' The Story of Me '...

Q: Does that heal the wound?

A: No. The "myself" that judges itself wounded is not an en-
tity to be healed, or even a condition to be healed, but a kind
of ongoing fantasy story-The Story Of Me-constructed of
memory, custom, and habit. Your story may seem to be the
history of a wounded "me" looking for acceptance and love,
but from my point of view, the story itself is the wound. Hav-
ing to carry around that stale and tired story, rehashing it con-
tinually, and defending it when necessary, is the wound.

"Myself," I say, is better understood not as a story at all but
as the mirror of mind that reflects instantaneously whatever
comes before it. That mirror was there when I was a child, and
it is here now. To that myself, The Story Of Me seems a mere
repetitious fixation that is not "me" at all. Upon seeing that,
any necessary "healing" occurs naturally and effortlessly.

As Charlotte Beck put this, "A door that has been shut
begins to open. As the door opens, we see that the present is
absolute and that, in a sense, the whole universe begins right
now, in each second. And the healing of life is in that second
of simple awareness."


-Robert Saltzman from The Ten Thousand Things