Place and Purpose as Identity
Have you ever felt like you had a place to call home? It might be bigger than just your house or apartment. A home town for instance is a place one might think of as home. Maybe the people there have known you for a long time, and they accept and respect you. They may even have given you a nick name. When you go there do you feel somehow more at peace? Do you feel like you have gone "home"? Its an indescribable feeling to go home where you feel safe, and know you have a place.
In the past people used to add their hometown name after their first name. "Jesus of Nazareth." They felt so much a part of that group of humans that they even made the place name a part of their own name. When they were in their hometown, all they needed was a first name because everyone there was on a first name basis. The feeling of going home or being home is a primordial feeling. It goes down deep. Schools all over the world seek to create that kind of bond where the students identify themselves with the group and the place. "Go Redhawks!" or "Go Wolverines!" the students shout at their pep rallies. They feel bonded to the group and this is what most humans long for. To be bonded to a group. To identify with a group, to have a place in that group, and to feel safe in that group, is something that most naturally want and need. We need this as much as we needed our mother and father's love when we are an infant.
In the past, people had a hometown and in that hometown they had an occupation. They might have been a blacksmith, or a carpenter or a baker. "John Carpenter" was a name many have identified with. People used their occupation and skillset as a name just as people in other cultures used their hometown as a name. The name is the key to understanding it all.
Why do we need a name? I'm not trying to say names are bad and we need to give them up, I'm simply curious. Why do we need a name? One answer might be: so we can all be identified and communicated with. This is true, but is it the whole truth? Our names have a deeper meaning for us than that. We identify with our name. When we introduce ourself we usually say "I am" or "I'm" in front of our name. Our sense of self is wrapped up in our name and our families name and in our connection to our family. So much is contained in a name. We can feel pride or shame when we contemplate our family name and our place in that family. We can feel longing or revulsion when we think of our family name. We feel so much, because it is who we are. Or is it?
Who are you? Would you be anybody at all if you didn't have a name, a place or a purpose? If so, then how can we say with certainty that we are this or we are that? If you are still an entity without a name, a place or a purpose then how could you get to know yourself? What would or could you know about yourself? The answer is that you not only could know yourself you would know yourself much better. Everyone is so much more than their name, place or purpose.
It must feel very confusing for someone to wake up and not remember their name, place, history, or profession. It must be scary and disorienting and not a desirable situation at all, yet this does happen sometimes to some people. In a way, such an experience is an opening to a kind of knowing which transcends words and labels. If one can just experience that "not knowing" without panic, then one can begin to feel the their deeper "self". Its not a separate self at all, its a self that is a part of all. Identities give us a sense of self which defines us and although there is nothing wrong with that, to be without identity means you are undefined. You are undefined in your own eyes and self awareness is without words or judgements. Why is seeing yourself without labels or words an opportunity? Because only from a place of not knowing, can we know. If you can feel your inner being without having or really believing in the defining things like name, place or purpose, then you will be able to know your true nature in a much more complete way. Once you can feel your own true nature which is inherently undefined, then you can also feel that nature in others.
All living beings have a field of life energy around them which is not separate from their basic awareness. When you can become aware of this basic energy in other's and yourself, you will know that there is no way not to love them as much as you love yourself, or perhaps love them more. Meeting a puppy or kitten can be a deep emotional experience because you can't help but lower your guards and feel a deep love for that small creature with those big innocent eyes. Seeing without defining is the key to developing compassion for others. Judging others, is a very defining thing to do and that act of defining is what separates us from them. However, underneath the judgement there is a being with just as much Buddha nature as you have or any other living being including all the buddhas of the past present and future.
Once you can see the buddha nature in others then you can learn to see it in yourself. Having compassion for oneself and learning to have unconditional love for yourself is the key to escaping the prison cell of our own self loathing. It is the key to freedom or what many have called liberation. Having compassion for yourself starts with having compassion for others, and that starts by seeing them without labels and words. Rest in uncertanty whenever you can and you will be able to see others in their true glory, and you will eventually be able to see your own true glory.
If you are a buddha already then why can't you see that? Its because you believe otherwise, and those beliefs are labels which separate you from that knowing. Without labels, without beliefs, resting in the nature of unborn awareness, one can not, not see the true beauty of all living beings including your own "self."
