Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.

Today, I'm going to talk about

the possibility of discovering

a deeper sense of self.

So although we might have a very

solid idea of what kind of person we

are, when we train in awareness and

begin to look a little bit closer at

who we are that solid fixed sense of

identity starts to change a little.

We begin to observe the transient and

fleeting nature of body and mind, and

we kind of have this realization that

on one level we're more like a living

process than a fixed and solid identity.

So as we observe the mind for instance,

and we see that thoughts are arising

seemingly out of nothing and then

dissolving very quickly back into

nothing, even though we may have the

kind of sense of having very fixed

ideas and opinions, when you look

closely like this at the nature of

thoughts, they're anything but solid.

They're very fleeting and they

actually have to be repeated over and

over again to appear solid at all.

And so we can't be our thoughts because

we're watching our thoughts come and go.

Our emotions too, come and

go and continuously change.

We might be prone to certain

emotions or think out of ourselves

maybe as an angry person or a

sad person or an anxious person.

But no emotion is there all the time.

So we can't be that emotion.

It's not our true identity because we're

observing the emotions coming and going.

And the body too is changing continuously.

We see that when we look in the

mirror, right, or when we look

back at old photos of ourselves.

And actually from a scientific

perspective, the cells in the

body are constantly changing,

dying and being regenerated.

And actually you have a whole

new set of cells, a whole new

body, every seven to ten years.

You know, and our roles out life

circumstances, our environment,

our community, our world, all of

it is a flow of ongoing change.

So as we look at these changing

conditions, we find that there's

nothing we can point to and say,

that's a solid, fixed identity.

So it'll be closer to say

that you're a living process.

You are, uh, a flow of life.

We, human beings love to define things

and put mental labels on things.

But if we can lay aside that tendency

to see ourselves solely through

mental definitions, we can find out

who we are in our direct experience,

who we are beyond all definitions.

And with that discovery comes a

lot of freedom and peace of mind.

So we'll explore this a little more

in today's meditation, and I invite

you to settle in for that now.

And as always, thank you very much

for your practice and for your

presence here in this community.