An Excerpt from Spontaneous Creativity
Through meditation practice we can look inward and explore the fixed I who suffers. When we do that, we come to see that this sense of I can only continue to exist because we maintain it with our thoughts and imagination. When we stop building up I in this way, it loosens its grip. We begin to feel a sense of openness. That narrowly focused self no longer controls our thoughts, no longer blocks access to inner space, to the creative source.
The hitch is that this false I is often hidden, driving our reactivity from just beneath our awareness. We are so used to identifying with it that we act as if it is real. When we expose this I, we may react with attachment or aversion, either clinging to it, unable to imagine life without it, or searching for ways to get rid of it.
The world is full of well-meaning advice on how to improve yourself, and many people meditate in an attempt to replace the undesirable self with another, more positive self. But those efforts are fruitless and miss the point. The fundamental issue that is not being addressed is holding on to the ego’s insistence that we have a solid, unchanging identity. Discovering the truth of egolessness or selflessness is a core teaching in my tradition and an essential step on the path to manifesting your positive qualities.
