The other day, I saw how I so quickly defended myself when someone comments something about me which I deem as untrue. Untrue, because I think I am not what they think me to be.
However, as I pondered deeply upon my quick-to-defend behaviour, I begun to what the other person thought or perceived of me was right. It cannot be wrong because that was her observations of me and her conditioning had made her conclude what she thought about me. And what has her perception got to do with me, except to allow me an opportunity to self-inquire my auto-mated reaction?
I realised that I was triggered because I think what you say about me is untrue; and I don’t like you to think that way of me. Again, what have what you think of me got to do with me? That’s right, absolutely nothing. Anyone is entitled to think what they think similarly to my entitlement to freedom.
So it seems that while others have perceptions of me, so have I of myself. And when I find that you say or think a quality of me which does not agree with the list of qualities of what I think I am, then I’d say, “you don’t know me”. But do I really have these qualities – those I think I have and those you think I have? Yes and no. Yes due to the nature of impermanence; and no because what is inconsistent cannot be real. What is real is always constant and consistent.
So what I think I am, and what you think I am is ultimately not important ~ because they are all not me. And who I am; whom you think you see, whom I think I see; is but only a bundle of false ideas, hiding behind a persona to fool the world and myself that ~ this is I.