Before, I took my coffee sweet — now I like it black.
Everything changes.
The weather, the planet — even you.
Anything that changes — how can it be the truth?
Your body, your opinions, your identity — they all change.
You are not your previous second.
So, is truth only relative —
to context, to circumstance, to time itself?
Then who are you?
Is there something unchanging beneath all that moves?
Or are you just what you are in the moment?
Or are you who you were in the past — or who you will become in the future?
Who are you?
Are you the observer of your mind —
sensations, thoughts, emotions?
Or the observed —
a part of your mind observing itself?
Are you a separate, independent observer from the rest of humanity?
Or is there an all-seeing observer —
one who is showing you what you need to see?
Or is there no observer at all —
only the act of seeing itself,
where seer, seen, and seeing arise together —
a movement of time?
And if there were no time,
would there be seer, seen, or seeing at all?
Or perhaps we are some combination of these possibilities —
a shifting dance between them.
Observer vs Observed
You wake up.
You see your phone.
Seeing your phone is proof that you are you — and not the phone.
The book Dṛg-Dṛśya-Viveka offers this simple insight:
The Seer is not the Seen.
The Knower is not the Known.
The Aware is not what it is aware of.
You see your body and know your thoughts.
So you are neither the body nor the mind.
We can at least say what the seer is not.
But what, then, is the seen?
When you look at a known object — say, an apple —
what are you actually seeing?
The apple?
Or yourself?
The word apple lives in the mind —
its language, meaning, associations, memory.
So are you seeing the thing before you,
or the reflection of your own knowing?
You might say, “It’s both.”
But really — how much of the real apple do you see,
and how much do you assume you have seen?
Let’s take another path.
Let’s say you are seeing the apple for the first time.
In that first moment of seeing,
if you are not caught in fear or desire —
what remains?
In that instant of wonder,
in that silence of the mind,
there is only the apple.
There is the observed without the observer.
The observer ceases.
Only the observed remains.
Universal vs Independent Observer
At birth, is there truly much difference between you and another?
We’ve seen that the observer is neither body nor mind.
For now, let’s call this empty mind.
Buddhism names it śūnyatā — emptiness.
As we fill our minds with experiences, images, and thoughts,
the emptiness seems to be lost.
Or is it truly lost?
Children seem untouched by belief or bias —
neither burdened by goals, purposes, or responsibilities.
How much do they suffer from fear, desire, or loss?
So emptiness is better than mind —
and its content or its thinking.
Is emptiness, then, the silencing of the mind?
Or is it the absence of mind?
Behind Mind
Without clarity, we are the mind —
the observer and the observed tangled within.
The mind sees only itself.
But when there is clarity of the suffering it creates,
the mind begins to withdraw from its own movement —
its experiences, explanations, and emotions.
Without the mind,
there is no you —
at least not the one you think you are.
And when that you dissolves,
there is only one thing left:
everything else.
The dissolution of mind is not achieved through effort or time —
it happens in the clear observation
of the suffering the mind brings.
The Extraordinary Ordinary
When the false you dissolves,
your senses are no longer interrupted, judged, or named.
Thoughts become transparent.
Emotions lose their grip.
You are neither sad nor happy —
neither high nor low.
You are simply —
extraordinarily ordinary.
This you
is unchanging,
silent,
spacious,
the only truth.
And this truth
is true in everyone,
and in everything.
