Loosening the bounds of “I am…”

Who am I? Well, that depends.

Yesterday I had an opinion piece published in our local newspaper. A few days ago an editorial page assistant phoned me and asked how I wanted to be described at the end of the piece.

I said, "Retired writer, blogger, and land use activist would be fine."

She must not have heard the "b" in "blogger" because I ended up as a "logger." Some readers must have wondered how an Oregon logger became such a strong supporter of an environment-friendly ballot measure.

But what's in a name? I wasn't bothered. Heck, I have a small chainsaw. And I've even managed to cut down some dead trees with it. Maybe I really am a logger.

Each of us fills in the "I am …" ellipses continually throughout our life. We have various occupations and avocations (blogger, logger), relationships (child, parent, spouse, grandparent), states of mind (happy, sad, frustrated, content), and much more besides.

The more flexible we are concerning our I-am ness, the more open we'll be to change, fresh experiences, expanding our boundaries. That's one of the problems I have with religion.

It expects you to have a rigid "I am…" identity. I am a Christian. I am a Buddhist. I am a satsangi. I am a Wiccan. I am a Muslim.

You can be happy one day and sad another. But you'd be seen as unduly fickle if you were a Jew yesterday, a Taoist today, and a Hindu tomorrow.

Yet, why couldn't you be?

Robert Thurman says in his book, "Infinite Life":

The Buddha was happy about not knowing who he was in the usual rigid, fixed sense. He called the failure to know who he was "enlightenment." Why? Because he realized that selflessness kindles the sacred fire of compassion.

When you become aware of your selflessness, you realize that any way you feel yourself to be at any time is just a relational, changing construction. When that happens, you have a huge inner release of compassion.

Your inner creativity about your living self is energized, and your infinite life becomes your ongoing work of art.

I'm no Buddha, that's for sure. But with the aid of mescaline, or some other psychedelic, I have a distinct memory of a '60s experience that at least was in the ballpark of what Thurman is talking about.

I was with a group of fellow "stoners" who'd headed off to a San Jose-area park to be high with nature. The path we were on led around a hill.

I felt energetic and forged on ahead by myself. My feet were flying through the northern California landscape. Until I rounded a corner and saw a different sort of group on the left side of the trail a short ways ahead of me.

Bikers. Drinking beer. Next to their choppers. With their equally tough-looking old ladies. At the time San Jose was a headquarters for the Gypsy Jokers motorcycle gang, which had a reputation rivaling the Hells Angels.

I didn't know anything about the bikers I was walking toward. But my first reaction was that I was an isolated peaceful hippie dude stoned on mescaline with long hair, glasses, and a corduroy coat, and they were cultural near-opposites in almost every way. Not good.

However, something snapped in me the very next moment. As I walked nearer to them I didn't feel like there was any difference between us. I could see them looking at me. I looked at them. More, I became them.

"What's happening, man?" someone called out. "Hell if I know," I said with a smile. They laughed. I laughed. I felt like I could sit down with them, have a beer, and fit right in.

My fear vanished as soon as I stopped thinking "I am…" and "They are…" Sure, it was partly (or mostly) the mescaline talking, but I suddenly felt that I was them and they were me, and we were all in this park getting high together.

Not exactly akin to the Buddha's enlightened experience of selflessness under the Bodhi Tree. But, hey, I'll take a speck of understanding any way I can get it.

Passing the biker group I realized that "I am…" can be flexible and boundless, not rigid and restricted.

Some things we always are; some things we always aren't; but there's a huge store of being-possibilities available to us moment to moment.

Comments

[william]

"but there's a huge store of being-possibilities available to us moment to moment."

Amen to this statement: and that is the journey. And I suspect as our consciousness evolves that huge store of being-possibilities gets much more astonishing, even to our wildest imagination.

We are gods “small g” in the making.

[Edward]

“The fundamental delusion of humanity is to
suppose that I am here and you are out there.”
Yasutani Roshi

[Tucson]

Edward wrote:

“The fundamental delusion of humanity is to
suppose that I am here and you are out there.”
Yasutani Roshi

--When the truth of this is perceived, not intellectually but deeply, intuitively apprehended, then ideas and concerns about evolving consciousness and journeys to becoming gods are suddenly irrelevant..poof, gone like a wisp of smoke.

I compare LSD, mescaline and similar drugs to have similar effects on insight as steroids do on strength. The strength (insight) is real but, arrived at artificially, can't be sustained without damage to physical and mental health.

I learned this nearly 40 years ago and sought to sustain, expand, rekindle these insights via a spiritual path (RSSB) which seemed to promise even more. One LSD-aided insight, which mirrored that of Yasutani Roshi, was ignored..that there was no 'me' here and everything else out there. There wasn't any 'me' that could be taken any 'where' by any master. I got caught in the illusion of subject-object misidentification. I already am whatever the master is. The funny thing is, even he may not have known it.

[Stuart]

> That's one of the problems I have with
> religion. ... It expects you to have a
> rigid "I am…" identity.

Right... but of course, really, "it" doesn't expect anything. All that matters are the expectations in my own thinking. If I'm holding this or that idea of what "I am," then I've got something, and that something is a big problem.

So what am I doing right now? What am I percieving? What's going on in my mind? That's where it all comes from. I can't get much from a "religion," but I can't blame "religion" for much either.

I just did a post on my own blog that's got a lot to do with what it means to say, for instance, "I'm a Buddhist":

http://stuart-randomthoughts.blogspot.com/2007/11/autobiography-of-boo-boo-8-buddhism.html

Stuart

[william]

"I can't get much from a "religion,"

Maybe we can get a lot from religion. We may discover what not to believe or a simple quote from Jesus that the meek shall inherit the earth and that one statement baffles us for forty years of our life until we see that it was indeed a profound statement that has eluded every preacher I have ever heard preach a sermon on that quote from Jesus.

I have this suspicion that everything is right on track it is only our limited perception that makes life look like chaos. Buddhism has wonderful teachings but was saddened to learn that most Buddhists are as religious and fixed in their beliefs as Christians.

I have read that the Buddha warned his followers not to do that but most paid him no heed. He also told them not to make him a god and instead many call him the perfect one.

[tao]

Another personal true story of my own:

One rather gloriously fine afternoon back in the latter 1960s I was a biker dude... and on this particulare occasion a very stoned biker dude tripping on a massive dose of Owsleys acid. I rode over to a party the Dead had invited me to at their old ranch in Sonoma County. It was during one of those mythical California golden days. The party was outside and when I arrived there were only maybe less than a dozen hippies gathered and gettin high on grass. As I got off my chopper, I guess my biker appearance and heavy tripping vibes made them scared shitless.

Just then (and just in time) my friend John Cipollina from Quicksilver came down the path with some beer and handed me a couple brews. I winked at him, and then smiled and sat down with the group of still very freaked out flower children. I deeply felt their tense apprehension and fear. But I just sucked it all right into me where it melted into Heart-felt Oneness.

Then in one magical effortless motion, and as I continued to look deeply into all their eyes at once, I pulled out a large chunk of primo Afghani hash from my vest pocket that I'd recently brought back from Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. Still smiling, I rolled several big fat joints, and without taking any hit myself, I softly handed each one of them a joint and lit them.

Their fear and separation melted into the bliss and oneness that was emanating from me, or rather flowing through me. I winked at them and we all laughed and then they got very very stoned and we all finished off the rest of the beers and all love and light and unity prevailed.

[Bob]

Hey Tao,

Wonderful story!

And, speaking of John Cippolina...to this day I still crank up a bit of Quicksilver now and then and listen to his awesome guitar playing!

Be well,

Bob

[Paul M Martin]

Nice writing in an area that's not so easy to talk about! And I like how your personal illustrations really do illustrate what you're discussing and aren't just there to talk about yourself. A bit of a no-self demo in itself, so to speak.

I still say you're no logger, lol...

[R Blog]

Logger sounds better than say...clogger.

[Edward]

"...a large chunk of primo Afghani hash..." sounds like a rigid "I am" identity.

[tAo]

Did I say otherwise? And who gives a damn about "identity" anyway... By the looks of your comment, I guess you do. But don't worry, you'll get over it eventually.

[Edward]

gad zooks, tAo, you have the worst intuition in the world. that was a joke, you bumbling pile of mossed-over ouroboros.