Dear Reader,

These past 3 weeks have felt like many wars, and peace is all I dream about. It’s unrealistic to hope there will be no drama or chaos; as if to expect nothing will strike us unexpectedly or that everything will be as our ego wants.

I have hit, what seems like, a rock bottom.

What happened?

To put it simply, I’ve been struggling with my perceptions. It’s like I’ve been jumping around into the perspectives of others, which can lead to some confusing or contradicting beliefs.

How has that been affecting you?

It’s as if I’m traveling timelines or multiverses. Sometimes I feel paranoid, confused, or even hopeless.

Seems like it’s sprouting some self-doubt as well.

If you say who you are, does that make you who you are? Or does others experiences of you define who you are? I could fall down this rabbit hole for hours. There are as many perspectives of you as there are people who have perceived you or even seen you walking around or a photo of you on the wall.

Human beings are unfathomably complex. The more we look inward the more questions there are. We are faced with the vastness of who “we” are, on both a literal and metaphysical level. We are an entire universe of life.

We can look inward and see who we were when we were 8yrs old, playing in the park, or 20yrs old, driving around with our friends. Maybe you can see yourself at 30, struggling with the job that seemed promising. Our brain keeps hold of these “clips” of our experiences.

Do you hear the voices that tell you what you should do? How you “should act” or what to say? Sometimes there is an entire chamber of voices, the voices who belong to people in your past who hurt you, or maybe took care of you, some are your friends lifting you up, or the encouraging words of a teacher. All of these things.

According to a concept called Anatta, in Buddhism there is no “self”.

Though Ajahn Maha Bua opposingly claims there is an unbreakable realm inside of us.

He has stated that “not-self” is merely a perception that is used to pry one away from infatuation with the concept of a self, and that once this infatuation is gone the idea of not-self must be dropped as well.

American monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu of the Thai Forest Tradition describes the Buddha's statements on non-self as a path to awakening rather than a universal truth. Bhikkhu Bodhi authored a rejoinder to Thanissaro, agreeing that anattā is a strategy for awakening but stating that "The reason the teaching of anattā can serve as a strategy of liberation is precisely because it serves to rectify a misconception about the nature of being, hence an ontological error."

There is not a time when we are the same, as we are forever changing. A bit brain breaking.

I believe we are multi-dimensional beings. So to be able to simply say who we are and respond with a few words or factoids is so…un-natural.

xoxo