Meditate Yourself Fit

WHO ARE YOU?

“Maybe you think things don’t change because you’re so sure you know what they are. Maybe it’s your thoughts that are stuck, not the things.”
Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (Tr. Annamarie Jackson)

You Are Not a Solid Unchanging Being Your signal is constantly changing. Remember the man who repeatedly tests his phone signal in the Verizon commercial, asking with every step: Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?

You can do the same thing to continually pick up a new message in your everyday life. Each moment has a new set of communication bars with your essential self. No two seconds are the same. Who are you? Who are you now? Who are you now? Whether it’s a few new cells, a slight shift in emotion, an insight, a change in your relationship to someone, a change in something or someone around you that needs you to respond differently, or a new opportunity, you are never the same for any two seconds.

The question Who are you? is a traditional Zen question. If you answer with your name, what happens if you change your name, are you still you? If you answer with your profession, what happens if you change your profession, are you still you? If you stop thinking compulsively about food, are you still you? If you lose weight, are you still you? If you’re not your name, your profession, your compulsive thoughts, or your weight, who are you then? What’s the deep, underlying presence that’s really you? To paraphrase Proust, maybe it’s your idea of who you think you are that keeps you from expressing your true self.

To follow every tiny change in your life, moment by moment, might drive you insane, so admittedly, having some default habits helps. Answering to your name and going to the right job is a useful strategy. But are all your habits helpful? Learning to monitor who you are now gives you the opportunity to adjust to who you need to be to effectively relate to constantly changing situations. You can keep the habits that work and make different choices for those that don’t. Ask yourself throughout the day, Who am I? Answer by simply BEING the one who observes and interacts with your changing qualities: your name, your profession, your food addictions, your weight. You can’t see the observer, the deepest part of you that always persists. It’s like trying to see your eye balls with your own eyes. You can only get in touch with this deep, unwavering self by being the unwavering observer of these constant changes with no separating thoughts between you and what you observe.

This is what is meant by “Be the ball.” In this state, you can relate to the ball completely and effectively. Maybe five seconds ago you let yourself be distracted by new people arriving on the golf course, but you caught yourself and now you’re totally one with the ball. Be the observer who has complete oneness with what you observe in the present moment and respond effectively. Maybe five seconds ago you appeared to be an addictive food-eating machine, but you caught yourself: Who are you now? Being completely one with the real needs of a situation is the meaning of compassion, including yourself in the whole picture.

Practice the constancy of being the essential you by observing your breath in meditation. The more strongly you identify with the essential you, the more easily you can let go of habits you don’t want. They’re just superficial attributes. You are not your eating habits. You are not your weight.

As Dr. David Burns points out in Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, “Your life is a complex and ever-changing flow….you are more like a river than a statue.”
Rivers are fluid and they reflect reality without judgment. If you want to change your weight or your eating habits, a fluid identity is one of the most important tools in your tool set.