You, You, You!

Like any seeker I started by looking outside myself. I looked for the right way to be, the right teachings and teachers to follow, the right posture to keep, the right pattern of breath, the right shape of body. Eventually I was told to look within. To seek what I sought in the raw sense of being. My "you-ness". The pure simple presence that underlies what I call "me", lacking any labels or identification, being the ground and source of all of that. "Look at yourself. Look at you." That's what I was advised to do. So I did. Layer after layer was discarded. Thing after thing found and put aside as not "you" since I was the one doing the finding. Along the way I would have glimpses into the "core you" of others as well, seeing past their presentation into their pure presence. Deeper and deeper I pushed my looking. One day there was a... crumble. Not a pop, or explosion, or sudden opening. Just a crumbling away of the interconnected set of memories and habits that form who I thought I was. But, that was only me thinking it. I felt it quietly tumble down leaving only a you. It returned of course, to one degree or another depending on the day, but once you see a thing crumble it's hard to quite believe in it anymore.

There, at the base of you there is only you. Awareness is only things effecting things, encountering each other, leaving traces. What I found of my "you" was that there is no you standing apart from anything else in order to be aware of it. Even my most primal "self sense" dropped away the instant I realized I was aware of it and therefore it was not me. The more I looked, the more I did not find until finally I came face to face with the fact that all and everything is only ever just you playing out as you in order that you might have a sense of you. Perhaps not even in order for that to be, but it just happens to be that way. You cannot find a you apart from that, which means (from what I can find anyways) that all of that, just as it is, is you.

So, at the most basic level it seems like there is no you to find, and yet you know that. You know that because everything encountered affirms you. The most banal circumstance in day to day life screams out, "You!" So, there you are. You are the ground of all. You are also all arising phenomena reminding you that you are you, what else could they be? You are the person living the life, doing your thing, making your way. At any level that you decide to look at what is going on, there you are. No matter where you go.

Bottom, middle, or top - you find you there.

In short: You are a cosmic parfait.