Looking for the True Self

Wow… I had a very unskillful time of things at the Jam last evening. When John and I arrived there were only two others there and one of the guys asked me to drum on the first and third beat only. He played a bit of a song he was going to do, and he coached me, and then my emotions went on a demented detour. A wounded state got triggered (honestly, that wounded state had come into the jam with me after it was previously triggered by another situation). It was all I could do to stay in that room for two hours. I did not put my hands on my drum for one beat.

He apologized to me after the jam.

I apologized to him by text this morning.

So much unnecessary suffering….

Yesterday’s Daily Arron Quote: Decisions made from a space of contraction will always carry karma. They will always come from the self, from the ego. Decisions made while resting in that spaciousness that is aware of the contraction and is not hooked into a self-identity with it are free of karma and can hold the spaciousness of the loving heart as ground for the decision or words.

I was self-identified as the person who could not drum correctly; the person who was not allowed to drum the way I wanted to drum; the person who was not good enough.

Those are familiar thoughts and feelings, but they are not who I am. As I am writing this post a text message from Empty Circle Zen group arrived:

We ARE IN the habit of identifying ourselves with our bodies. The idea that we are this body is deeply entrenched in us. But we are not just this body; we are much more than that.

The idea that “This body is me and I am this body” is an idea we must get rid of. If we do not, we will suffer a great deal. We are life, and life is far vaster than this body, this concept, this mind. We are connected with everything and everything with us.

My emotions did not originate in the interaction about the drumming. My emotions came from old habit energies of feeling judged or rejected or controlled, resulting in not feeling good enough and believing that someone or everyone was doing something or everything wrong.

The true self has deep compassion for all humans navigating these bodies, these concepts, these minds. The true self has wisdom to recognize the suffering that comes from self-identification with all of that.

While the true self was working on this post, I received an email from a friend saying a digital copy of his book, Looking for the True Self, is now available. (The title of this post comes from the title of his boo k.) The downloadable, virus-free, printable, and shareable file is freely available on his website (www.georgesanfacon.com).

Note: George says you may get a pop-up message box that reads “This file is too large to preview” or “This file is too large to scan for viruses” but fear not — the file is safe and you can click the “download” or “download anyway” button.

Excerpted from “Looking for the True Self:”

a spark is born and dies in a split second, while the sun seems to last forever

but if your time shifted to a longer perspective,
you could watch the sun flicker in and out of existence, too,
same as a spark from a fire

and so your body is flickering, too

the Universe scooped you up into manifest existence,
and will soon pour you back …. …. ….

May all beings enjoy looking for the true self!