I am indebted to Joan "Joani" Culver who contributed material for this
conversation.
This conversation explores an unusual possibility: that my body may not
even be "my" body after all - therefore by inference, your
body may not be "your" body after all either. That's radical. As an
observable
experience, what (if any) value could there possibly be in
considering such an idea to be worthwhile enough to look into?
If you look closely, if you've been following the conversation for
transformation diligently, you'll notice there's an entirely new light
now shining on who we are ie there's an entirely new light now shining
on who we might be really. There's a new ongoing scrutiny of
this thing (if you will) we call
"I / me".
A new possibility for what this thing we call
"I / me"
might be, has presenced itself. Until this new possibility emerged,
"I / me"
was who we are. And now that this new possibility has
emerged,
"I / me"
may not be who we are after all. Instead
"I / me"
may just be something that
shows up
for us - along with everything else that
shows up
for us. This isn't merely smart chat. If you embrace this idea and
stand in its space ie if you try it on for size, you may find it to be
profoundly freeing.
What all the aforementioned suggests ie what it teases out, is the idea
that who we might be really is the space in which
"I / me"
(and everything else)
shows up.
Stated with
rigor,
who we might be really, is
the showing
itself. Now, is that true? For the purpose of the
inquiry, let's entertain the possibility that it is (and if it turns
out later it isn't, we'll discard it). OK, if it's true,
then "my / mine" (the first cousin of
"I / me",
if you will) may also not be what we've always held it to be. Indeed,
it may not have the same association at all anymore as it once had - at
least not in the same way as we once inferred it had, given what we now
know about
"I / me".
All of this was in the
background
in the past year and a half as I became involved deeper and deeper in a
thorough scrutiny of what's
the best diet / fuel for my
body,
going way beyond what's generally accepted to be the best
diet / fuel for our bodies, and into the realm of what's
specifically the best diet / fuel for mine. I noticed what
kept coming up was the notion of / reference to "my body" - not just
the body or even a body, but
"my" body. It occurred over and over and over again -
multiple times in this particular conversation (which is entirely
appropriate of course, in a conversation about diet). "It's 'my' body"
is one of those ironclad concepts that's built into the
machinery. That's how sure of it we are. We don't give
it a second glance. "It's my body" we say. Period.
Everyone knows that. But ... is ... it?
Then I stopped. In an epiphany, I saw maybe my body isn't really
"my" body. That's not simply because the entire notion of
"my / mine" is up for grabs, given
"I / me"
isn't who we are anyway. It's because as an experience, the body
is just here, present, something for which I choose to be
responsible. If who I really am is
the showing
ie if who I really am is (in a sense)
Life itself
being itself, then it's Life's body, not "mine" - and it
simply goeswith my experience of being here. Maybe.
Look: this isn't just clever semantics. It's a concept-breaking idea, a
boundary-stretching idea. I really do have it as "my" body
(don't you?). But "I / me", and with it "my / mine", has been
recontextualized
(I
love
that
word).
So I'm no longer sure if it is my body. It's just
here. It seems it goeswith my experience of being here.
This is interesting: the idea that "it's here, yet maybe it's not even
my body" clearly alters the way I relate to it. But that's
only its secondary impact. Primarily it alters the way who I might be
really,
shows up
for me. And listen: maybe it's true that it's not even my
body, and maybe it isn't. Whichever, it's a place from which, when I
stand and look, I get an entirely new view of who I might be
really. In this way, inquiring into whether it's really "my" body or
not, is an
access
to transformation.