A childhood memory burnt itself into you. Maybe your father called you ugly and you made it part of your self-identity for the rest of your life, until, that is, you confront it and rediscover your beauty.
Memories are formed whenever we experience life intensely. The details around the event often get mixed up, but the memory of the feeling burns itself so deeply into our brain that it seems larger than life.
Dajian Huineng (638-713) once said, ‘Empty your mind. Now, without thinking of good and bad, what was your original face before your parents met?’ This describes the experience of no-self quite well. Who are we without the memory of self?
Our self is nothing but a bundle of memories, conditioned self-identities and feelings about life’s events viewed from the perspective of our desires and aversions. Thoughts about the future and regrets, cravings and clinging describe our self. None of this is real.
Spiritual living has the habit of cleaning out these desires and regrets. We travel more lightly as we let go of what is foreign to our being. At the end of the day though, there is only so much spiritual therapy we can do. The self will always be conditioned.
The best way to run with our authentic self is just to be, to live the power of now moment to moment. Spiritual living is the ability to spot
S erenity
E empowerment
L ove
F usion (with the Beyond)
in life itself, and as we do, we show the face we were before our parents met.
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