Is Our Essence and Origin Truly Different from Everyone?

Our five senses tell us we're different from everyone else, but is this true, or are our senses deceiving us? A closer look at how we exist reveals a surprising truth that could benefit us all.

If each of us were truly different and separate, as our senses suggest, we would each have to have a unique, unchanging essence. This would mean we would need to be one and self-generated person, existing independently as an Israeli, or Palestinian, without relying on our mind labels of "Israeli," "Palestinian,". But is this the reality? Let's analyze the unbiased facts to understand if we really are separate and different, or if this is an illusion created by our ignorance.

To claim unique and permanent essence (self) we must be one unique and permanent self, full of our own essence, and not a product of everything else and their essence. So, let’s take a closer look and examine ourselves.

1. Are We Truly Separate Entities? 

Despite what we believe and experience, people aren't one unchanging thing. Our bodies and minds are not standalone entities, rather they’re like puzzles made of countless ever-changing and ever-smaller physical parts and ever-shorter moments of consciousness originating from previous parts and conscious moments. Our bodies and mind originated through the universal nature and its countless physical and nonphysical elements. No one possesses any individual nature that could bring about their own existence. Everyone’s the total sum of all physical and nonphysical elements that have had existed before, everyone’s the continuum of the universal physical and nonphysical elements. There exists no difference between anyone and the universe that produced everyone and lives through each of us.

2. Is the body one unique permanent you?

Your DNA and body aren't a singular, unchanging entity. It's a mix of various and countless atoms constantly in motion—like a dance of carbon, nitrogen, calcium, oxygen, phosphorous, hydrogen, adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and others. Today, you mind calls these elements "my body", but they're the same elements that produced the first cells almost 4 billion years ago. They were the DNA and bodies of countless other plants, animals, and people since then and before you. They're not yours or theirs, they are the continuum of the whole of nature constantly recycling these parts and pursuing life from one form to the next. The shape may change but the essence and origin does not. The body or its parts are not a standalone, unchanging "you."

3. Is the mind one permanent and unchanging moment of you?

The mind isn't a fixed, unchanging entity. Each moment of perception, feeling, and thought is a product of countless shorter moments, forming a continuous flow of consciousness. Each moment no matter how short or long is a product of the one before it, and could not exist without it because each originated from the previous moment of the mind. So, the mind and every moment of it is not a standalone, unchanging "you". There is no other “you” anywhere that may be different and unrelated to the body and mind, no soul or other strange minds’ idea.. If there was some other you or a soul, the body and mind and their experiences would have to belong and be experienced by someone else’s mind. But our experience is of the body and mind, and that complex of physical and nonphysical parts our mind labels “me”. So, without the body and mind there is no other unlabeled me that exists apart from them. Therefore, all people share identical essence and origin making us selfless.

Conclusion:

In essence, every person's body is a collection of the same ever-changing parts, and the mind is a dynamic stream of consciousness unfolding from moment to moment. The label "person", "Israeli", "Palestinian", etc. are a handy way our minds categorize these parts, but without them, there's no unique, unchanging essence of Israeli or Palestinian of different origin. The belief that people have a distinct, permanent Israeli or Palestinian essence and origin without the label of "Israeli" or "Palestinian" is a misunderstanding and ignorance; in reality, we're the whole cosmic dance of elements without any distinctions. If we were to recognize these irrefutable and unbiased facts about ourselves that make us identical to everyone, we would recognize how incredibly beneficial this is. The bodies and minds we labeled "others", "enemies", "Israeli", and "Palestinian", have always been identical to what the mind labeled "me". There is no difference between anyone except in our mind’s concepts only. Problems, fears, and conflicts become meaningless and absurd, and we begin to recognize that any action against "others" is only an action against ourselves. We can see that universal justice and world peace are truly achievable today.

Even though our senses tell us we are separate and different selves, now we know with certainty that that is not a fact but an illusion created by our ignorance of how everyone exists and the blind belief in our mind’s labels. Like in a dream, we meet all kinds of people and experience them as others, but when we wake up from the dream we realize this dream and the dreamer was our mind's creation. It's the same right now during the day, everyone shares the same essence and origins, and no one is truly Israeli or Palestinian except in our mind’s label of "Israeli" or "Palestinian."  For more details please visit our blog post The Key to Unlimited Positive Change is Here and Now.

Many thanks to Ngakpa Konchok Dorje Tsondon for his invaluable help with this text.