me & not me

This is often regarded as the primary duality: this feeling of I, separate from everything else that is not the I, not me. And indeed, if the spiritual journey has any goal at all, it is to overcome this feeling of the separate self. And it can happen. We can go beyond that distinction, not just intellectually – although that can help a little – but more importantly, as our day-to-day, moment-to-moment feeling for life. And if you pay careful attention to your awareness, you will see that when you are not thinking, not thinking thoughts in words, when you are directly attending to your sensations, to your senses, you will notice that there is no I involved. There is just the direct perception.

It could be any of the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching. And by touching we can also include the inner bodily sensations: feelings of pain or pleasure in the body, feelings of energy in the body. This we also sense in the same way. And when thoughts are absent, you will see that there is no I. There is just the sensation. That separation between the observer and that being observed disappears. It does not exist.

Thinking is a little bit more problematic. When our awareness is with our thoughts, there is somehow often a feeling of I involved in that. But one meditation technique is to watch the thoughts, to create a gap between the feeling of I and the thoughts, and then the thoughts can be observed in much the same way as any of the sensations. But that can still leave a feeling of I as the witness, the awareness. And actually that witness does not exist. There is no I.

But to approach this, to begin to taste it for oneself, it is easier to work with the senses. Sight: just gaze at something without thinking, and in the silent space of the mind, when there is just seeing happening, feel. Feel if there is an I separate from that which is being seen. You will not find a separation. You will not find two things involved in the seeing. The same with hearing: close your eyes and bring all the awareness to the sounds. It may be the song of a bird. If there are no thoughts, then once again you will not be able to feel yourself as separate from the hearing of those sounds. There is no gap. There is no separation.

So through these simple meditation techniques, we can come to feel for ourself that there is no duality between me and everything that my mind considers to be not me. That separation is in thoughts alone. It is created by the thinking mind. It is a concept with no reality.