You Are IT

Of all the words we use to disguise the hollowness of the human condition, none is more influential than “myself.”

It consists of a collage of still images—name, gender, nationality, profession, enthusiasms, relationships—that are renovated from time to time, but otherwise are each a relic from one particular experience or another. The defining teaching of the Buddhist tradition, that of non-self, is merely pointing out the limitations of this reflexive view we hold of ourselves.

It’s not that the self does not exist, but that it is as cobbled-together and transient as everything else.

~ Andrew Olendzki