I’m looking at a tree.
I call it a tree, but that’s already a shortcut.
What’s actually there is earth, water, air, sunlight, time.
None of those things is a tree by itself.
There is no “tree-stuff” anywhere.
When those non-tree elements come together in a certain pattern,
tree appears.
The word arrives after the fact.
Then I notice something unsettling and simple.
I am the same way.
I feel like I’m in the middle, watching life happen around me.
As if I’m separate from the weather, the sounds, the thoughts, the passing moments.
But if I look closely, I’m made of non-me components:
sensations, memories, images, reactions, breath, tension, warmth, sound.
None of those is me on its own.
There is no solid “me-stuff” hiding behind them.
When all those non-me elements move together,
me appears.
So the center I usually feel — the one doing the watching —
isn’t standing apart from the world.
It’s being assembled by everything I thought was outside of it.
Just like the tree isn’t separate from earth and sunlight,
I’m not separate from experience.
The “me in the middle” isn’t the source.
It’s the name we give to the pattern.
And when that’s seen,
the center doesn’t disappear —
it just stops pretending it was ever independent.
Spiritual Gravity 