He didn’t recognize himself anymore. And that was the beginning of everything.
Miles had always known who he was. Son of a lawyer. Top of his class. Straight-talker. Reliable. His LinkedIn profile said so. So did the people who shook his hand and expected something polished.
But when the promotion came and the applause faded, he felt hollow. Not broken. Just…absent. As if the version of him that succeeded was not the one who started the journey.
That night, he stood in front of the mirror for a long time and whispered the question he heard once in a meditation class:
What is your original face before your parents were born?
He didn’t know what it meant. But something inside him did.
The Question That Can’t Be Answered—Only Lived
This ancient Zen koan isn’t a riddle to solve. It’s a key meant to dissolve everything that isn’t essential. It points not to identity, but to essence.
Before the layers—your name, your job, your politics, your childhood wounds—what’s left?
Who are you before the stories?
What remains when there’s nothing to perform?
Zen masters never offered a direct answer. They’d remain silent. Or laugh. Or point to a flower. Not because they didn’t know, but because your original face can’t be found in words. Only in awareness.
Psychology Meets Emptiness
Modern psychology calls this “ego disidentification.” It’s the process of noticing that the roles we play are not who we are.
In Internal Family Systems therapy, for example, there’s a Self beneath the parts—the calm, compassionate observer untouched by wounds or roles.
In mindfulness-based research, the more one identifies with the witnessing self rather than the narrative self, the lower their anxiety and higher their well-being.
Put simply: peace doesn’t come from building a better identity. It comes from loosening your grip on one.
Miles’ Unfolding
Miles didn’t quit his job. He didn’t run to a monastery.
He just started practicing something radical: being no one for a few moments each day. Sitting still. No affirmations. No self-improvement. No fixing.
Just breathing. Just being.
And in that stillness, something surfaced—not a new self, but an old one. The one that laughed freely as a kid. That cried at sunsets. That didn’t need to be somebody to feel real.
It wasn’t an answer. It was a homecoming.
The Original Face Is Not a Mask
It’s not your past.
Not your future self.
Not who you’ll become when you finally get it right.
It’s the you that exists beneath the noise. The face that doesn’t age. The presence that watches all else rise and fall.
And it’s still here. Even now. Especially now.
If You Want to Glimpse It
Sit for five minutes with nothing to do and no version of yourself to perform.
When a thought comes, ask: who’s watching this?
When a role arises (parent, leader, artist), smile—and let it go.
Touch silence as if it were your breath. Because it is.
Ask the question again. Not to answer. But to feel what falls away when you ask.
Because maybe your original face isn’t something you find.
Maybe it’s what’s been waiting for you to stop looking.