The Planet's Sangha: Buddhist discussions, thought, etc.

[Linus]

So as I continue down this path, I decided to finally get through The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Within the 2nd Chapter something hit home:

Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are. We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identity; but f we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our "biography", our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit cards ... it is on their fragile and transient support hat we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we really are?

-- pp16, Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche

This made me think of the times we're in and how many people feel angry and loss when they lose their house, job, etc. We have such strong attachments to them because we associate them to our identity, which really they are not. They are things that are part of our daily activities but they are not "us".

I think of myself, as an example, often as Linus the Teacher, Linus the FTM, Linus the Partner of K, Linus the Canadian in the US, Linus the Acadian-by-descent rather than Linus, me. I think I need to work on finding the "me" of all those "beings".