It seems like such a simple question.
What is my true nature?
Most of us have spent our lives trying to answer a slightly different question: Who am I?
We answer with our name, our profession, our relationships, our achievements, our failures, our memories. We build an identity piece by piece until it feels solid and real. Then, often without noticing, we spend a great deal of energy defending it.
But perhaps we are asking the wrong question.
Instead of asking what makes me different from everything else, perhaps we could ask:
What do I have in common with the whole of reality?
That small shift changes everything.
A Different Way of Looking
Imagine standing in front of a tree.
What does the tree have that I don’t?
Or perhaps a better question is:
What do we share?
The tree grows.
It changes with the seasons.
It depends on sunlight, rain, soil and countless other conditions.
It is born.
It ages.
One day it dies.
Now look at yourself.
You too depend on conditions.
The air you breathe, the food you eat, the people you’ve met, the experiences you’ve had—all have shaped the person sitting here today.
Nothing about you exists independently.
You are not outside reality.
You are one expression of it.
Nature as Teacher
Nature doesn’t seem to resist change.
A river doesn’t try to hold onto yesterday’s water.
Clouds don’t struggle to keep their shape.
Autumn doesn’t apologise for becoming winter.
Animals don’t spend their days wondering whether they are successful enough or whether they should have made different choices five years ago.
They simply respond to the conditions of this moment.
Nature is movement.
Nature is relationship.
Nature is continuous transformation.
Perhaps this is not only nature’s way.
Perhaps it is our way too.
Looking at Ourselves
If we look closely, we discover that our own experience is no different.
The body changes.
Thoughts appear and disappear.
Emotions arise, stay for a while and pass away.
Opinions evolve.
Memories fade.
Even the person we were this morning is not exactly the person reading these words now.
Everything flows.
Everything changes.
And yet we often search for something fixed to call me.
Where Suffering Begins
There is nothing wrong with having a name, a history or a personality.
The difficulty begins when we mistake them for something permanent.
We hold tightly to ideas such as:
“This is who I am.”
“This is who I should be.”
“This should never have happened.”
“I don’t want to feel this.”
Little by little, these thoughts become identities.
And identities can become prisons.
The tighter we cling to what is constantly changing, the more we suffer.
Perhaps suffering is not caused by change itself.
Perhaps suffering comes from expecting life not to change.
An Invitation
So what is our true nature?
I don’t know.
And perhaps the question isn’t asking for an answer.
Perhaps it is inviting us to look.
To observe this moment before we label it.
To notice thoughts without becoming them.
To allow emotions without trying to possess or reject them.
To recognise that we belong to the same living process as rivers, trees, birds and stars.
Instead of asking what makes me unique, perhaps I can ask:
What do I have in common with the whole of reality?
This is not a question to solve once and for all.
It is a question to live.
And perhaps, if we keep returning to it with curiosity rather than certainty, we may discover that our true nature has never been something separate from life itself.
It has always been this.
This breath.
This moment.
This unfolding reality.
Nothing added.
Nothing missing.
Riccardo 