Anatta

“Anatta. Not mine, not me.”

Frustration arises from the negation of self.

“Isn’t everything appearing in my consciousness?”

Attention momentarily lands on the clouds.

“Not mine, but in my mind. A part of my consciousness? A part of me?”

Experience flows, time passes. The parts highlighted by attention don’t come close to painting the whole. There is always more to experience; a continuous stream of phenomena, more than can ever be fully recognised in a moment of time.

“Yet in all these parts, not a single one that I can identify as me.”

The background and the foreground, even the sense of self is effortlessly rendered here.

As is the searing brilliance of the sun behind the clouds.

“The field of consciousness is too overwhelming, too vast, too impersonal to be me!”

What was thought to be a separate self entity, is found to simply be a stream of experience. Made possible by some mysterious quality of the universe.

“Consciousness. Not mine, not me!”

The loss of identity is not mourned, for it brings a sense of great liberation and deep connection. A peace that should never be lost or disturbed, but is somehow obscured by an organism's single-minded pursuits in life.

“What of the ones I love? Are they not somehow separate?”

Currents mingling within a boundless river. After all, for phenomena to interact, they must share some fundamental essence.

Simultaneous streams of experience; flowing, branching, merging. Defining each other, and thus not truly separate.

“All is one! Heartfelt peace! Unconditional love!”

 

Photo from Science Photo Library