I remember not too long ago when I had come to the place where I thought I had "found myself," but now I'm not so sure. I received a message on Facebook today from a dear friend, someone who is undergoing some changes and thought to share his insights with me. I wrote him back, and realized how silly this concept of finding oneself really is. It seems to be something coveted too, only an option for those who are really willing to go within and start looking. But the problem is, this self is nowhere to be found, so anytime anyone thinks they have found it is experiencing nothing more than illusion of self, something concrete and fixed, some sort of entity, and the truth is, it's not there.
Okay, I admit it, I love to play with words, and twist them around my little finger, but why shouldn't I? In one sense, it's what makes the English language so beautiful. I don't know much about other languages, but in Thai for example, the possibilities to do this are very limited. In English, we can assign many different meanings to words, view them from different angles, and oftentimes, great poetry comes, an amazing song is spun, or that classic line from a movie is born that has a double meaning. The good news is that by adopting a new perspective on language, we can adopt a new perspective on life. Even though we aren't looking to polish our perspectives here, sometimes it can serve as a beautiful reminder of something we already know to be true in our hearts.
The journey to find yourself is perhaps the most important thing you can do during your short time here on planet earth. The fruit of this journey uncovers purpose, and our purpose is what brings about change. Change is the key word here. Getting in touch with ourselves implies that we move closer to what we really are, and so even though changes happen, it's not like we lose something. But with this moving closer to our essence comes the change I'm talking about, and that is change that our personal growth allows us to effect on a bigger scale, in our communities, in our countries, and on this planet. If we fail to understand that we are all here to participate in the nurturing and stewardship of this planet, we will lose it, and we will lose humanity along with it.
Confused yet?
I know, I said the journey to find yourself is the most important thing you can do, but finding yourself is perhaps the worst thing you can do. Why? Because as soon as you find, you stop looking. Besides, you might try asking, who is looking? The looking isn't a bad thing, but the finding is. If we think we have found ourselves, we have created ourselves. As soon as there is an "us," there is an "us vs. them." The idea here isn't to become someone, it is to simply be. Being yourself implies showing up to life, as it unfolds, from moment to moment. There is no standard here, no reputation to live up to, nothing to filter incoming data. When we create ourselves, we create an identity. Just like a character in a movie, this identity likes certain things, and dislikes others. It has certain tendencies, certain patters, it is predictable.
Do you want to be predictable?
Predictability is not freedom. On the contrary, the more predictable we become, the less we are free. We become slaves to our identities, to the expectations that others come to form about us based on what we've done in the past. If you want to live in the past, and continue to perpetuate a past version of yourself into the future, you will continue to suffer. What about now? Shouldn't you be able to respond to life in this moment in whichever way you so choose? Yes, we need to be held accountable. If we have responsibilities, we need to take care that our actions in this moment don't threaten them. We need to take care that our actions in this moment don't hurt those we love. But, what we don't need to do is keep repeating conditioned reactions to the point that we might as well be two-dimensional and put on a TV screen.
I know this is a tough thing to understand. For me, trying to understand this, I become sad, because in some way, I don't want to lose myself. But at a deeper level, I know I need to learn to let go. In my own past I've been many people. I've changed many times and as I walk away from one identity I walk into another. If I'm not careful, my journey will just continue in this manner and I will be no closer to my real self, just further away from my old self, and this is not the point. The point isn't to get as far away from the "old me" as possible, it is to step into the field of mystery that is life, that I am a part of. In this field, there is no "me," there is just the everything-that-is. Yes, that includes my conditioned mind, my reputation, my own self-image, but it also includes my ability to put that aside and let something else guide me.
What I find from my own suffering is that the cause of it has already happened. It's like I don't even have a choice to do or not do something in the present moment because some past version of me already decided. In other words, I am so used to doing things in a certain way that when the time comes to do something else, I'm so blinded by my tendencies that I don't even see this window of opportunity, and I'm willing to go out on a limb and say this is how most of us go through life.
What my friend said to me, in his message, was that he was coming back to a blank slate, and I just thought that was such a clear way of looking at this. What I'm now remembering is that one night, him and I tried to collaborate on a painting. What happened was, we got to a point where there was so much paint on the canvas, that there was no turning back. Sure, we could have let the paint dry, and then start again, but that wasn't the point. We wanted to do something together, in the moment. Even though he is quite talented with a paintbrush, he couldn't save the mess we (I) had created. The final product was ugly, it wouldn't have even passed for art in some contemporary abstract sense of the word. I remember thinking that it was a total failure, but now, maybe 5 years later, I finally understand what it meant.
If we have too much paint on the canvas, we start running out of options. In the same way, if our projection of ourselves is too strong, we can't choose who to be when the time comes. That's what I mean by saying it's no use in finding yourself. If you find yourself once, you're done. Do you really want to be one person for the rest of your life? Unless you really think you are perfect already, that there is no reason to grow or change or evolve, then it's absurd to try to stuff yourself into a little box and write your name on it. If you do this, you might as well just write it on a name-tag and wear it everyday, like, "Hi, my name is Bob." If you think this name of yours is who you are, you might want to keep looking.
Yes, we all have personalities, and we should. How boring would life be if we were all exactly the same? Just as light is divided into all the colors of the rainbow as it passes through a diamond, so should the diversity and wonder of life be expressed in a unique way by each individual. But this isn't the whole story. Yes, we should be unique, we are unique, each and every one of us, but we should understand that this is just a convention, it's not asbolute. There is no unchanging entity within us that is unique. What can be unique is the expression of change, with this expression of impermanence. As soon as our uniqueness stops changing, it is no longer unique. What we tend to do instead is find some sort of label for ourselves, some sort of framework to make things easier. Instead of celebrating the way we see life, through our own eyes, we attach ourselves to some stereotype, some model. "I'm a hippie," or "I'm a big football guy." So now what? What does this really say about us?
Our personalities are meant to serve us, to help us discover our purpose in this life, the ways in which we can utilize ourselves for the benefit of the bigger picture. We have interests, passions, and something to offer. Everyone has something to offer this world, but most of us aren't offering it, because this idea isn't acknowledged. Instead of being encouraged by society to be unique, discover that gift that no one else on earth has but us, and sharing it with others, we are encouraged to stuff ourselves into these little boxes, assigning ourselves a role and responsibility and never question anything again. This is social slavery, and it is dulling the minds and hearts of the masses.
Instead, let's look within, and let's keep looking. Let's allow ourselves to respond to life with fresh eyes, from a blank slate. Let's create ourselves not in the sense that we are creating a fixed entity, but starting over again in every moment. When we find our purpose, we can share it with others, and when the purpose changes, we can go with the flow without having an identity crisis. With the understanding that there is really no one here to live up to, there is no "me" that I need to act in accordance with, I am free to be myself in the truest sense of the word. Yes, I will have a perspective, I will have an outlook on life, and that's okay. If we didn't we'd be even more lost than we are now. But do I really need to identify with it? Do I need to claim it as my own and build my life around it?
If I understand that my real essence is unchanging, but it has nothing to do with my name, gender, race, role, religion, or personality, I can loosen my grip to all these things. I can still have a name, but I know that it has nothing to do with the eternal self that lies behind these eyes. Then, I can let go of the idea of this self-created identity, and be free to meet the changing conditions of life as it unfolds, as necessary. I am tired of being a slave to my past, to my habits, to my self-image. Who is this person anyway? I know there is nothing to it, there is no one here, so why do I continue to fall victim to this? The truth is, it's not so easy to walk away from this image, from these tendencies of the mind. The good news is, we don't need to do so with totality to find some freedom.
"Let go a little, and you will have a little peace. Let go a lot, and you will have a lot of peace. Let go completely, and you will have complete peace." Ajahn Chah
Sure, I want complete peace, who doesn't? But the destination isn't important here, let's just keep moving forward. With each step comes new obstacles, and how we dealt with obstacles in the past no longer applies. There is a new "us" now, we are a blank slate, and we can paint any picture we want to see. Become a new person, try new things, make those changes, you won't regret it. And if those you share your life with don't like the "new you," make sure you show them why these changes are for the best. If your change doesn't make you a nicer, more agreeable person, with less buttons to push and more empathy towards others, you are probably moving further away from your innate perfection. No worries, we can always toss aside the muddled canvas for a blank slate.
We can start over again as many times as we want. It is never too late for a new beginning, for second chances, to make amends, to turn our lives in a more positive direction. It's never too late to do what "we" would never do, take up dancing, say we are sorry, or travel to a new place. It's never too late to be the person we could be, resisting the urge to fall into habituated reactions, and finding an ability to choose in even simple matters of what to wear or what's for breakfast. We don't have to think radically, about how we need to walk away from the life we have created, instead, we can see that the life we have created is something that is just a convention, it doesn't account for the way we have to be on the inside.
We can still show up for our lives, but now, we can see the beauty and the mystery of the ever-changing moment. We can connect with this idea that there is no "us" that needs to look and speak and act in a particular way, like a character in a movie. Instead of finding ourselves, we can just be ourselves, and see that nothing needs to be predictable about us, nothing needs to remain constant. In this way of being, we see ourselves pulsing in and out of existence in every moment, not carrying any baggage with us, ready for anything. We see that instead of finding, we'd much rather keep looking.
May all beings see that the idea of finding yourself is nothing to strive for, as we are not like characters in a movie, predictable, and two-dimensional.
May all beings meet the changing conditions of life as it unfolds with fresh eyes, with a blank slate.
May all beings look for themselves, but not to find, just to look, to see what's there, and use what they find to express themselves in a natural way, in order to find purpose, in order to effect change, for the benefit of all.
Thanks for reading. May your journey within be filled with mystery, magic, and beauty.
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