I am sitting at the dining room table tonight, wondering: am I the feeling in my fingers, the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach that tells me I ate something bad tonight, or the aching in my toe which I stubbed black and blue on a stair this afternoon?

I can’t be these things — if my finger, or toe were cut off, I would still be me without them.

Am I my moods and and likes and dislikes, and all the feelings that come up moment to moment throughout the day?

Feelings change and come and go and cease to exist.  Yet I am here, so I cannot be my feelings either.

Am I my ideas, opinions and thoughts?

Thoughts also come and go, and my judgements and opinions are only as accurate as my perception of things around me.  The reality is I cannot know you (and how a cup of coffee tastes to you) just as you cannot know me (and how my aching toe feels).  And in any case whatever I think know about the world now may change in a moment.

All of my life is lived second-hand.  All of my experiences are filtered through the limitations of my senses and my experience of myself, and my knowledge that I myself am me and not everything else.

The only conclusion that I can come to is that I am just my experiences.  That is what I am, that is all that I am.

As I stare at the computer screen in front of me while I type this, I am my experience of my fingers on the keypad.  When I drink black coffee in the morning I am the taste of the coffee. When I am lost in thought, I am my thoughts and nothing more, because nothing else exists for me.