You're Not Who You Think You Are Anyway (Lessons From My First Silent Meditation Retreat)
On my first ever silent meditation retreat back in 2006, I remember sitting on my cushion for the first sit, hearing the bell ring, closing my eyes, and immediately feeling a sinking in my gut:
"For the love of God, what have I gotten myself into??"
The retreat was less than three days long, but based on how unfathomably long that first sit felt, I thought there was no way I could make it to Sunday.
Each sit felt more agonizing than the last.
I spent most of my time trying to will the ending bell to ring and feeling pissed off at the (lovely) teachers for not freeing me from this hell by ringing it.
And, adding insult to injury, how did all these people around me seem to be so OK with this madness?!
But somehow I kept managing to show up to each bell and practice noticing what I noticed through each sitting or walking period, one moment at a time.
And mostly what I noticed was how absolutely insane my mind was.
It was genuinely shocking to realize what had been going on up there for all those years without my realizing it.
So much noise and chaos and agitation and harshness and worrying and resistance and comparing and spinning and remembering and imagining and rehashing...so little genuine ease in simply being.
Then one night the wise and funny teacher Howie Cohn gave a Dharma talk entitled, "You're not who you think you are anyway."
And while I don't remember much of the talk's specific content, it resonated in such a hilariously true way that it helped free things up for me on that retreat, and its essence has really stuck with me through the years ever since.
What the talk was getting at was that we walk around every moment of our lives trying to keep ourselves within the boundaries of our identity box. "I'm the kind of person who..." and "I'm not the kind of person who..."
Over time, we really come to believe that those aspects of how we've learned to define ourselves are us.
And when we stray from that calcified self-concept, we feel (fear-driven) tension.
So rather than risk the discomfort that comes with having who we think we are challenged, we cling fiercely to that identity. When we're mindlessly going about our business, we'll do just about anything to keep a consistent sense of self, even if, were we to look closely, we'd see that that version of ourselves is keeping us feeling stuck in our lives.
But the cosmic joke is, that "small s" self isn't who you actually are.
That sense of self you're investing so much energy in and experiencing so much suffering by clutching to is man-made; mind-made.
We spend this unbelievable amount of time and energy trying to ensure that something that's nothing but a concept stays in place. And that's an impossible endeavor!
But when we stop taking our "small s self" so seriously, our "capital S Self” reminds us it's been there all along.
And the (capital S) Self is constant.
It's whole and centered and perfect and at ease, and its wholeness depends not one ounce on concepts or circumstances. It just is.
YOU just are.
When you drop into the direct awareness of sheer being — feeling the pulse in your chest or hands, noticing the breath breathe itself, feeling blood course effortlessly through your body — you can feel that "I am"-ness.
And when you feel that effortlessness of just being, problems dissolve.
There's nothing to fix, nowhere to be, no self-editing required.
The spiritual teacher Nisargadatta Maharaj suggests we get to that place this way:
"Separate consistently and perseveringly the 'I am' from 'this' or 'that' and try to feel what it means to be, just to be, without being 'this' or 'that.'"
So you might play with noticing this week what fills in the blank after "I am" in various scenarios for you.
What role do you play in different circumstances?
And is there a way that you can create some space by noticing that you're stepping into that role without getting all wrapped up in believing that's who you are in some fixed way?
We have a sense of identity, and that's just fine.
But when your small self tries to take the wheel, remember that your big Self is always right there, ready to step in and offer you some grace.
And remember that you're always at choice as to which self — small s or big S — you lean into.
Lots of Love,