What Am I?

Excerpted from the first video of Tricycle Meditation Month 2026: Awakening with Zen Koans.

What is the most precious thing in the world? 

What is the most precious thing in the world? 

This question was posed by famous Korean Zen master Kusan Sunim to his followers, his Buddhist devotees. They would come to his temple and ask him to give a dharma talk. Then he asked this question, “What is the most precious thing in the whole world?” before giving his dharma talk. His devotees would say, “Well, I think it’s my job that is the most precious thing. Because I worked really hard to get to where I am in my company. I have a high position.” Or some people say, “Well, I spent a lot of years saving money. Therefore, my wealth is the most precious thing.” Or some mother would say, “Well, I think my family is the most precious thing. I love my husband, my wife, I love my children, my parents. They are the most precious thing.” 

After listening to all those answers, Kusan Sunim said, “I actually think the most precious thing in the world is myself. If I did not exist, how would I know the importance of family, position, and wealth? Because I exist prior to all of them, I appreciate the preciousness, the importance, of those things that you just mentioned.” 

Is it not the case, if we can be really, really honest about what is the most precious thing, then maybe we can conclude, just like what Kusan Sunim said, I am the most precious thing? 

***

What’s interesting, however, is that although people may agree that they’re the most precious and important thing in the whole world, people are not very interested in getting to know themselves. Instead, they spend hours and hours trying to see what other people are doing— trying to read newspapers on what our politicians are doing, trying to watch TV dramas or movies—rather than turning their attention inwardly and trying to find the most precious thing. We turn our attention outwardly and try to just lose ourselves in the worldly experience.

Somebody may say, “Well, I think I know enough about me because I know I have these kinds of thoughts, I feel this way, and I have this body. Therefore, I am the collection of my memory, body, thoughts, and emotions. They are me.”

But what’s interesting is this: If the body or our mind, our thoughts and emotions and memories, if all of them were “me,” then there has to be something else—a subject that is witnessing or observing them. 

***

Anybody who practices mindfulness will quickly understand that when we sit and become mindful of our bodily sensations, thoughts, or emotions, they are the object of our mindfulness. We can be aware of our body, thoughts, emotions, or memories. Then the question is, what is that which is aware of them? 

In other words, we get confused. We, the subject, that which is witnessing or observing or experiencing, think that we are mere objects. We are conditioned, impermanent objects. 

But is it the case? Zen Buddhists, or [practitioners in] any wisdom tradition, may ask, “Is it the case? Am I just a mere object? That which can be observed, that which can be described?” Then what am I? That which is experiencing them all, because I can experience my body, I can experience my emotions—sadness, happiness, joy, anger, depression, jealousy, whatever, right? But we, the observer, witness, are not depressed. We’re not sad, not any of those emotions, because we are mindful of them, the subject. We are mindful of those objects. 

Then the question is, what is that which is aware of them? 

What is that which knows the rising of those emotions and disappearing of those emotions? The rising of thought and disappearing of thought? 

Some people might say, “I think I know who I am. I am Asian. I am male. I have either liberal or conservative political view. I am Buddhist.” All those identities we acquire after we become older, and then we say, I am such-and-such. But those identities are not permanent. It is impermanent and conditional. It is something that we learn as we grow older. 

Maybe your family had a political view of maybe holding on to liberal values or conservative values. Or your friend, your town, the neighborhood where you grew up, your best friend, they tend to have that particular type of political view, for example. Then you are conditioned to have or follow similar ideas. Even if you are going against them, you are still, nevertheless, conditioned. Then the question is, what was I before acquiring all those identities? 

Because “I am the most precious thing,” we believe, then what was I before? Prior to all those identities? This is the question that Zen Buddhists are asking.

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