Travis Eneix

I know you’re out there…I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid. You’re afraid of us, you’re afraid of change…I don’t know the future…I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end, I came here to tell you how this is going to begin. Now, I’m going to hang up this phone, and I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you…a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world…where anything is possible. - Neo from The Matrix

The problems of the world, all suffering, comes from misidentifying what we are, what the self is. The solution then is to know the truth. This point lies at the heart of very nearly all spiritual and religious paths.

We seek, and seek to find the self. And, of course the silly, apparent, paradox is that since we are the ones seeking, we are already what we are. We just look for it elsewhere.

We struggle with the right positioning of a demarcation. A border, a boundary.

We try to find what is self, and what is not-self, and get a firm grip on the difference. We look for the boundary. The funny thing is, in the actual world, there are no boundaries. Not in the way we use them. There are lines showing matched possibilities, but no boundaries. The line of the shore shows the pairing of sea & land. Without that line we would not be able to tell the differing qualities of either part of that matched pairing. Same with the twilight line between night & day. Up & down. Front & back. In the actual world these lines do appear to show the contrasting dance of matched pairs. But, they are not solid, they flux and flow.

These lines confirm the interdependence, and inter-existence of the matched pairs. No up without down. No in without out. No subject without object. In the actual world of lines, all is one, and could not be without a single half of any matched pair.

The human mind, in its struggle to make sense of the world and survive makes these lines into boundaries. We then internalize the idea of boundaries as real, and draw a demarcation between what is self & not-self. The first, most innocently natural boundary is the skin. What is in my skin is self, what is outside is not-self. This is terribly sensible, readily apparent and very useful. The problem is that boundaries are borders, and a border is where battles occur. They give rise to struggle. This starts the war of me versus my environment. Once I accept that boundary I an consigned to live in a world of not-self, of other, of danger, unknown and threat. I am now cut in half.

The problem grows though. Slowly the boundary comes within and, in the Western stream of thinking especially, we draw another boundary of the self. Body & Mind. I become just the mind, and my body is now other. It doesn’t do what I want it too all the time. It is not completely under my control so it must not be me. It stumbles, gets sick, grows old and feeble, it dies. The body, ultimately, kills me.

And still, the boundary shrinks. I get really, really pissed and do something horrible. I live with the guilt of doing so, and then deny that I could ever do such a thing again. And, when I am moved to act the same way again, I rebel and cast the impulse out. That’s not me. I would never do that. Now the boundary is between the characteristics of behavior I approve of, and those I don’t. They are not me. They are other, not-self. I push them out with the god-like power of denial and project them onto the available canvas, other people.

Now I am lost. I have split myself into smaller and smaller portions, and I no longer know what I am for the simple reason that I have drawn a hard boundary around what I think I am, what it is ok and comfortable to be. I have misidentified myself, and suffering abounds. I live in a world filled with an environment of danger, a body that betrays me, and people who harbor the evilest tendencies that I myself would never share.

But, I have done this. It is not my natural condition. It is not the actual world or state of affairs. It is not true.

When I let go of the habit of holding boundaries, and instead enjoy the beauty of lines, I am free. Once again the world is whole.

Last night I looked at my wife and I could find no boundary.

She still has kickin’ lines though!

For a long time now I have been on the path of self-inquiry. Trying to plumb the questions of “Who am I?” and “What am I?” In this looking I find myriad object: forms and thoughts. Whatever I can be aware of is not the subject. So, if I can see it, it is not me, not the ultimate subject that is aware, not the goal of the quest. But, there is no subject without an object. I have been looking to find a distinct thing to call self and putting all I find across the boundary into not-self. This is self imposed and not real. I am not Subject aware of Objects. I am Subject plus Object. There is no pulling apart the matched pairs. They are one. I am one.

Cheers!

Stumble it!