It is quite interesting to have an awareness of dependent arising throughout the day. Since we are trying to control the universe, we look at things and think, “It is out there with its own essence, and I am in here all by myself with my own essence.” We need to recognise how we pick things out of the environment and make them into objects by labelling and designating. These objects exist in relationship to other objects — things do not radiate what they are from their own side. For example, we do not label the thangka “blue” because it is radiating out its nature of blueness, but because our mind is picking the blue colour out and contrasting it with the yellow and green colours. In this way, everything we see is embedded within a whole network of existence, including the “I”. Sitting here is not a little me with my own independent entity and personality, but rather a constructed identity completely embedded within the larger social structure and the way human beings view things.

The reason why people often freak out so much at the time of death is because they are losing the whole context in which their identity is embedded. When they do not have external things to distinguish themselves, there is the feeling that it has all just disappeared and gone into nothingness.

Our identities exist conventionally, and we can use labels like nationality, gender, height and weight. But these things mean something only in relation to other things, which also exist only in relation to other things. Going through our lives trying to defend an identity that does not have any existence on its own is like trying to convince people that there is a ghost sitting next to you when you come out of the haunted house at Disneyland.

“365 Gems of Wisdom” e-book is out now!