By JOAN GLACY

If someone had told me a year ago that I’m not who I think I am, I wouldn't have believed it. That’s all changed.

Part One: Just The Facts

At first, I’m cautious. “Become a detective. Observe yourself, just the facts.” “List all the things you think of as yours.” “Try not using the words ‘I,’ ‘me,’ and ‘mine'.” These are curious instructions.

Yet, I trust and dive in. Slowly, gradually, unexpectedly, recognizable patterns begin to emerge, familiar feeling tones, and wornout stories that wrap around me like a heavy coat, comfortable but constraining. What is all this?

Holding these mental habits up to the light, it becomes possible to see. My mental habits cloud the viewing of my mental habits, yet with careful attention and reflection…with noticing, reflecting…slowly, gradually…a new view emerges, one that allows judgement-free interest in what “she” does and why “she” does it.

Part Two: This New Existence

Acting teachers say that once you learn what actors do, you’ll never watch TV the same way again. This is like that: The curtain is pulled back. The laboratory that is the meditation cushion now extends to all of life.

There seems to be two of me, the one who squabbles with her husband, and the one who wonders, “Why does she squabble with her husband?”

Expanding my daily meditation practice to an hour seems a natural response to what’s happening, and generous writers extend guiding hands along the way: It’s Up To You by Dongzen Kongtrul Rinpoche offers a new coat to wear, woven with warm, loving encouragement. No Self, No Problem by Chris Niebauer gives scientific grounding for what’s happening. In the company of these writers and others, fellow students, and mentors, with Teacher Fred leading the way, the fruit of this new existence begins to ripen.

Part Three + Retreat: We Are Verbs, Not Nouns

For millenia, deeply wise and spiritual beings have considered the mind. Their great gift to us is a road map for understanding what it is to be a human being. Freedom is here, we just need to know how to find it.

(Continued from Mindfulness Matters)

Daring to seek, the answer appears: The self is as impermanent and empty as anything else. Having prepared the mind this past year to receive the truth of its own emptiness, it is possible during the sweet sanctuary of retreat, to experience this at-first jarring, ultimately liberating reality. Exhilaration arises, having possibly glimpsed the insight that leads to the other shore.

Epilogue: This Present Moment

Exhilaration is fleeting. Three days after retreat, we squabble. This is familiar terrain, but also different. Might even this be met with presence, awareness, understanding and gratitude?

Analyzing how this present moment comes to be this present moment doesn’t necessarily illuminate how to be in this present moment, but it points the way. It points to grounded presence and open-hearted awareness, kindness and compassion, familiar yet new.

Who is writing?

A mind, a mystery,

Without a “you” or “me,”

At home in equanimity.

Joan Glacy, a member of FCM's Naples Sangha, lives in Marco Island with her husband. About two years ago, she sought a local meditation group, never imagining the treasures that awaited her just up the road in Naples. Before retirement, Joan was a psychiatrist, a medical researcher, an actor and a pizza tour guide. After retirement, she is (aware that she is) a verb.