each of us has a congenital assurance that there is an "I" somewhere within us, a continuing identity. We operate on the unthinking assumption that the person who existed ten years ago is essentially the same person who exists today, who will exist ten years from now, perhaps who will still exist in a future life after death. at a very deep level, suffering is the inordinate attachment that each one of us has developed toward this body and toward this mind, with its cognitions, perceptions, sensations, and reactions. people cling strongly to their identity - their mental and physical being - when actually there are only evolving processes. this clinging to an unreal idea of oneself, to something that in fact is constantly changing, is suffering.
