The Dalai Lama was interacting with students at St. Columba’s School in 2019. Talking about one’s identity, he said that he once had an interesting experience. An elderly woman, who said she was very disturbed about something, came to seek his blessings. During the conversation, noticing that the lady used the first person ‘I’ several times, the monk asked her if she knew where her ‘I’ was. “Here!” she exclaimed, touching her heart/chest. Asked HH, “Is it round or square?” The woman replied, “Round!” Narrating this, the monk laughed and said that no one so far has been able to locate the ‘I’ so far but she apparently had!We don’t know what the ‘I’ looks like or where it is, like we know where our body and mind are, but not where our identity is. Yet we keep flaunting the ‘I’. Master Chandrakirti said that when you analyse and try to find out its location, you cannot find it anywhere. It exists merely by way of convention, so we need to understand that things are merely designated and known by conventions.
We know there is a Whole, we can find the parts, but how to find the Whole? There are several theories that the true identity of a person is in mental consciousness, in foundational consciousness or in the sixth mind. So many interpretations are there. When you view these with the lens of critical analysis, you will not be able to find anything that points to being the person you are or your identity, the ‘I’ you are so attached to. It is empty. You may sense the vacuity, the empty nature of yourself.
