If I ask who you are, you might say; “I’m a lawyer,” “I’m an extrovert,” or “I’m depressed.” But certainly you are more than any of these labels.
So you try again. “Well, I’m also simply me, a human being, a self.”
And so I ask you to show me where your self is. Can we find it in your brain? If you look inside you will see neurons that fire across synapses in a very complicated neurological system. Surely, that’s not you. Nor can you find it in your heart, your liver or spleen. These organs are all very important; they work together to make you happen. But none of them is you.
“Hmmm,” you say: “Perhaps I can find myself in my personality – in my own thoughts and feelings. That’s certainly me. I can’t imagine that anyone else has my particular thoughts and feelings.”
That’s true, I add, but if you watch closely, particularly in meditation, you will realize that your thoughts and feelings are ever changing. They are not any kind of solid or permanent thing. Anger, fear, gratitude, love, sadness, come in waves of experience. Tell me, where are you in all this?
“Ah,” you say, “I get it! I am not any one of these things. Instead I’m the activity! “I’m not a noun, I’m a verb.”
