Am I My Body?
We can wisely admonish others and ourselves: "Don't be
identified with your body." But what does that mean? Try not to
settle superficially for the words but ask what they really point
to, so that we can understand each other more deeply.
Its a day heavy with clouds and humidity. You feel it as you
walk through the meadows, wetness penetrating shoes and socks you
feel wet and cold on your toes. Grasses sparkle with moisture, with
translucent droplets of pearl. These grasses! It never tires to
look at them, all the varied colours and shapes and their graceful
movements in the wind.
Today I walked down into the lower meadow, the tops of blades full
with yellow seeds. Some were tall enough to touch the clouds!
Couldnt go far since the feet were hurting badly- I had to limp
along the mowed path, feeling a bit foolish. Im saying this so you
need not ask me, Whats the matter with your feet? Right now they
are happily resting on a stool burning, yet thankful for the
cooling air. Discomfort is passing. Thats the amazing thing about
all the different states of bodymind: They pass. They come, they
go. Some of them linger, but they will change eventually. The art
of living is not to make stories about any of them, because stories
linger longer than the states theyre describing. Much longer. For
centuries sometimes.
People often affirm what we read in traditional texts from the
East: I am not my body. you are not your body! It can be
beneficial to use those words like a mantra worth repeating when
one is strongly identified with my hurting body, painfully
worried about it. It can be helpful when a set of fresh words
replaces worn-out, depressing phrases.
Does it bring about some relief to hear, Youre not your body? Up
to a point, yes. But it only goes so far, since a voice immediately
replies, It does feel that I am my body! These are my aching
feet, not yours. It
definitely feels that II am the owner of this body, no one
else.
So, then, what do we mean by this I, and what about this
ownership? Are we willing to inquire deeply into this? Watching the
state of mind, the effect of the words upon the organism when we
say, I am in pain, Its
my body, Youre hurting
me, or when we
(deliberately at first) leave out these powerful words and simply
describe what is going on? Like Right now there is pain in the
feet, or It really hurts when you say those words.
We can wisely admonish others and ourselves: Dont be identified
with your body. But what does that mean? Try not to settle
superficially for the words but ask what they really point to, so
that we can understand each other more deeply. Dont just accept
what Toni is saying. Question it. We can question together. Then
the one who says things is invited to look, to speak out of that
depth of looking.
What does it mean to be identified with this body? Does it mean
that it is the most essential part of the story? We can hear that
story when we listen inwardly, let what goes on in thought become
transparent. This story about me and my body is as long and as old
as I am, and its taken for a true representation of what I
am.
Is that what identification means? An integral part
of the story is the me, believed to be (in) this body. If you ask
me, What are you or who are you? I can give you my name and
instantly point to this body, saying, This is me.
I remember going through all this many years ago, racking my brain
about I and me, trying to get to the root of it while driving
to Rochester on the interstate. And if you, too, are interested in
finding this out, go quietly into it any time it comes up for you.
It is amazing to experience this quandary, this wondering, and
investigating into not-knowing, because it really seems to exercise
the brain and allow it to move outside its accustomed pathways of
talking and thinking. Questioning can shake it up, loosen its
stuckness. Like weve said before, cracking the cement of
language.
So when I say I am not my body, does it mean its no longer part of
this picture story? This story has ended, maybe just for a moment,
for the time being. A moment here doesnt mean measured time- it
simply means seamless space of awareness.
So, for a moment not thinking in words about me and my body, its
past and its future- does that open up free space? Try it, find
out. Or maybe its just an exercise in deliberately speaking
differently, which is all right too. Its still a good exercise not
to think and talk in words about me and my body. But then maybe
for an instant there is a true opening the habitual routine is
gone and there are just birds twittering and the fan humming, a
voice producing words, body vibrating with sound, muscles flexing
gently, breathing in and out all of that right here fleetingly
filling open space. And as you walk through the glistening meadow,
here are the tall grasses and the clouds, the beauty of every
single sparkling blade. What amazing works of art each single one
off them is tall and slender, with yellow seedpods delicately
waving in the breeze.
Does the mind come in and say, Now I understand what it means, I
am not my body I am the whole, or whatever words have been said
about it? Does thought say, I am that, I am this? Alan Watts
wrote a book that I gobbled up its title is The Supreme Identity. It provided some
marvellous new words. Im not saying the author didnt know what he
was talking about. But the reader what happens to us? The brain in
its attachment to security is constantly searching for concepts to
attach to that which is beyond all words, all concepts and
ownership.
Its an elating feeling to think, Now Ive shed my ego identity
because I know Im the supreme identity! I went through that
elated feeling, quite unawares. But readers, beware! Isnt it the
task of the author of books to keep the written work lucid but
loose, open, unfixed, flexible, to keep reminding the reader that
the word is not the real thing and can be substituted by another
word any time? Isnt the authors task to sustain the readers
curiosity to find out what is the
real thing, abiding nowhere? Is curiosity alive this
moment?
Krishnamurti was never tired of saying, The word is not the
thing. Do we understand that? Even though words are used? There
wouldnt be talks or articles if there werent words used as
conveyors. For one thing, more is conveyed in a talk than just the
words. Are we together in the depth of words and beyond the words?
Can words point beyond themselves?
The total energy of presence allows the mind to see what the word
merely points to. To see it here, within myself. Not out there, but
here. To feel the shift from out there to right here. The shift
from being in a tunnel of wordy me-ness to
inexpressible
openness. Do you se? Is I happening right now? Here? Now?
So, did we say enough about identity, the story of me as this
body, or me as not this body, the supreme identity? When this
experience of openness happens,
its not really an experience.
This openness, this presence, this nondivision, is not an
experience. because there is no one here who experiences it
through thinking, even though the bodys heart is beating, the
breath is flowing; the feet feel refreshing cool air. As this
happens, there is no story. No identity. That comes in later, with
the mind that wants to explain, to conceptualize, and to possess.
Its helpful, and even beautiful, to conceptualize, if one knows
what one is doing and doesnt dwell in the concepts but just
communicates. Remember that the main part of communicating is being
here, not the words you have found. The words are secondary. The
prime, essential thing is to be here. And does that communicate?
Does it? Are we here together with the birds, the fan, the body
tensing or relaxing, the breath flowing?
