From the chapter ""Selfing" in Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn:

So, when we speak about not trying so hard to be "somebody" and instead just experiencing being, directly, what it means is that you start from where you find yourself and work here. Meditation is not about trying to become a nobody, or a contemplative zombie, incapable of living in the real world and facing real problems. It's about seeing things as they are, without the distortions of our own thought processes. Part of that is perceiving that everything is interconnected and that while our conventional sense of "having" a self is helpful in many ways, it is not absolutely real or solid or permanent. So, if you stop trying to make yourself into more than you are out of fear that your are less than you are, whoever you really are will be a lot lighter and happier, and easier to live with, too.

_{(my face is belatedly red: I seem to have said this on 2009-01-14 in Unselfing; and cf. Thoughtful Metaphors (2000-11-08), Light Mind (2002-08-22), Freedom Evolves (2003-07-03)...) - ^z - 2009-08-04}