A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
Another way of asking is, who was I before I took on the layers of identities, tendencies, and memories I carry today? Notice how the simple sense of being stays even when roles, preferences, or memories momentarily drop away.
If something is still present when identity is not held, what is that? Can it be grasped or named? And if it becomes something you can describe, isn’t it simply another identity? What is this aware presence that does not rely on identity, habit, or memory to exist?
Read about British philosopher Douglas Harding’s “Headless Way” method, which offers another exercise for looking for the self, to find it isn’t there.
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