A Matter of Perspective
We’re so entirely focused on doing, on how to negotiate with life on our own terms—which essentially means trying to get more of what we want and less of what we don’t want.
But what does that say about our understanding of who we are and what life is? This posture, which oftentimes hides behind the cover of morality, isn’t as innocent as it seems. It denotes a subtly corrupted perspective on life and how we relate to it.
We see life as potentially good or bad to us. So we must believe we are somehow separate from it. But are we, really? In what way? Can you point to anything real within you that is subject to life rather than being life itself?
At the very root, before names and categorizations, are we not simply life—life with all that it implies—undifferentiatedly encompassing the so-called good and bad: pleasure and pain, comfort and discomfort, health and sickness, birth and death?
Could it not be that it is precisely this erroneous perspective on life—us being limited to a name, a “me”-concept, a personal story—that causes us to judge different conditions as either positive or negative?
What if we were to recognize, once and for all, what we truly are—not just limited individual “me” entities, not just actors or victims in life, but Life itself—all-encompassing, infinitely powerful, and creative?
Would we not then see more clearly beyond appearances, becoming more tolerant and less judgmental of the experiences we usually call unpleasant, ceasing to project onto them from a place of confusion?
Would we not also stand naturally more grounded, calm, and reserved when confronted with ephemeral pleasures that always leave behind bitterness once they have passed?
In that different perspective—which is the only valid perspective—we would know for a fact that, while life can indeed reveal itself through an infinity of forms and experiences, fundamentally, it extends beyond all of them.
We would have the certainty that what we are, in essence, is unbounded and unlimited by any condition—that it is we who contain them all, rather than them containing and limiting us.
So where is the truth? What are we exactly? Are we just small egos, or are we much more than that? Look for yourself. Simply look at what comes and goes and see what remains unchanged.
It certainly seems as though we are all, more or less, hypnotized by that “me” narrative. There are reasons for this. This perspective has been with us for thousands and thousands of years. We’ve created and destroyed entire civilizations because of it. It progressively infected us from the time language and concepts crystallized in us as what we now call mind or ego.
But it hasn’t always been there. And even now, it is only superficially active. What is there prior to that sense of me? And has that essence ever left us?
Is it not still here—with us, in us—already doing and taking care of everything, safely driving the bus to its intended destination, while we, like children, pretend we’re behind the steering wheel, always preoccupied with whether to turn right or left, instead of simply enjoying the journey?
IMF, Vang Vieng - Laos, 24 January 2025
