I find the time I spend reading books on Buddhism to be full of these moments where a mirror is held up a little too close in front of me and I am faced with my habits and patterns. And it's usually not pretty.
"We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identity; but if we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our "biography", our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit cards...It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we really are?
"Without our familiar props, we are faced with just ourselves, a person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet."
~Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
I like this very much. I think a lot of people can check down the list of props only so far.
Name? No prob. That's not me.
Biography? Hmm, well, I'm kinda proud of what I've done and where I've come from, but what the hell. I don't need it.
Partner? Love her. Need her.
Family? Ditto.
Sticky. And we don't take the time to get to know ourselves. I had this debate at work today about why I won't wear an iPod. I need my silence to hear what I actually think and feel.
(I'm also a lousy multi tasker)
Posted by: dave | June 30, 2009 at 10:34 AM