‘I’ am at the center of my universe- self-referential, self-preoccupied, and self-obsessed. Whether ‘I’ am periodically selfish or selfless, ‘I’ am always self-involved. I superficially feel connected to this state of being as it appears that most everyone around ‘me’ resonates this same ‘Way’- and that ‘he’ or ‘she’ is also at the center of his or her own universe. What is troubling in my reflection is how we collectively agree upon a shared ‘place’ in this universe. Is it not the inalienable right to pursue happiness and be free from suffering for all? How can there be consensus on this pursuit if we all share similar perception related to our individually inherent ‘uniqueness’- our inherent ‘bias’ apart from the rest of reality and from one another? If this ‘I’ is constantly concerned for us, how can it be attentive to others when it may be ignorant (i.e. unaware) of its own frailties, and when it ignores its own limitations in its self-absorption and obsession with its own goals? The question arises whether there is value in looking deeper into examining how we are pursuing happiness and freedom from suffering- in our attitudes, perspectives, and intentions?

‘I’ may become so big that clarity and transparency of self becomes obscured by strong emotion and incessant impulse to be what and whom I think ‘I’ am- separate and distinct from what reality may reflect. Without clarity, how do I discern the real ‘me’? What might the real ‘me’ be like? How would I recognize it if I were to discover it? To sense and ‘see’ this revelation, I need find it purposeful and meaningful to explore and examine the options of what ‘i’ might possibly be- and to curiously question conditioning, beliefs, and identities.

In mindfulness practice, ‘I’ cease to exist independently when I am no longer being observed, but emerge as the observer. My habitual way of sensing myself has shifted. In ‘awarenessing’ of my awareness, ‘I’ dissolves into awareness itself. With ‘witness consciousness’, there is no absolute- no solid point of reference for ‘I’ or fixed foundation of identity. I am as ‘fluid’ as the events arising in my witnessing consciousness. ‘I’- referent falls away without anything solid, static, or independent to affix itself. All that we observe in awareness is transparent when we do not attach ourselves to its content. All that is witnessed is related and interconnected to something else. ‘I’ that is separate and distinct from another form of reality may simply be a deluded conception of mind.

Where then is the essence of ‘me’- the source of my living condition- and the sensed locus of ‘I’? Do I genuinely reflect in awareness the essence of reality to be bound up in relationships, and a flowing process of relativity? The truth in this revelation may reside in your direct experience of it and “i” in the larger context of others… of you, me and ‘interbeing’ with one another.

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