Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

Who Am I?

With Christopher Titmuss recorded on March 10, 2019.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

“Who Am I?” is a fundamental question. You have to live the question, day in and day out. You cannot think through an answer.

The self (‘I’ and ‘my’) lands on objects, voluntarily or involuntarily. Primary objects of interest include forms, feelings, perceptions, formations of mind/speech/body and consciousness (mindfulness, awareness, concentration and meditation). The self also grasps onto people, places, goods etc. When ‘I’ and ‘my’ becomes involved in one or two areas to take up, it is not involved in other objects of interest. A whole life can be spent living under the spell of self – self-interest, self-help, self-enquiry, self-acceptance, self-compassion etc. The resolution to the deep question Who am I? never concludes with an answer starting with “I am…..” This response only expresses a view. There is a much greater depth to realize than that.

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • The Power of Change

    We wish for change. The time of the old is up. Its structures, habits and perspectives have lost their appeal. We sense the potential for something fresh to start. We can witness change. Feel victimized or beaten by it. Or find ways of empowerment and respond with wisdom. Meditation, mindfulness and reflection provide the tools…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Dharma, Sex, Intimacy and Covid

    We are more physically isolated during these days of Covid. Less physical contact, less access even to each others smiles beneath the masks we wear to care for each others’ health. Contact and intimacy are deeply important to humans, and in this session Sangha Live founding and guiding teacher Martin Aylward explores different forms of…

    Read More

  • Norman Blair

    Settling Into Your Body In Meditation – December 2023

    Finding a comfortable body posture when meditating is a crucial element in our practice. We can use our bodies as a way of experiencing change and impermanence. Each time is different. In this session we will be looking at ways to make our bodies comfortable for meditation – both standing (if appropriate for your body)…

    Read More

  • What is the Ultimate Truth?

    The world of mind-body, mindfulness, meditation and well-being maximises priority on conventional or relative truth. This requires wise attention and change relative to our experience. We are familiar with taking up views, remaining neutral with views or holding onto views. We might call these views relative or absolute. Can we discover (ultimate) truth not bound…

    Read More

  • Zohar Lavie

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of July 5, 2021

    This week’s theme is: The Power of Compassion.

    Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive. – Dalai Lama

    During this week we will explore how compassion informs and supports meditation practice and the deepening of understanding and wisdom. We will practice and inquire into different aspects of this powerful attitude and intention and taste for ourselves the impact it has on ourselves and the world.

    Read More

  • Brian Dean Williams

    S.A.L.S.A.: Using Buddhist practice to Respond to “Spicy” Emotions

    Life presents plenty of opportunities to react unconsciously, often creating harm for ourselves and others. How might we apply our Buddhist practice to “Spicy” situations and emotions, in order to respond wisely? In this session, Brian will draw on Stephen Batchelor’s work and propose a working acronym of “S.A.L.S.A.” to navigate life’s spiciness and act…

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of June 17, 2024

    This week’s theme is “Preparing the Heart and Mind”. In Buddhist practice we often hear we should let go. And often enough we would really like to let go of those thoughts, impulses, moods and contractions which keep us agitated and in unease. But letting go is rarely something we decide to do; and neither is holding on. In the upcoming week we will explore why the heart-mind holds on to something and how we can prepare, nourish and soothe it, so that letting go becomes a natural process, not a willful command.

    Read More

  • Resting in Love, as Love

    Consciousness itself is not disturbed by a busy mind. In practice, the ego takes this truth and says, “I will transcend mind.” But the “I” that experiences itself as separate from life cannot and will not ever know liberation. There is no such thing as an enlightened ego. What else is possible? Resting in Love,…

    Read More