Who am I?

The Four Noble Truths are the basis of the teachings of Buddhism. The First Noble Truth as expressed by the Buddha himself was the acknowledgment of suffering in life. This is often expressed as “Life is suffering.” At first glance this seems a very gloomy statement about life. Yet, my sense of this is that the statement isn’t so much a value judgment as it is a statement of fact. Think of how we answer the simply and mostly cursory question “How are you?” When asked by friends or colleagues, I usually answer some variation on “hangin’ in there” or “not too bad” or simply “ok.” I usually get the same in return. This acceptance of dissatisfaction is so ingrained that whenever someone answers “fantastic!” or “I’m doing great!” we actually perk up and ask... “Oh? What’s going on?”

It’s important to note that life is suffering is but one translation. In Sanskrit the term is dukkha, which can be translated as suffering, or often as dissatisfaction. My understanding is that when we use the word dissatisfaction it’s not referring to the dissatisfaction you might feel when you go to a restaurant and your meal is not what you expected, or you go to a movie that isn’t very good. As a Buddhist monk friend of mine likes to say “this isn’t about being unhappy because you got an oatmeal cookie and you wanted chocolate chip. It runs much deeper.” A condition prevalent in the fact of being.

So what is my experience of dukkha? I don’t think my experiences are unique. Deaths in the family when I was fairly young, life-plans gone awry, relationships gone bad. I remember a time of personal upheaval: my job was going badly and my relationship at the time was at the brink of breakup. While some might have looked outside themselves to find blame or to seek solace in others, for me it became a simple equation where I was the common denominator. So I had the very real experience of looking at myself in the mirror and asking “Who am I?” That simple yet profound question led me to a deep personal exploration for which Zen became the vehicle.

Why did “who am I” provoke such a crisis? I had put so much of my identity, my sense of self, my being into my life rolls, that when those got shaken, a crisis developed. I thought I was a great partner in a relationship, yet I found myself divorced and ending a second long-term relationship. At one point in my life I would describe myself as a graduate student. Yet when I was unable to finish my Ph.D. I could no longer be that. Finally, when a series of events in the workplace led me to question my teaching abilities, I felt that I could no longer say, “I am a pretty good teacher.” All the things I thought I was, I wasn’t. With Zazen and therapy it became clear to me that those weren’t the things I was, they were the things I did. I could stop doing all those things and my core being remained. What is that core being? I continue to explore that with Zen, so come back and read some more, I’m sure more will come up on this issue.