..續本文上一頁t wandering thinking; it”s not judging or analyzing, but just noticing, “It”s like this.” When you deliberately think, you can use thought to keep pointing to this, noticing the way it is.

　　If you listen to the pronoun “I” in a sentence, such as “I am an unenlightened person,” and the words that follow, you will realize that you are creating this consciousness of yourself through the words you are deliberately thinking. That which is aware of your thinking – what is that

　　 Is that a person

　　 Is it a person that is aware

　　 Or is it pure awareness

　　 Is this awareness personal, or does the person arise within that

　　Explore. Investigate. By investigating you are actually getting to notice the way it is, the dhamma. You come to recognize that there is actually no person who is being aware. Nevertheless, awareness will include what seems personal.

　　When one says, “I am an unenlightened person who needs to practice meditation in order to become an enlightened person in the future,” one assumes that “I am this body. I have this history. I am so many years old, born in such and such a place. I”ve done all these things and so I have a history to prove that this person exists.” I have a passport and a birth certificate, and people even want me to have a website. But, in fact, there doesn”t seem to be any person in the awareness.

　　I find that the more I am aware, the more my personal story seems utterly unimportant and of no interest whatsoever. It doesn”t mean anything. It”s just a few memories I can churn up. Yet if I adopt the personal view, if I get caught up in myself, thinking about myself as a real personality, then suddenly I find my past tremendously important. An identity gives me the sense that I am a person. “I have a past; I am somebody. I am somebody important, somebody that may not be terribly important, but at least I feel connected to something in the past. I have a home, I have a heritage.” People talk about losing a sense of their identity, perhaps because they”re refugees, their parents are dead, they”re of mixed race, or they lack any clear identity of themselves as belonging to something in the past. The sense of a personality depends very much on proving that you are somebody. You have your education, your race, your accomplishments or lack of accomplishments; you are an interesting or uninteresting person, important or unimportant, a Very Important Person or a Very Unimportant Person!

　　In meditation we are not trying to deny personality. We are not trying to convince ourselves that we are non-people, grasping ideas such as “I have no nationality. I have no sex. I have no class. I have no race. The pure dhamma is my true identity.” That kind of thinking is still another identity, isn”t it

　　 That”s not it. Our practice is not about grasping the concepts of no-self. It is in realizing, in noting through awakened attention, the way things really are.

　　This simple exercise of saying “I am an unenlightened person” is quite deliberate. You could also say, “I am an enlightened person!” You can choose which you would like to be, enlightened or unenlightened. Most of us don”t dare to go around saying we are enlightened. It”s safer to go around saying, “I am an unenlightened person,” because if you say, “I am an enlightened person,” someone is going to challenge you. They will say, “You don”t look very enlightened to me!” Whatever you say – “I am an unenlightened person” or “I am an enlightened person” or “I am an enlightened non-person” or “I am an unenlightened non-person” – the words are not really important. It”s the attention that matters.

　　I have found this exercise very revealing. When I did it, it became very clear what awareness, apperception, sati-sampajanna, is. Then the thinking, the perceptions, arose. Deliberately thi…

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