notes

The sense of a private interior mental space that we're all taught as being the bedrock of modern Western philosophical thought, comes from shame. The experience of having thoughts and feelings that need to be hidden and protected from all sides, comes from shame.

For me, when I have repressed parts of myself it has been by banishing fantasies to faraway times and places or by blocking sensations from my thoughts about who I am, like being wide eyed staring at a boy, but not reflecting on what that might mean.

Meditating the other day, as I became more aware of my body I became more aware of tension in my shoulders, lower back, legs, neck and more. As I listened to a dharma talk about a zen Buddhist monk from a walled city, who when asked who are you, replied “North Gate, East Gate, South Gate, West Gate.”

I realised I have an underlying sense of a protective boundary, or shield a few centimeters from my skin. It comes from tension, but I think this sense of an imagined ever present protective boundary around my body, is a good way of describing how we imagine a fixed self. It's not having a guard up that's a problem, but having the same fixed guard set up in the background at all times is very

Thoughts, feelings and memories can come and go from my awareness, without the need for them to be in a separate space. No need to separate mental space from the space I experience in my everyday life, So both for how I act, but also how I think, I can protect myself better by moving freely and skillfully than I can by trying to armour plate myself.