The body is a process and not a thing. It is never static, it is always in motion doing something – secreting glands, digesting food, processing data input. It is a doing rather than a being. This becomes problematic for identity when we place our concept of self in terms of a body. “I am this body – this thing.” Yet the thing itself is not a constant. It is forever changing at every moment. There may be a consistency in terms of pattern, but that pattern is always in motion and changing into a similar, yet also different, pattern structure. Therefore, you as a “thing” cannot be pinned down.
You are a process of ideas, ideals, beliefs, that are always in motion. These structure the Now moment, like water coalescing to form a whirlpool. “Who you are” is really Nothing at all, in terms of a static “thing.” In this way, you defy all definitions. You cannot be pinned down.
“Who am I?” then changes to “What am I?” Though we must not confuse “what” with a static thing, like a noun. What you are is clearly a process-in-action – a type of event rather than a thing. You are an event in the Universe, like a flower blooming. We can look at a flower and say “blooming flower,” though the flower isn’t causing the bloom – it is doing the natural course of its life; its natural event-ing action.
In the sense, then instead of asking “Who am I?” in terms of being a noun, why not ask “What kind of event in this Now moment am I?” Will you be a negative event for Now experience, or a positive one? This is all that really needs to be asked. You as a person are a total string of Event – a large event composed of many smaller ones – but each contributing to an even larger type of event: the creation of the whole Universe. In other words – there aren’t any Nouns (things) anywhere … There are only events that we place labels on, which turn these events in a conceptual abstract “thing.” Even the cells and organs in our bodies are events; they are moving and doing something – processes in action (events) – that give rise to the functioning of our body. We, too, are just as they are, in terms of consciousness and awareness. We are “event-ing” and giving rise to the Universe.
Each Now moment, then, is an opportunity to consider the nature of ourselves as an event, and how we wish to express ourselves knowing that we are a verb rather than a noun.
When you consider “Who you are” you could say: I am – compassionate, loving, sad, angry, artistic, glowing, dull – really anything. But when you look closer at these descriptions, they are only abstract ideas attached to a reality that moves in relation to a scope of events and not things. You consider yourself compassionate because you’ve acted (event-ed) in a way that shows an ideal of compassion. If you consider yourself a dull person, you are comparing your memories of how you feel you have “event-ed” in an illusory past with other labels society has put out that says “this is the way you ‘should’ be (event-ing) in order to be exciting.” Labels are things, and you are not a thing. You are pure action, in every Now moment. These labels may speak to action, a mirror concept of self based on previous events, but the label isn’t any more an action than a menu is the food you actually eat. A “thing-label” is simply a creation of social convention in society. You – in reality – are not a social convention. You are an event. Yet we keep telling people – especially kids – they need to grow up to be “something.” This is where the real frustration lies.
Perhaps we need to change our ideas to becoming excited about “event-ing” versus “thing-ing.”
So, another way of looking at Self is to step back and say “Here I am as an Event-verb in the Now moment. I have some control over how I will be event-ing. I may not have any control with the overall outcome, but I do have control as to how I behave and act in the Now moment as a happening.”
You are Event-ing in relation to other Event-ing going on around you. All things interact and are in constant motion. Even the term “event” tries to make constant action into a “thing” which can be parceled out for discussion. This, unfortunately, is the difficulty and limitations of symbolic language.
Who you are can change moment-by-moment. It is what you are actively doing that is physically and objectively real. And if you are stuck in conceptions of linear time and the social conventions that are created from it, and how all that falsity applies to creating an illusory ego, your actions will reflect it. You are not being truly what you are.
To break the shackles of ego, keep reminding yourself “I am an Event-verb happening in the Now moment, I am not a static-Thing stretched out in Time. How I choose to be while I am event-ing myself in this moment is who I am right now.” Then consider your choices – happy, funny, compassionate, loving, delightful. All in the Now moment, as a verb-happening. You are who you are right at this second, and nothing more (or nothing less). BUT – you can be a different kind of event in the next moment, if you choose.
You are nothing in terms of a “thing,” but rather, you are a Happening that interacts with all other happenings going on simultaneously around you, creating one gigantic event we call "The Universe." Therefore, you are, by definition, constituting everything. You are one with all things. Therefore, when we consider the Big Bang, we should not consider it as “some ‘thing’ coming from nothing” but rather one continuous string of action that is still occurring at this very moment, and you and all other forms of life are It. The Big Bang is a continuous event, a verb, that is still going on. It has nothing to do with “things.”