There are no problems in life. You think you have problems, you believe them all to be true....you think you have to solve them and that there isnt a minute to loose..
Those problem are the minds attempt to keep a sense of identity. Im going to try and describe that now......
Most people think they are a thought. A position. A mind made image of themselves. And this always needs comparison with someone else. This identity that im trying to talk about NEEDS other people to derive its own sense of identity. It needs to be either better than someone at something (you would normally derive some kind of pleasure here) or worse than someone (this would usually carry some kind of pain, and the blind hope that one day you will conquer them in the end). Either way youve equated this with who you are.
These thoughts (that you think are your identity) are running around in your head all day. Lets look at an example...... You think your funny. Suddenly Jim carrey walks into the room, now your not funny. Most people experience this as a diminshment of who they are. You 'thought' you were 'the guy that was funny'. In other words you had an image of yourself as being the funny guy, and now theres someone who can do that better, and your role is threatened. This is the essence of what spiritual practices call 'thought based identity' or more traditionally the ego. Your ego derived a 'sense of self' from the thought of being 'the funny man'.
The ego's basic problem (which is your basic problem if you are in the grip of it) is that it lives in an imagined world. Now in your imagined world, you think (staying with the previous example) that you are the funny guy and 'others' laugh at your jokes, enjoy your company and revere in your hilarity. Now when someone comes along and cripples that imagination, you start to suffer. Sometimes the ego will even lash out at the perceived threat to 'your mind made world'.
So now a problem or hurt is born, your identity was threatened and you contracted. Maybe now you want to take lessons in comedy, or work on your scripts, oneliners etc. Now something to notice here is that you don't want to do these things because you enjoy it, but you want to do them to protect your sense of self. You felt threatened and this is a 'reaction' to it - in fact, to the ego this is a very serious problem indeed.
The whole thing was false because, you were never a funny man.
You were a man who happened to be funny. Its that way round. You are 'being' first. Your identity is not with 'things' or 'roles'. Your identity really is far deeper than any thought can ever be.
Funny man is not who you are! It might be one of the things you happen to do (to a certain degree) but its not who you actually are. You are not a thought. Funny man is just a thought that comes and goes.
Your identity is the being or awareness that even makes those thoughts possible. When you just be that, there are no more problems and life starts to feel good.
