Who Am "I"? are you sure?

Who am "I"?

I have a daughter.

Am I "Dad"?

My Mother thinks of me as her child.

Am I "Son"?

I feel like the same person I was as a child.

Am I "same person"?

I drive a bus so people call me "bus driver".

Am I "bus driver"?

What about when I'm watching tv, am I "tv watcher"?

People call me Doug.

Am I "Doug"?

My Buddhist teacher gave me the name "Dorje".

Am I "Dorje"?

Sometimes I get called other names like for instance, "idiot" or "jack ass", am I "idiot"?

Am I "jack ass"?

I have climbed mountains, so am I right now "mountain climber"?

If I am any or all of these things then where are these things located?

In my body?

Hovering around my body?

Inside my brain?

Do I carry these different beings in my pocket?

One somewhat profound phenomenon I noticed about mountain climbing is that no two people on a climb are climbing the same mountain.

How so?

This really stands out in climbing. Climbing is a very individualized sport. Each climber has a completely unique view of the experience.

If you try a climb that you are not prepared for in some way, for you the whole mountain is hard, difficult. Your whole experience is one of struggle and personal challenge. This could end up being a positive life changing experience for you because you overcame so much doubt and fear, or just plain physical exhaustion. You have this experience of the mountain as being just this.

Then there is the other person. They are on the same climb, the same route. But they are prepared. They maybe have some information about the route that you don't have. They are ready and the climb presents few challenges and few surprises. For them, this same mountain is an "easy" mountain, nothing to write home about, nothing challenging at all really. In fact, this person has this experience of the mountain as being just this.

Now there is a third person. This unfortunate climber is standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and gets clobbered by a boulder that has fallen on him. His leg is broken and he now waits for rescue. For him the whole mountain is nothing but a cruel play of life or death. "Will I live?" "Will they get to me before I freeze to death in the dark?" "I hate this mountain, it's trying to kill me!" This unfortunate person has this experience of the mountain as being just this.

Which mountain is the true or correct mountain?

This is how it is with climbing - there is no single mountain.

Let's say all three of these climbers are asked about their opinion of the mountain by a forth climber who is planning to climb it in the future.

If you're the first climber then maybe you tell him its a hard mountain to climb but worth the challenge.

If you are the second climber then the second mountain experience reflects the "real" mountain and you tell this guy that it's an easy mountain, not really even worth climbing.

If you are the third climber, the mountain is an unpredictable and dangerous place. You might tell him to be prepared to die on this mountain because you will never know when it might turn on you.

If there was one single, real, truly existing mountain, then which one of these experiences is that true mountain?

I live not far from Mount Rainier. Everybody where I live knows this mountain by it's name. We can even point to it and say, "there is Mount Rainier."

But what is Mount Rainier really?

What are we really pointing at when we point at this THING called "Mount Rainier" ?

Are we pointing at the rock?

If so, I can find a rock just outside my door, why don't we call THAT Mount Rainier?

Are we pointing at the snow?

If so, we can find snow in Minnesota in the winter, why isn't THAT Mount Rainier?

Are we pointing at the sky and clouds that are above or around the rock and snow?

Would there even be a Mount Rainier at all if there were no sky and clouds?

When pointing at the mountain, are we pointing at the height?

If so, I can point at the sky and show height, why isn't THAT Mount Rainier?

Why isn't the figure of 14,411 feet simply called Mount Rainier?

Are we pointing at the steepness?

If so, I can show an angle of steepness with my arm, why isn't THAT angle or my arm Mount Rainier?

Is it the direction that we are pointing in that is Mount Rainier?

There are any number of directions, and any number of things in that particular direction, why arn't all those other things also Mount Rainier?

Big mountains like Rainier are such massively large things to experience that when you get near one, you can't possibly take it all in at one time. Even your visual perspective is skewed and unreliable because of the distances and angles involved. It's kind of an illusion no matter how you view it, no matter from what angle, no matter how close or far, none of these present the "true" mountain.

Why?

Because we are making something that isn't containable, isn't isolatable as a concept into a conceptualized "THING".

The fact is, none of those things I just mentioned are a single THING identifiable as "Mount Rainier". When you look for Mount Rainier in any of those conditions, you won't find it. What you'll find is just conditions - conditions we label as "Mount Rainier".

And when you look at those supporting conditions and try to identify those as some THING, you will only find more conditions as well.

In fact, when you look at any THING what so ever, all you really see are conditions. There IS no THING BUT conditions!

'Who I am' is just conditions.

Who you are is just conditions.

A mountain is just conditions.

All of these THINGS are just conditions.

We name them, we lable them, we designate them, we conceptualize certain conditions into solid THINGS.

But really, there are no solid THINGS - and not even existing "condition THINGS".

There are conditions that we experience, and our experience has qualities. But those qualities are also just conditions - not condition THINGS.

Reality is just THIS, ineffable, unspeakable, non-conceptual interdependence.

And by the way, have you ever seen a condition that was forever? That was unchanging? Such a thing does not exist.

When Buddhism says that something is "unidentifiable as a THING" what it is saying is that a THING is void or empty of being any THING. This experience that is "unidentifiable as a THING" is interdependence or voidness itself. There are no THINGS!

To try to identify "who I am" is futile because you are trying to identify reality.

Reality cannot be identified, cannot be conceptualized because conceptualizing means comparing, designating, making distinction. You can't make distinction in an interdependence!

You can't even say "reality" because that in itself is distinction.

A Buddhist view is a non-view.

Meditation isn't a THING that you do.

Meditation is just realization itself minus the concept of.

If I was really a "jack ass", then every person in the world would equally identify me as "jack ass" - and every climber would climb the same mountain.

But mountains are many things. They are in fact impossible to wrap your mind around, impossible to contain in one single view.

A Mountain is everything.

The earth and sky are integral to the mountain. You are integral to me. This is voidness, this is interdependence. Just SEE who I am. Bring clarity - the identity of clarity-emptiness.

That's all.