinds of changing moods that are woven out of thinking about “who knows what about me.” Just like the weather that doesn’t have much stability, our moods change all the time depending on whether we assume people are thinking well of us or not. Recollecting that someone disliked me creates an immediate mental burden, just as remembering someone’s approving remarks or smile frees up the burden.
Can we live around a person who is temporarily under the cloud of moodiness and not take it personally? Without getting annoyed by it? Or do thoughts immediately start spinning:” He would not talk like that, not treat me that way. It clearly shows that he doesn’t like me.” “I’m not worthy of being loved.” Just see all these ideas stirring around like drifting clouds. Why take them personally? Just let them be seen the way they are drifting in this moment. Can we agree that taking it easier with our temporary moods makes them dissipate faster? They need not be justified or defended! We help each other greatly by accepting each other’s moodiness, letting it be a passing mind-state that we know we’re all burdened with at one time or another. When the sun appears from behind the cloud cover, how liberating is the effect upon our moods! -
Am I My Body?
We can wisely admonish others and ourselves: "Don't be identified with your body." But what does that mean? Try not to settle superficially for the words but ask what they really point to, so that we can understand each other more deeply.
It’s a day heavy with clouds and humidity. You feel it as you walk through the meadows, wetness penetrating shoes and socks – you feel wet and cold on your toes. Grasses sparkle with moisture, with translucent droplets of pearl. These grasses! It never tires to look at them, all the varied colours and shapes and their graceful movements in the wind.
Today I walked down into the lower meadow, the tops of blades full with yellow seeds. Some were tall enough to touch the clouds! Couldn’t go far since the feet were hurting badly- I had to limp along the mowed path, feeling a bit foolish. I’m saying this so you need not ask me, “What’s the matter with your feet?” Right now they are happily resting on a stool – burning, yet thankful for the cooling air. Discomfort is passing. That’s the amazing thing about all the different states of bodymind: They pass. They come, they go. Some of them linger, but they will change eventually. The art of living is not to make stories about any of them, because stories linger longer than the states they’re describing. Much longer. For centuries sometimes.
People often affirm what we read in traditional texts from the East: “I am not my body.” “you are not your body!” It can be beneficial to use those words like a mantra worth repeating when one is strongly identified with “my” hurting body, painfully worried about it. It can be helpful when a set of fresh words replaces worn-out, depressing phrases.
Does it bring about some relief to hear, “You’re not your body”? Up to a point, yes. But it only goes so far, since a voice immediately replies,” It does feel that I am my body! These are ‘my’ aching feet, not yours. It definitely feels that II am the owner of this body, no one else.”
So, then, what do we mean by this “I,” and what about this ownership? Are we willing to inquire deeply into this? Watching the state of mind, the effect of the words upon the organism when we say, “I am in pain,” “It’s my body,” “You’re hurting me,” or when we (deliberately at first) leave out these powerful words and simply describe what is going on? Like “Right now there is pain in the feet,” or “It really hurts when you say those words.”
We can wisely admonish others and ourselves: “Don’t be identified with your body.” But what does that mean? Try not to settle superficially for the words but ask what they really point to, so that we can understand each other more deeply. Don’t just accept what Toni is saying. Question it. We can question together. Then the one who says things is invited to look, to speak out of that depth of looking.
What does it mean to be identified with this body? Does it mean that it is the most essential part of the story? We can hear that story when we listen inwardly, let what goes on in thought become transparent. This story about me and my body is as long and as old as I am, and itÂ’s taken for a true representation of what I am.
Is that what identification means? An integral part of the story is the “me,” believed to be (in) this body. If you ask me, “What are you or who are you?” I can give you my name and instantly point to this body, saying, “This is me.”
I remember going through all this many years ago, racking my brain about “I” and “me,” trying to get to the root of it while driving to Rochester on the interstate. And if you, too, are interested in finding this out, go quietly into it any time it comes up for you. It is amazing to experience this quandary, this wondering, and investigating into not-knowing, because it really seems to exercise the brain and allow it to move outside its accustomed pathways of talking and thinking. Questioning can shake it up, loosen its stuckness. Like we’ve said before, “cracking the cement of language.”
So when I say I am not my body, does it mean itÂ’s no longer part of this picture story? This story has ended, maybe just for a moment, for the time being. A moment here doesnÂ’t mean measured time- it simply means seamless space of awareness.
So, for a moment not thinking in words about me and my body, its past and its future- does that open up free space? Try it, find out. Or maybe it’s just an exercise in deliberately speaking differently, which is all right too. It’s still a good exercise not to think and talk in words about “me and my body.” But then maybe for an instant there is a true opening – the habitual routine is gone and there are just birds twittering and the fan humming, a voice producing words, body vibrating with sound, muscles flexing gently, breathing in and out – all of that right here fleetingly filling open space. And as you walk through the glistening meadow, here are the tall grasses and the clouds, the beauty of every single sparkling blade. What amazing works of art each single one off them is – tall and slender, with yellow seedpods delicately waving in the breeze.
Does the mind come in and say, “Now I understand what it means, I am not my body – I am the whole,” or whatever words have been said about it? Does thought say, “I am that, I am this?” Alan Watts wrote a book that I gobbled up – its title is The Supreme Identity. It provided some marvellous new words. I’m not saying the author didn’t know what he was talking about. But the reader –what happens to us? The brain in its attachment to security is constantly searching for concepts to attach to that which is beyond all words, all concepts and ownership.
It’s an elating feeling to think, “Now I’ve shed my ego identity because I know I’m the supreme identity!” I went through that elated feeling, quite unawares. But readers, beware! Isn’t it the task of the author of books to keep the written work lucid but loose, open, unfixed, flexible, to keep reminding the reader that the word is not the real thing and can be substituted by another word any time? Isn’t the author’s task to sustain the reader’s curiosity to find out what is the real thing, abiding nowhere? Is curiosity alive this moment?
Krishnamurti was never tired of saying, “The word is not the thing.” Do we understand that? Even though words are used? There wouldn’t be talks or articles if there weren’t words used as conveyors. For one thing, more is conveyed in a talk than just the words. Are we together in the depth of words and beyond the words? Can words point beyond themselves?
The total energy of presence allows the mind to see what the word merely points to. To see it here, within myself. Not out there, but here. To feel the shift from “out there” to “right here.” The shift from being in a tunnel of wordy “me”-ness to… inexpressible openness. Do you se? Is I happening right now? Here? Now?
So, did we say enough about identity, the story of “me” as this body, or “me” as “not this body,” “the supreme identity”? When this experience of “openness” happens,… it’s not really an experience. This openness, this presence, this nondivision, is not an “experience.” because there is no one here who experiences it through thinking, even though the body’s heart is beating, the breath is flowing; the feet feel refreshing cool air. As this happens, there is no story. No identity. That comes in later, with the mind that wants to explain, to conceptualize, and to possess. It’s helpful, and even beautiful, to conceptualize, if one knows what one is doing and doesn’t dwell in the concepts but just communicates. Remember that the main part of communicating is being here, not the words you have found. The words are secondary. The prime, essential thing is to be here. And does that communicate? Does it? Are we here together with the birds, the fan, the body tensing or relaxing, the breath flowing? -
interesting read about self discovery
/bookmarks thread
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www.shambhalasun.com/Archives/Features/2002/May02/packer.htm
What is This Me?
by Toni Packer
Are we interested in exploring this amazing affair of ‘myself’ from moment to moment?
A somber day, isn't it? Dark, cloudy, cool, moist
and windy. Amazing, this whole affair of the weather!
We call it weather, but what is it really? Wind.
Rain. Clouds slowly parting. Not the words spoken about it, but just this
darkening, blowing, pounding and wetting, and then lightening up, blue sky
appearing amid darkness, and sunshine sparkling on wet grasses and leaves.
In a little while there'll be frost, snow and ice covers. And then warming
again, melting, oozing water everywhere. On an early spring day the dirt
road sparkles with streams of wet silver. So - what is weather other than this
incessant change of earthly conditions and all the human thoughts, feelings
and undertakings influenced by it? Like and dislike. Depression and elation.
Creation and destruction. An ongoing, ever-changing stream of happenings
abiding nowhere. No real entity weather exists anywhere except in thinking
and talking about it.
Now, is there such an entity as me or I? Or is it
just like the weather - an ongoing, ever-changing stream of ideas, images,
memories, projections, likes and dislikes, creation and destruction, that
thought keeps calling I, me, Toni, and thereby solidifying what is
evanescent? What am I really, truly, and what do I merely think and believe
I am?
Are we interested in exploring this amazing affair
of myself from moment to moment? Is this, maybe, the essence of this work?
Exploring ourselves attentively, beyond the peace and quiet that we are
seeking and maybe finding occasionally? Coming upon an amazing insight into
this deep sense of separation that we call me and other people, me and the
world, without any need to condemn or overcome?
Most human beings take it for granted that I am me,
and that me is this body, this mind, this knowledge and sense of myself that
feels so obviously distinct and separate from other people and from the
nature around us. The language in which we talk to ourselves and to each
other inevitably implies separate me's and you's all the time. All of us
talk I-and-you talk. We think it, write it, read it, and dream it with
rarely any pause. There is incessant reinforcement of the sense of me,
separate from others. Isolated, insulated me. Not understood by others. How
are we to come upon the truth if separateness is taken so much for granted,
feels so commonsense?
The difficulty is not insurmountable. Wholeness, our true being, is here all
the time, like the sun behind the clouds. Light is here in spite of cloud
cover.
What makes up the clouds?
Can we begin to realize that we live in conceptual,
abstract ideas about ourselves? That we are rarely in touch directly with
what actually is going on? Can we realize that thoughts about myself - I'm
good or bad, I'm liked or disliked - are nothing but thoughts, and that
thoughts do not tell us the truth about what we really are? A thought is a
thought, and it triggers instant physical reactions, pleasures and pains
throughout the bodymind. Physical reactions generate further thoughts and
feelings about myself - I'm suffering," "I'm happy," "I'm not as bright, as
good-looking as the others."
That feedback implies that all this is me, that I
have gotten hurt, or feel good about myself, or that I need to defend myself
or get more approval and love from others. When we're protecting ourselves
in our daily inter-relationships we're not protecting ourselves from flying
stones or bomb attacks. It's from words we're taking cover, from gestures,
from coloration of voice and innuendo.
"We're protecting ourselves, we're taking cover."
In using our common language the implication is constantly created that
there is someone real who is protecting and someone real who needs
protection.
Is there someone real to be protected from words and gestures, or are we
merely living in ideas and stories about me and you, all of it happening in
the ongoing audio/video drama of ourselves?
The utmost care and attention is needed to see the
internal drama fairly, accurately, dispassionately, in order to express it
as it is seen. What we mean by "being made to feel good" or "getting hurt"
is the internal enhancing of our ongoing me-story, or the puncturing and
deflating of it. Enhancement or disturbance of the me-story is accompanied
by pleasurable energies or painful feelings and emotions throughout the
organism. Either warmth or chill can be felt at the drop of a word that
evokes memories, feelings, passions. Conscious or unconscious emotional
recollections of what happened yesterday or long ago surge through the
bodymind, causing feelings of happiness or sadness, affection or
humiliation.
Right now words are being spoken, and they can be
followed literally. If they are fairly clear and logical they can make sense
intellectually. Perhaps at first it's necessary to understand intellectually
what is going on in us. But that's not completely understanding the whole
thing. These words point to something that may be directly seen and felt,
inwardly, as the words are heard or read.
As we wake up from moment to moment, can we
experience freshly, directly, when hurt or flattery is taking place?
What is happening? What is being hurt? And what
keeps the hurt going?
Can there be some awareness of defenses arising, fear and anger forming, or
withdrawal taking place, all accompanied by some kind of story-line? Can the
whole drama become increasingly transparent? And in becoming increasingly
transparent, can it be thoroughly questioned? What is it that is being
protected? What is it that gets hurt or flattered? Me? What is me? Is it
images, ideas, memories?
It is amazing. A spark of awareness witnessing how
one spoken word arouses pleasure or pain throughout the bodymind. Can the
instant connection between thought and sensations become palpable? The
immediacy of it. No I-entity directing it, even though we say and believe I
am doing all that. It's just happening automatically, with no one intending
to "do" it. Those are all afterthoughts!
We say, "I didn't want to do that," as though we
could have done otherwise. Words and reaction proceed along well-oiled
pathways and interconnections. A thought about the loss of a loved one comes
up and immediately the solar plexus tightens in pain. Fantasy of lovemaking
occurs and an ocean of pleasure ensues. Who does all that? Thought says, "I
do. I'm doing that to myself."
To whom is it happening? Thought says, "To me, of
course!"
But where and what is this I, this me, aside from all the thoughts and
feelings, the palpitating heart, the painful and pleasurable energies
circulating throughout the organism? Who could possibly be doing it all with
such amazing speed and precision? Thinking about ourselves and the
triggering of physiological reactions takes time, but present awareness
brings the whole drama to light instantly. Everything is happening on its
own. No one is directing the show!
Right at this moment wind is storming, windows are
rattling, tree branches are creaking, and leaves are quivering. It's all
here in the listening - but whose listening is it? Mine? Yours? We say, "I'm
listening," or, "I cannot listen as well as you do," and these words
befuddle the mind with feelings and emotions learned long ago. You may be
protesting, "My hearing isn't yours. Your body isn't mine." We have thought
like that for eons and behave accordingly; but at this moment can there be
just the sound of swaying trees and rustling leaves and fresh air from the
open window cooling the skin? It's not happening to anyone. It's simply
present for all of us, isn't it? -
Do I sound as though I'm trying to convince you of something? The passion
arising in trying to communicate simply, clearly, may be mistaken for a
desire to influence people. That's not the case. There is just the
description of what is happening here for all of us. Nothing needs to be
sold or bought. Can we simply listen and investigate what is being offered
for exploration from moment to moment?
What is the me that gets hurt or flattered, time
and time again, the world over? In psychological terms we say that we are
identified with ourselves. In spiritual language we say that we are attached
to ourselves. What is this ourselves? Is it feeling of myself existing,
knowing what I am, having lots of recollections about myself - all the ideas
and pictures and feelings about myself strung together in a coherent story?
And knowing this story very well - multitudes of memories, some added, some
dropped, all interconnected - what I am, how I look, what my abilities and
disabilities are, my education, my family, my name, my likes and dislikes,
opinions, beliefs, and so on. The identification with all of that, which
says, "This is what I am." And the attachment to it, which says, "I can't
let go of it."
Let' s go beyond concepts and look directly into
what we mean by them. If one says, "I'm identified with my family name,"
what does that mean? Let me give an example. As a growing child I was very
much identified with my last name because it was my father's and he was
famous, so I was told. I liked to tell others about my father's scientific
achievements to garner respect and pleasurable feelings for myself by
impressing friends. I felt admiration through other people's eyes. It may
not even have been there. It may have been projected. Perhaps some people
even felt, "What a bore she is!" On the entrance door to our apartment there
was a little polished brass plate with my father's name engraved on it and
his titles: "Professor Doctor Phil." The "Phil" impressed me particularly,
because I thought it meant that my father was a philosopher, which he was
not. I must have had the idea that a philosopher was a particularly imposing
personage. So I told some of my friends about it and brought them to look at
the little brass sign at the door.
This is one meaning of identification: enhancing
one's sense of self by incorporating ideas about other individuals or
groups, or one's possessions, achievements or transgressions, anything, and
feeling that all of this is me. Feeling important about oneself generates
amazingly addictive energies.
To give another example from the past: I became very identified with my
half-Jewish descent. Not openly in Germany, where I mostly tried to hide it
rather than display it, but later on after the war ended, telling people of
our family' s fate and finding welcome attention, instant sympathy, and
nourishing interest in the story. One can become quite addicted to making
the story of one's life impressive to others and to oneself, and feed on the
energies aroused by that. And when that sense of identification and
attachment is disturbed by someone not buying into it, contesting it, or
questioning it altogether, there is sudden insecurity, physical discomfort,
anger, fear and hurt.
Becoming a member of a Zen center and engaging in
spiritual practice, I realized one day that I had not been talking about my
background in a long while. And now, when somebody brings it up'sometimes an
interviewer will ask me to talk about it'it feels like so much bother and
effort. Why delve into old memory stuff? I want to talk about listening, the
wind, and the birds.
Are we listening right now? Or are we more
interested in identities and stories?
We all love stories, don't we? Telling them and
hearing them is wonderfully entertaining.
At times people wonder why I don't call myself a
teacher when I'm so obviously engaged in teaching. Somebody actually brought
it up this morning'the projections and the associations aroused in waiting
outside the meeting room and then entering nervously with a pounding heart.
Do images of teacher and student offer themselves automatically like clothes
to put on and roles to play in these clothes? In giving talks and meeting
with people the student-teacher imagery does not have to be there; it
belongs to a different level of existence. If images do come up, they're in
the way, like clouds hiding the sun. Relating without images is the
freshest, freest thing in the universe.
So, what am I and what are you? What are we without
images clothing and hiding our true being? It's un-image-inable, isn't it?
And yet there's the sound of wind blowing, trees shaking, crows cawing,
woodwork creaking, breath flowing without need for any thoughts. Thoughts
are grafted on top of what's actually going on right now, and in that
grafted world we happen to spend most of our lives.
Yet every once in awhile, whether one does
meditation or not, the real world shines wondrously through everything. How
is it when words fall silent? When there is no knowing? When there is no
listener and yet there is listening, awaring in utter silence?
The listening to, the awaring of the me-story is
not part of the me. Awareness is not part of that network. The network
cannot witness itself. It can think about itself and even change itself,
establish new behavior patterns, but it cannot see itself or free itself.
There is a whole psychological science called behavior modification that,
through reward and punishment, tries to drop undesirable habits and adopt
better, more sociable ones. This is not what we're talking about. The
seeing, the awaring of the me movement is not part of the me movement.
A moment during a visit with my parents in
Switzerland comes to mind. I had always had a difficult relationship with my
mother. I had been afraid of her. She was a very passionate woman with lots
of anger, but also love. Once during that visit I saw her standing in the
dining room facing me. She was just standing there, and for no known reason
I suddenly saw her without the past. There was no image of her, and also no
idea of what she saw in me. All that was gone. There was nothing left except
pure love for this woman. Such beauty shone out of her. And our relationship
changed; there was a new closeness. No one changed it. It just happened.
Truly seeing is freeing beyond imagination. -
That's goodOriginally posted by alexkusu:interesting read about self discovery
/bookmarks thread 
This thread contains some very important Buddhist teachings on Anatta (non-self)..