If we believe that we are finite human beings, it is no wonder that many of us suffer with fear and anxiety. The universe is a large, dangerous, unpredictable place, and our place within it is infinitesimally small.
That sudden pain in our side might be cancer. That unexpected phone call could be one of our loved ones in danger. That meeting with the boss could be approaching unemployment.
It’s no wonder life can be stressful.
Yet, the good news is that we are much more than this human experience. We are not the finite, fragile human that we believe ourselves to be.
To examine this proposal, first let’s consider why we think we are finite human beings.
The reasons are many - the stories we have been told since childhood, the memories of our life, the correspondence between various senses (e.g. the sight of something hot touching my hand causing pain), the sight of ourselves in a mirror, the thoughts we have about ourselves, and so on.
All these phenomena create a fairly convincing experience that we are this fragile human body, moving around the world, with a history, a present and a future. A beginning and (we hope) distant end.
Yet a more careful examination of experience tells a different story.
All of these phenomena (the stories we remember, the sight of ourselves, the feeling of our bodies) come and go. In deep sleep, they disappear completely. Now, if all there was to us were these phenomena, we would be quite the transient being. There would be nothing substantial to us, for all aspects of what we consider fundamental to being a human being come and go in our experience.
Yet that doesn’t match our experience. There is a kind of continuity to what we are, a kind of seamlessness - we don’t feel like we pop in and out of human existence whenever the phenomena of experience changes.
So what remains constant through all apparent moments of time? What stays still in all the comings and goings of phenomena?
It is our awareness. When I experience a thought, I “see” it arrive, then I see it go. Yet all the while I am aware. When I feel my body, I am aware of a given feeling as it swells, and I am aware when it contracts and disappears. When I appreciate the bird song in the morning, I am aware when a bird call begins, and I remain aware when the bird call ends.
In all the comings and goings, awareness remains.
So what am I really then? Am I a finite human, or am I that in which the phenomena of being human arises?
When I am without thought, in that moment, I don’t know I am human, but I am aware. When I watch the thoughts I have about myself disappear into silence, I don’t know I am human, but I am aware.
Is it not sensible, then, to identify more with that awareness than with my apparent humanity, the evidence of which comes and goes while awareness stays constant?
I think so.
The human arises in You, Awareness. Awareness does not arise in, and is not limited by, the human.
This is good news on the anxiety front.
For awareness can “contain” danger to the human, but it itself is not endangered. It is the space within which thoughts of trouble arise, but it itself is untroubled.
In this knowing awareness, all things can be calmly accepted and observed - though awareness can do no other. It accepts all. Its brightness is only sometimes transiently obscured by the limited, human self, but it is never dimmed.
This recognition, once it is properly integrated, allows us to live a much lighter, happier human life. We can appreciate and enjoy our humanity, all the while understanding that it is not what we really are. Rather, we are that spacious, boundless “space” of Awareness, in which the human life plays out its drama. No need to grasp or hold onto that which is fleeting. We can enjoy it for what it is.
We can also recognise that our loved ones are ultimately the same as us, and rejoice that what they truly are will never be lost.
Nothing is lost, all is ultimately well.
Be happy.
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