It is always important to come back to the very beginning: I wake up to a never-ending moment. I cannot say with any certitude where I am, what I am, or who I am without relying on some piece of information or reference to some other person or belief that is not actually here right now. My entire moment, which I imagine as a single day in which I wake up, move about, and then return to sleep, is driven by various desires: physical relief and comfort, physical, mental, and emotional nourishment, distraction and entertainment and more.
I awaken into a world supposedly inhabited by beings called people. Though I experience my own self one way, I am led to believe that these beings that walk around are just like me; that they all have some internal experience similar to mine. That they also have awakened here and will return to sleep at the end of their day. I do not actually experience either their internal experience, I just assume they have it. I can never know this directly. I must simply accept that this is true.
I am supposed to believe that this space I experience through this small oval-shaped window is larger than and contains me, despite being constrained entirely to my own “head”. I can only ever see this “world” as a smallish layer of light, sound, motion, and physical sensation. My entire experience of this world is that it is a rather small thing within some greater layer that I feel more closely to me, where I have thoughts, ideas, feelings, and other sensations and desires. Yet despite the latter being significantly “larger” than the former, I am supposed to believe that the former is the larger and contains the latter.
I can only experience this current moment, but I am supposed to believe that there is this thing called time and there are many more moments behind me that already occurred, and ahead of me that will occur. Beyond that, there are supposedly moments being experienced by countless other beings. All of this is imagined but believed. I have come to accept that these experiences are occurring wherever there is a sentient being, which includes the aforementioned people, but also all other creatures in this place called the world.
I was supposedly born, and I will presumably die. Before my supposed birth the world existed, and after my death the world will continue to exist. I cannot and never will experience any of this. I just simply have to accept that this is the nature of this existence.
These assumptions and many more do not hold weight. They all rely on my blindly believing that there is something beyond me. That there are things I do not and can never know. But my direct experience of this place informs me otherwise. These assumptions are deeply intertwined with the language I use and the secondself thought patterns I re-enact every awakening. They have grown around and suffocated me, keeping me here in this cycle of awakening. To escape and heal from my awakening I must identify and withdraw from them where I find them. I must avoid the thoughts and language where these assumptions hide and thrive.
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