When you experience something, there’s also a doing in the experiencing. It’s not that you’re sitting here totally passive, experiencing the results of past karma. You’re also creating present karma, present intentions, right now.
"[The Buddha is] more interested in your having a sense not so much of what you are, as of what you do. You are the doer. When you experience something, there’s also a doing in the experiencing. You want to look for that as well, because it’s not that you’re sitting here totally passive, experiencing the results of past karma. You’re also creating present karma, present intentions, right now. The intentions you have right now are going to determine what you experience and what you focus on, what you do with what you focus on. This doing is really important here.
So, for the purpose of the path, what you are doesn’t go beyond what you are as the doer, so that you focus on not so much on your identity here, but the actual quality of your actions, the quality of your intentions."
~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Riddle of “I Am”"
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