Do You Know Who You Are

Right Understanding

In Buddhism, the journey toward liberation begins with a concept called right understanding — it’s the first of the eight guides for the Noble Eightfold Path. But what does this actually mean? At its core, right understanding is the ability to observe the self and the world with total clarity. It’s the practice of seeing things as they truly are, without distortion.

Our Perception versus True Reflection

What can give us distortion? To see this, let’s start with an imagery. I want you to visualize a lake. This lake is surrounded by mountains and green fields, we can see the blue skies up above, the birds as they fly upwards towards the top of the mountain. On a sunny day, with no wind, the lake sits still. The stillness of the lake acts like a mirror. Perfectly reflecting the mountains, the green fields, the blue sky it as it truly is.

But on a windy day, the reflection no longer reflects the nature around it as it is. The lake forms ripples and waves that distort its reflection.

This lake represents our mind. The ripples in the lake are our inner critics; our ego; the narratives that we tell ourselves. These ripples shape our understanding of our world. To have the right understanding is similar to the lake on a calm day, reflecting the world as it truly is without distortion. But it’s actually much more than this.

We cannot control the weather, that is not the goal. We cannot stop the ripples in the lake. The right understanding is seeing the lake as it truly is. Seeing exactly how the ripples distort the true reality around it. Seeing the reality around the lake as it truly is.

In contrast, ignorance—about our motivations, our emotions, and our thought patterns—is one of the primary forces that keeps us stuck in cycles of suffering. To know who you are is to know the ripples in your lake, your own distortions that you create and perpetuate for the world around you.