What Must You Leave?

Who you think you are!

Spiritual practice is radical and far-reaching. It needs to begin with who you think you are in order for you to leave "who you think you are." It is not to become anyone or somebody or anything. It is to leave all of it.

It’s rather startling, isn’t it? And it requires practice to break out of the cocoon of habits and reactions that you have built as your ego identities. This pointer is quite sobering.  It is similar to Christ’s response to let the dead bury the dead and unless you turn away from your mother and father you can’t follow him.

It does not mean to let the dead rot on the side of the road or pack your bags for…for where?  Spiritual practice is more sweeping than a geographical change of scenery or a familial abandonment it is an interior shift that is more drastic and more all-encompassing.

 And it requires time, effort and practice to shift the focus of attention from the stimulation of the world to your interior life. Zen offers a method to make the shift. What happens is unknown.

In the first picture we find our self in confusion and the confusion is about who we are. It’s not to say we are not human beings, because we are but it is to say we are “confused” human beings who identify with the conditions of life as if those conditions are who we are.  It’s a matter of taking the wrong stuff seriously.

 We see our self as a “mother, father, brother, sister, and the many roles in a family. Perhaps you see yourself as the “smart child, the good parent, the bad apple, the dependable father, the rational one, the calm sister, the favored mother”…the list is endless.

These identities drive your life and you think it is who you are. Of course you may live out your life wrapped in the confines of a conditioned identity.  The identifications are potent and influence much of how you live your life. In other words, you are attached to them.

In general, very general, your identity is usually rooted in thinking you are a “good” somebody, a “bad” somebody or a swing between the two like the little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead.

There are many flavors to this generalization and colors, shapes and tones that come from your own history. The discovery of these coverings, these” flavored things you think you are” is part of the work of Zen.  

Sitting still in solitude with your self is basic to this work of uncovering the self.

Consider: Who do you think you are? This reflection can be a role such as, doctor, mother, son, wife, husband, manager, and so the list goes. And it includes identities of victim, abuser, addict, user, as well as “good, bad” devilish, angelic, godlike, fool, etc . In this reflection consider the first identity that pops up. You might want to make a list. Contemplate whether or not it is who you are, really? What supports this idea of who you are?

 

“Suffering (dissatisfaction) isn’t going to go away, the one who is suffering (dissatisfied) is going to go away. “ Ayya Khema