Was It Ever Real?

As my ego developed as a child, I came to the realization I will die at some point. I can’t remember what triggered this. What’s that mean? Me as a body or Me as in what I thought? Looking back this is where my “I” sense had firmly established itself and was scrambling for attention. When it first happened, I was lying on my bed at night and felt a dropping out of all my ideas of who I though I was. This continued to happen for about three weeks tapering off as the drama of life overtook and displaced my sign of what “I” was or in this case… what “I” was not.  

This may mean that self-awareness was still in flux before this time, and I may not have beed involved in stories of my ego. So, it meant that after that, I was and am now totally caught up in labeling the world and my experience as good or bad.

I( the character known as Was Once, in more a correct term) got a feeling that the difficult circumstances of the flood in Bangkok, that caused me and my partner to be separated when his work got flooded actually propelled me to look at how I see the world. The flood even cancelled my Vipassana while there, leading me to the other Thai temple with a very realized abott. When I did a course here upon returning, I got to experience solitary cell meditation, working on my ego and anger. I look forward to another 10 day Vipassana, furthering weeding out of desires of the way things should be. I will look at pulling back further from a personal involvement with the world’s events. It doesn’t need me to label to continue the course of nature and it never did. I am really not that important, and it was only my ego that got it all confused.


I will re-examine in my meditation over the 10 days to see if the experience in Bagan was out of pure natural compassion or the ego wanting a new or a better experience.

My Shoes

I have thought about this off and on lately. Last week, when I got to my yoga class “my” usual spot was taken by someone else’s mat. I actually felt a slight bit bothered. I immediately let it go, found a new place and a mental note of this feeling. I say “my” spot because I can found there mediating 1/2 hour before class and it is conveniently located away from traffic, and moving people and things. But I don’t own the spot, so what is this all about? We often label things as mine, like “My shoes,” and when we can’t find them or someone took them we immediately have mental discomfort. We do it to a lot of things, putting ownership on material objects because we should... we paid for them, right? But just saying those are my shoes starts to create a firmer sense of I or me. This is only a road to more pain, extending your sense of self beyond your body, falling into traps like I did with my spot. It was really never mine before my usual arrival time, nor after the class ends, anyway. I think I might suggest to my teacher in my class that just before starting people are asked to move their mats two to the right or left, just to make people aware of their attachment to space. Explain to them, why after they move and to watch their thoughts. The more we are conscious of the pain we create for ourselves, the less we will blame others. It's becoming much clearer now that we create our own hell, and let's start running in the other direction.