I just noticed a very simple thing, and I’m surprised I haven’t thought much about it in the past. It is something that frames and provides the platform for how I am learning to concentrate. It is a core theme in how I meditate. And it still feels like a discovery.
Whenever I consider the parts of my body, my hands, my face, my feet, it is the part of me where my consciousness lands. If I happen to whisper anything at all to my knowing mind, it is something like “my face is being known, my chin is known, my breath is known.”
I notice that this is a habit, and that I do not whisper “I know my face, I know my chin, I know my breath.” There is no “I” involved. The awareness is I-less. Without the “I”, the awareness is clear, energetic, joyful.
I notice that the way I surrender when I focus concentration is without an “I”. There is no acknowledgement or awareness that “I” am taking the plunge into formless space, a free fall into nothingness. There is only an awareness that the plunge is being taken.
This lack of a reference to self seems so important as I think back to what kind of release I experience when I relax and fall into the void. “I” has been left behind. “I” remains behind me on the shore as my concentration pushes out into the flowing, formless stream.
The conscious entity that ventures out towards the other side is without an identity, without a name. The entity is close to being “I-less”. I am obliquely aware that I am the one engaged in the journey. But the “I” is mostly off to the side. The focus of awareness, the concentration is that the journey is being taken.
I know that this seems like a small discovery, but it has already affected the way I am moving through the day. It began with the realization that when I scan parts of my body, my consciousness envelopes and absorbs all it touches. The cheeks, the nose, the breath are simply being known. There is no need for an “I” to act or take charge.
The subject of any sentence I might whisper is not the “I” who appears to act. The subject is the object that is being known. I notice that there is much to take in, much to absorb, much to be aware. It seems that this happens in such a relaxed, joyful, gentle way when “I” is not in the way. I seem to be learning a way that is I-less.