Chapter 4 Chapter 2 Who I Am Not

"That's not entirely true." Although the old man's smiling eyes made Ruo Ling feel like a spring breeze, but what he said was still discouraging. "Are you your body?" "It should be! Why not?" Ruo Ling used the skill of the university debate team to ask back by counter-evidence. "Has your body been changing since you were a child?" Of course, it goes without saying that when I was young, I was really a big fat girl, but since I grew up in elementary school, I have been thin and thin. After the age of thirty, the fat on the lower abdomen and buttocks gradually increased, alas!Life is so impermanent...

Besides, she has actually read reports that our cells will be replaced every once in a while (about seven years). True, I "have" a body, but I do not "is" my body. "And what is your so-called heart?" The old man interrupted Ruo Ling's thoughts. At that time, she had already started thinking about losing weight. "It's our minds, including knowledge, thoughts, and emotions!" Ruo Ling replied vaguely. "Then let's try to look at it from another angle." The old man changed his tone: "Can you see your thoughts? Can you feel your emotions and emotions?" He seemed to be setting a trap again.

"What... what does this mean?" Ruo Ling was puzzled. "Check your answers yourself, and I will teach you," said the old man. "Now, close your eyes." The old man's words were magnetic and majestic, and Ruo Ling followed suit. "Don't think about anything, let your mind pause for a few minutes..." After the old man finished speaking, he also became still. ＊＊＊ After as long as a century, the old man instructed: "Okay, you can open your eyes." Ruo Ling frowned and opened her eyes. "What's the matter?" the old man asked knowingly.

"It's impossible to stop thinking about nothing!" Ruo Ling protested. "Yes," the old man nodded with a smile, "Then what are you thinking about?" Ruo Ling blushed, she was embarrassed to say that she was wondering if the old man was a demon, heretic or some kind of weird person, she was being ordered by him to do some inexplicable things, and she didn't know how to resist. "Have you seen your thoughts?" The old man understandably stopped asking her what she was thinking. "Yes." Ruo Ling admitted. "Then what are your feelings?"

"It's a little weird, a little uneasy." Ruo Ling replied honestly. "Yes, you can feel your own feelings." The old man nodded, and then looked at Ruo Ling meaningfully. "Well... I can perceive my thoughts, and I can also perceive my emotions, so they are all part of me!" Ruo Ling said that she felt very reasonable. "You mean to say that the subject and the object are the same thing?" asked the old man slyly. Ruo Ling knew that he had made a logical error. If I, the subject, can feel the thoughts and emotions of the object, then the two should not be the same thing.Embarrassed, Ruo Ling had no choice but to back off, and said irrelevantly: "Actually, I just want to borrow a phone number from you..."

The old man did not let her go: "So, the question 'who am I' is difficult to answer positively, and what we are currently using is negative—none of the above." Ruoling suddenly found out in her heart: "Hey, why didn't you say soul? We are souls!" She felt like she had won the lottery! The old man just smiled meaningfully. ＊＊＊ "Soul can be said to be a term that is closer to the answer, but this term has been abused by many religions and philosophies, with too many colors and labels attached, and there is no way to properly express who we really are."

"Son," he said, "we are using words to express what words cannot express. It's easier to understand." "Then what's the real answer?" "I will tell you slowly in the future." As he spoke, the old man raised his index finger: "Did you see my finger?" "Nonsense!" Ruo Ling thought to herself, but still nodded obediently. "If the moon is what we really are, and it is something that cannot be concretely described in words, then all our attempts to describe it in words are this finger pointing at the moon, not the real moon."

Ruo Ling tilted her head in doubt, not knowing how to respond. "It's like saying to someone who has never eaten ice cream, no matter how you describe it to him, it's useless, isn't it?" The old man explained patiently, "If he really tasted it, then all the words are superfluous It's..." Ruo Ling was a little sleepy, and really didn't know why the old man dragged her to talk about so many confusing topics. She glanced at the four corners, terribly, the old man is like a reclusive Gao Shi, and there is no phone in the house! "I tell you these to help you recognize some facts, because the root of all our suffering comes from not knowing who we are, and blindly clinging to and pursuing things that don't represent us!"

"You yourself are the best example, aren't you?" The old man seemed to have the ability to read minds, and he could guess what was going on in Ruo Ling's mind. After finishing speaking, he stretched out his hand and pulled out an old-fashioned telephone from a cabinet, "Use it!"