Wednesday, June 3, 2026
You’ve probably heard that you are not your thoughts, your body, or your mind. I’ve heard, “You are not your history. You are the awareness.” But wait. What’s removable?
What’s the difference between the piano, the piece, the audience, and the performer? Think of what piano playing entails. Once it all gets going, it’s all necessary – instrument, player, acoustics, air, music, listener, etc.! It’s the instrument that allows the player to make music, but the music doesn’t come by itself, nor can the piano play itself nor can sound waves exist without space. Is any one of those components (instrument, player, composer, listener, space, environment) any more or less important than the other? It takes a “village” and a whole lotta magic to make an experience. How can we say what’s inessential?
Something is allowing you to think, feel, eat, move, play and experience. So, is there a difference between the piano and that which is played upon it and who plays it and who writes for it and who thinks about it? Is there a difference between the thought and the instrument which brings forth that “song” into the world? What we can remove?
While you are not your thoughts, your history, your body, and your mind, I think we might best think along these lines: I am not just my thoughts, just my history, just my body and mind or just anything. So much is involved in a singular experience, we simply dampen out components in an illusion of me and my experience. Hold the phone – haven’t you heard, “God don’t make no junk?”
It’s a symphony of magic. I’m not just an awareness either. How can consciousness be known if it isn’t against some background of unknown or unconsciousness, and all that it contains and doesn’t?
How much is involved in a singular moment?
All of it, and then some. It beats everything.