(舊文章) Who are you?

這是我四年前的舊文章了.....

Sometimes my friends talk about their afflictions with me and how they are tormented by them. Once I said, “The disposition masters the habit, and the habit masters the fortune. Therefore, we can make our fortune different by changing our habit, and we can make our habit different by changing our disposition. Thus, life could be made tremendously good by just ourselves.” My friends responded “Perhaps you are right. But if I change, that would be not me.” When I heard that, I would like to ask “Who are you?” Yes, who are you.

If I were asked this question, with consideration, I have no answer of certainty except a name. But even the name, I could be Lin Yu Chun, Cynthia, Fish and so forth. Hence, what should I hold of solidity?

In the Buddhist point of view, people are afraid to change because of not realizing the nature of being. It is ignorance to obscure our mind and we are even blind to the nature of suffering. On the other hand, I would also say that people are afraid to change because if they try to make themselves different from what they have been, it seems to mean that they lived and thought wrongly before. The denial would be harsh for people. Therefore, they superficially rationalize their behavior and thoughts rather than change them and are stuck in difficult lives.

People hold an idea of a solid “I” without thinking what it stands for, and are busy chasing what is futile to the “I”. If the self is solid and could not be changed, it is a tragedy that we do not have any even tiny hope to make our life better. Conversely, if we can be changed and are good enough without the necessity to change, we would not be tormented by affliction and would even be liberated from cyclic existence. Both of these two ideas are the obstacles of getting rid of suffering and acquiring happiness for ordinary people.

Therefore, what is the point that we do not want to change when we are exactly suffering? If we are mastered by ignorance and drowned in the difficult stream of consciousness, that would be the real tragedy.