Assumption. Something we're all familiar with. It's the fertile ground of mind activity. The mind works on predictions based on what has gone before. It is this complex scaffolding of acquired beliefs and conditioning that informs behaviours via the unique lens of each subjective experience.
We haven't zoomed out enough in the human exploration to see that even the 'I' of this whole cinematic experience - the apparent protagonist of the adventures of life, is also a habitual belief.
How so?
Well, prior to the age of about two and a half, life isn't carved out into subjects and objects. There is no separation. 'I' don't exist as a concept, until falling into language (and the ninth letter of the alphabet). Until that point, it doesn't mean that I didn't exist as an abstraction of life's beautiful, infinite intelligence - it just means that an idea labelled this body/mind as distinct from the rest of 'life'.
Existential, huh?
Well it's not just philosophical theory confined to a dusty shelf in the land of academia.
It's evidenced every moment in day-to-day life. Because if there are thoughts of 'me' (you know, that incessant narrator we've taken as truth) and perceptions of this body, then how can 'I' be just the mind/body when the awareness is vaster than 'it'.
Or more simply put, if the mind/body is the totality of what I am, who or what is aware of the mind/body?
Nondualists (particularly the purists) are emphatic about the absolute nature of 'being'. That's cool (and kinda challenging to the limitations of a finite mind), but what's particularly interesting to me (see how pronouns become tricky when we delve into these areas) is considering the intersection between the vast nature of being and the nitty gritty of life - or as the French call it, 'metro, boulot, dodo'.
This exploration for me isn't about denial of mortgage payments, school admin, PE kits, office politics or any such mundanity. There is no perceptional shift in 'meditating that away' or declaring it as 'just thought'. On the contrary, getting intimate with the seemingly banal stuff can be revelatory.
Bear with me.
Here's the deal. As within, without. Every unquestioned belief (including the one about 'me') is unexplored territory which has the potential to shift the inner world, and this completely changes the way life shows up 'out there'.
We're not saying here that the world out there isn't real. We're saying that the way it appears is entirely shaped by subjective beliefs. Perception is the invisible filter which conjures up our unique translation of reality. Just as social tiles are manipulated to present a certain view of the creator, so our lives are appearing through the prism of bias.
Big stuff.
And here's the even bigger plot twist. The imagined 'I' isn't in control. It never was. The toddler cruising around furniture, grasping at inanimate objects is a beautiful expression of intelligence in motion. Crawling is happening. Cruising too. The idea of me is acquired and embedded in neural pathways. This habitual tendency to identify with it consumes us until we become self-preoccupied. Life is constantly analysed and pulled back to the reference point of 'me' in all dynamics.
It's a potent idea (this story of me), and most probably an entirely deliberate aspect of the human design.
As I see it, we're not here to rail against being human. Or to transcend it. Or even figure it out (though it looks like I'm trying to have a good go at that). It's fun to be in the nitty gritty (OK, maybe not the mortgage bit..or event the school admin), because when that's contextualised in the vastness of all that we are, there's less riding on it. Discomfort is welcomed rather than held at arms length. Life experiences are here to reveal the deep-seated beliefs taken as truth. An unravelling of sorts.
Or at least I assume it is.
