“In this culture, we're too busy and distracted and stressed out to find our centers, so we have to obsessively define and defend boundaries to feel like we even exist, which is why right wing Christians complain about liberals and gays, and why almost all content on political blogs is in the form of attacking opponents.
So what is this "center"? A practicing Buddhist friend, who has done a lot of meditating, says you discover that all the stuff you thought of as "you" -- your beliefs, your personality, your likes and dislikes -- isn't really you. Under that is what Buddhists describe as "the part of you that's in everything." I've also read about hypnotists who have discovered what they call the "human soul" -- if you get people deep enough, they all have a voice in them that is very wise and seems to be the same for everyone. Patricia comments:
'While I think I know what it feels like when I am centered, I'm not sure I could describe my center... I'm not sure that what I think of as my center, is really mine at all, but maybe something shared, or like a place where I connect into something bigger than just this small, temporary creature I call Me.'
I would describe my center as that-which-perceives, in the broadest sense of "perceive." One way to get there is with the "not that" meditation: Find a quiet, still place, close your eyes, and ask yourself, "Who am I?" And whatever you come up with, keep saying "not that" and looking deeper. Another way to get there is to imagine awareness without existence. (If you say that's impossible, you're dodging the exercise.) Or if you're a computer gamer, imagine a game where you can "zoom in" to play any creature, or any function of that creature, or zoom out to play groups or the whole map. Your "center" is that zoomable perspective, and it's not limited by your human identity. When you find it, you feel both grounded and free, both immortal and egoless.”
from here
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