‘Me’ is so familiar to us that we don’t see it as an entity that the mind has created.

It feels so real to relate as ‘me’, yet it is a package of thought processes. That is hard to comprehend.

When we drop the ‘me’ that the mind has created, maybe we can experience ‘being’ without the mental overlay, without description.

Aaaaah, peace, bliss.

Ezra Bayda tells a story in ‘At home in the muddy water’ where a zen student says to the master ‘There is something terribly wrong with me. I think I’m a dog’. The master asks how long he has had that thought, to which the student answers ‘Ever since I was a puppy’.

We can see how ridiculous it is to believe this idea of being a puppy and a dog, it is easy to see how thinking doesn’t reflect what is real, yet we find it hard to recognise that the thoughts we believe about ‘me’ or abut things happening ‘to me’ are equally misplaced.

We are often not even aware of our deeply held beliefs.

These beliefs, including the mind-constructed ‘me’, can keep us unaware of our Self, of our own true nature.

We are conditioned from a young age into this fundamental mis-identification. The work on this spiritual path is to realize the whole of your self and see where ‘me’ fits in. Just a mind invention, useful in communication, not as important as we think!

Of course the mind is useful, it is a great tool for living life. Use it for what it can do. When it comes to meditation, or realising the truth of who you are, the best thing to do is to drop back from the thinking mind, and have the experience of being. Aaaah, so peaceful and expansive.

In class we have used this as a mantra to take us to meditation, it seemed to work well.

Give it a try and let me know how you go, repeating over and over to yourself, ‘Drop the ‘me’ and just BE’.

You can purchase your own set of these contemplation cards from the store HERE and postage is free in Australia. The picture on the front of each card is by Gayle Stone Art. Much more meaning than is teased out here can be taken from these cards, this is just a start. I’d love your feedback and look out for my blog about the next card soon