Fearless Mountain Newsletter
Spring 2007 Articles
Peace, Peace From the Monastery Adventures of Me and I Anagarika Life Māra’s Desk Tales from Varapañño Calendar View Archive
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My consciousness pivots between conventional and ultimate reality. Consequently, incompatibilities related to how personal identity functions within these realities are a source of suffering for me. While conventional reality necessitates constructing multiple identities in order to function within society, these identities interfere with the boundless freedom existing within ultimate reality. I don’t mean to claim that I have fully experienced ultimate reality for that may be a permanent enlightenment, but there are fleeting moments when a chair is no longer a chair and terms like “me” and “I” become confining delusions projected onto a boundless cosmic force.
I have a choice to focus the consciousness on three main things: internal mind chatter, the external world and the Dhamma. The most frequent yet most unstable option is centering on the internal mind, which is not anchored to any external validity and can uncontrollably proliferate emotionally and dominate the consciousness with unwholesome thoughts and feelings. Shifting consciousness away from mind chatter and focusing it on something in the external environment, such as the computer humming sound, is an instant relief and results in a neutral feeling. Unlike the mind, the external environment is easy to observe without becoming, and results in a glimmer of peacefulness akin to ultimate reality. Focusing consciousness on the Dhamma acts as a bridge to ensure safe travel between the internal mind and external world. Following the Dhamma path, I can venture into the mind and watch its antics from the side of the road then move out to the external world and observe a more ultimate reality.
Conventional reality can be unsatisfying because my consciousness is constantly pulled into the mind chatter, in order to create and maintain requisite forms of identity. For example, since my occupation is “writer,” I have to make sure my work emails are well written even when I am rushing or tired. Also, coworkers have asked me how I can be a writer since I type using only two fingers—they think writers should be fast typers. So, I am now learning to type using all my fingers in order to maintain this Page 2 of 2
cumbersome writer identity. Even though I hate grammar jargon, I am forced to learn it so I can satisfy coworkers’ notions that good writers are good grammarians.
Similarly, being a vegetarian involves boring and tedious conversations about why I am a vegetarian and why do I eat eggs if I am a vegetarian, why do I wear leather etc. . . I am much better off with the discomfort I feel from eating meat than having to justify not eating it! In addition, being asked where I’m from is another identity-building, pigeonholing question that is confining and boring to discuss.
Anxiety and depression result from forming identities because they are limiting, predetermined and there is no adventure or freedom in it. Interestingly, constructing identities reinforces the ego and attachments to self, which makes my inevitable death less acceptable since building and decay are opposites. Keeping a daily routine that involves meditation helps me to focus through the Dhamma, tolerate confining identities needed in conventional reality, and experience some fleeting freedom through ultimate reality.
