[Qxsumehj]

I was looking at a short article "The Problem With Personality" by Ajahn Sumedho .

The excerpt below caught my eye in particular - because my own thoughts about a 'personal story' are that my memories just don't seem to be relevant any more, they're about previous 'lives' which have been cast aside - yet I can still dredge them up sometimes when I get caught up in negative thinking!

"I find that the more I am aware, the more my personal story seems utterly unimportant and of no interest whatsoever. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a few memories I can churn up.

Yet if I adopt the personal view, if I get caught up in myself, thinking about myself as a real personality, then suddenly I find my past tremendously important. An identity gives me the sense that I am a person. “I have a past; I am somebody. I am somebody important, somebody that may not be terribly important, but at least I feel connected to something in the past. I have a home, I have a heritage.”

People talk about losing a sense of their identity, perhaps because they’re refugees, their parents are dead, they’re of mixed race, or they lack any clear identity of themselves as belonging to something in the past. The sense of a personality depends very much on proving that you are somebody.

You have your education, your race, your accomplishments or lack of accomplishments; you are an interesting or uninteresting person, important or unimportant, a Very Important Person or a Very Unimportant Person! "

Complete article here:

http://www.what-buddha-taught.net/Bo...ersonality.htm