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Authors: Ezra Bayda
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in touch with our true self, the closer we are to living from genuine happiness. Although there is no âsecretâ to living a genuinely happy life, the deepest happiness of equanimity and connectedness grows with our ability to stay present with life as it is. And this flowers as we water the roots of the generosity of the heartâincluding our inherent capacity for gratitude, loving-kindness, and compassion. This is how we learn to live from the connectedness that we are. This is also the essence of what it means to live the authentic life.
7
No One Special to Be
O ne of the main characteristics of a life of sleep is that we are totally identified with being a âMe.â Starting with our name, our history, our self-images and identities, we use each one of these things to solidify the sense that we are living in our little subjective sphere. We experience ourselves as âspecialâânot in the normal sense of being distinguished or exceptional, but in the sense that we feel unique and subtly significant. Interestingly, our feeling of specialness is not just from having positive qualities; we can even use our suffering to make us feel unique and special. Yet not needing to be special, not needing to be any particular way, is what it means to be freeâfree to experience our natural being, our most authentic self.
For example, we all have images of ourselves that we unconsciously carry with us throughout our waking hours. Our self-images are the conceptions or pictures of how we see ourselves. We can have the self-image of being nice, or competent, or deep; or we could have a negative self-imageâseeing ourselves as weak, or stupid, or worthless. Usually we try to focus on ourpositive self-images, and we often try to shape our external life to portray ourselves in the most favorable way. We live out of the vanity of trying to look a particular way, mostly to gain the approval of those whose opinion is most important to us. Whether itâs our clothes, our hair, our bodyâour radar for approval is constantly running, mostly unconsciously. This is true even with the car we drive; whether itâs a Cadillac or a hybrid or a pick-up truck, when we sit behind the wheel, it defines who we are to ourselves and to others, and we are usually totally identified with that image.
Much of our life is spent trying to live out of our self-images, and we rarely have the inclination to look at them honestly. In fact, it is very difficult to be truly honest with ourselves, especially since we can simultaneously have both positive and negative self-images on board and may not recognize their inconsistency. This is due to the fact that we all wear blindersâa psychological defense that doesnât allow one part of ourselves to see another part. For example, if we need to see ourselves as nice, we may ignore all of our harmful or self-centered qualities. Or, if we need to see ourselves as unworthy, weâll ignore all the positive data. This is actually quite common.
Closely related to our self-images are our identitiesâhow we define ourselves according to the roles we play, such as mother, businessman, meditator, athlete, and so on. The identities we assume donât have to make sense. For example, even though Iâve written five books and many published essays, I still donât have the identity of being a writer. And stranger still, even though Iâve been severely limited in my physical activities for over twenty years due to a chronic immune system condition, I still see myself as an athlete. Actually it doesnât really matter if our identities make sense; what matters is how attached to them we are in our need to define ourselves.
Both our self-images and our identities become part and parcel of the stories we weave about ourselves. Almost always these stories are skewered versions of the truth concerning who we areâour history, our victimhood, why weâre
7
No One Special to Be
O ne of the main characteristics of a life of sleep is that we are totally identified with being a âMe.â Starting with our name, our history, our self-images and identities, we use each one of these things to solidify the sense that we are living in our little subjective sphere. We experience ourselves as âspecialâânot in the normal sense of being distinguished or exceptional, but in the sense that we feel unique and subtly significant. Interestingly, our feeling of specialness is not just from having positive qualities; we can even use our suffering to make us feel unique and special. Yet not needing to be special, not needing to be any particular way, is what it means to be freeâfree to experience our natural being, our most authentic self.
For example, we all have images of ourselves that we unconsciously carry with us throughout our waking hours. Our self-images are the conceptions or pictures of how we see ourselves. We can have the self-image of being nice, or competent, or deep; or we could have a negative self-imageâseeing ourselves as weak, or stupid, or worthless. Usually we try to focus on ourpositive self-images, and we often try to shape our external life to portray ourselves in the most favorable way. We live out of the vanity of trying to look a particular way, mostly to gain the approval of those whose opinion is most important to us. Whether itâs our clothes, our hair, our bodyâour radar for approval is constantly running, mostly unconsciously. This is true even with the car we drive; whether itâs a Cadillac or a hybrid or a pick-up truck, when we sit behind the wheel, it defines who we are to ourselves and to others, and we are usually totally identified with that image.
Much of our life is spent trying to live out of our self-images, and we rarely have the inclination to look at them honestly. In fact, it is very difficult to be truly honest with ourselves, especially since we can simultaneously have both positive and negative self-images on board and may not recognize their inconsistency. This is due to the fact that we all wear blindersâa psychological defense that doesnât allow one part of ourselves to see another part. For example, if we need to see ourselves as nice, we may ignore all of our harmful or self-centered qualities. Or, if we need to see ourselves as unworthy, weâll ignore all the positive data. This is actually quite common.
Closely related to our self-images are our identitiesâhow we define ourselves according to the roles we play, such as mother, businessman, meditator, athlete, and so on. The identities we assume donât have to make sense. For example, even though Iâve written five books and many published essays, I still donât have the identity of being a writer. And stranger still, even though Iâve been severely limited in my physical activities for over twenty years due to a chronic immune system condition, I still see myself as an athlete. Actually it doesnât really matter if our identities make sense; what matters is how attached to them we are in our need to define ourselves.
Both our self-images and our identities become part and parcel of the stories we weave about ourselves. Almost always these stories are skewered versions of the truth concerning who we areâour history, our victimhood, why weâre
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