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Not being
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
in Philosophy
Lately I have been considering the technique of recognising everything that you can observe as “not you”. It’s very simple, you just go through all of the things you can see, hear, touch, and tell them, “you are not me.” It’s a good technique, it has been known to shock people into wakefulness. You follow the trail that leads inside…
2
Comments
Interesting. I've been going the other way that also leads within.
"Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion."
-Thich Nhat Hanh
Being and not-being are extremes. We have to inter-be. The observer and the observed are not really separate things.
Right, @david. These techniques end up in the same place… where I found this one there was a footnote saying that “your sense of ‘me’ becomes smaller and smaller, until you arrive at a place where it dissolves into the All”, which while perhaps not strictly Buddhist, is still a beautiful sentiment.
Like @David, I have leaned in the other direction. That said, this may be a good opportunity to use this practice to address dualism... i.e., "This apple is not me. This apple is me."
It's weird and yet wonderful finding out what this self is... or is not
The closer "I" get to discovery, the more "I" seem to be losing the plot
I'm reminded of this..
"You have to ask yourself the question...'Who am I ?'
The question is not really meant to get an answer
It is meant to dissolve the questioner."
~Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi~
Whenever I see two options like that I look for the Middle Way with the insight of Interbeing in mind. The apple is not all that I am. Neither this body nor the apples form are separate self entities.