I Are A Process
Lyman Reed
July 17th, 2008
Everything Else, Features
One thing that’s helped me to keep from getting too down on myself, and to keep going in the face of either success or failure, is to recognize that, as a human being, I’m not as much a set identity as I am a process.
My best understanding of the concept of from Buddhism of not-self (not no-self) is that there is no one thing that we can hang on to and say “That Is Me.” We are a flowing, changing, always moving kaleidoscope of thoughts, feelings, and actions.
From this, I can take both my failures and my successes, recognize that they are simply the result of who I was at the time, and do something different if I want a different result, or duplicate what was already done if I want something similar.
“Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.” Now who was it that said that?
| 2.9 |
That’s true. I am not my name, my body, my actions … The very fact that we use “my” before it indicates that these things are a part of “I” or belong to me but I am not them.