Before loosing your Self, you got to know who you are.

So, try to stick to 'bare attention' and watch the world around you manifest itself for better or worse as there is really very little or practically nothing that you can do, you who do not even exist when you look at it with insight and right understanding. This is what the Buddha basically was trying to impart to humanity in His teachings but not many can make this happen, not in this lifetime especially with all the roadside attractions and mass communication gizmos we have at our disposal to keep us attached to the here and now. Throughout the world we are making news of one kind or another big news and little ones just so everyone is in the news in one way or another, informed and up to date with what gives, we are nailed to the media and our minds are plugged into one form of news outlet or another so we can give out our own reviews and interviews, our two cents worth about the state of humanity if not verbally, in written form, or at the very least in the form of sentiments, but whatever the case may be we are sucked into this game of being in the here and now, a part of humanity; with Identities and Personalities; this is who I am.
I like jazz, and I like Mozart, I hate politicians and I do not like religious zealots, I like Mother Theresa and Mahatma Gandhi but i hate those who claim their belief and religious denominations are above others and that God is only on their side... and we can go on and on over what we like or dislike and at the end of the day when our body is thrown into the hole in the ground or burned at the pyre all these likes and dislikes will amount to nothing..dust to dust, ashes to ashes is all we are. Those who make an extra effort towards making this life worth living for oneself as well as for others are to far and few in numbers and most are themselves sucked into bitterness over the decadence that is manifesting all around them. Laws are no more something that can be honored as in today's courts of justice even the laws are being manipulated and exploited to feed the greed of man in one way or another. Corruption has found its way into the pockets of the highest of the justice system and those who the people had hope for some form of sanity in imparting justice are themselves insane; the very salt has turned bad.
When I look within me what do I find? Nothing! I am not even the man that i thought that I am, I am just another piece of the flotsam in this river of life or dust in the wind with no personality or identity of my own other than what i have ignorantly accumulated over the years and claiming this to be the sum total of who I am. remove the layers of accumulation layer by layer and at the end what do i find? Nothing! Not a thing. What keeps me here in the moment is merely this aches and pains here and there and the act of typing this keyboard to produce nonsense just killing time because i think i have time to kill. It is entertaining to write and an average of 400 to 500 page views tells me that people read what garbage i write, but what is there to loose it is all at the tip of my fingers and stored in the digital cabinet. So i write whatever comes to my mind triggered in this case by studying the Satipathana Sutra or the Way of Mindfulness of the Buddha as my compendium practice for the month of Ramadan.

"The Satipatthana Sutta, the Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness, is generally regarded as the canonical Buddhist text with the fullest instructions on the system of meditation unique to the Buddha's own dispensation. The practice of Satipatthana meditation centers on the methodical cultivation of one simple mental faculty readily available to all of us at any moment. This is the faculty of mindfulness, the capacity for attending to the content of our experience as it becomes manifest in the immediate present. What the Buddha shows in the sutta is the tremendous, but generally hidden, power inherent in this simple mental function, a power that can unfold all the mind's potentials culminating in final deliverance from suffering." by Bhikkhu Bodhi

One of the short Buddhist prayer, if you want to call it that, which I find very powerful is'"May we exist with the purity of a Lotus in muddy waters." The lotus grows into a perfect flower with its roots anchored deep in the bottom of the pond where all kinds of rotting vegetation and mud exist out of which it gets its nutrition and when in bloom rises above the water level and is among the most resplendent of beauties, pure in color and form.This is how we should exist in this life, to be a part of, but not of.to rise above all that is and be liberated at the altar of the Buddhas.

Hence we look at life with 'Bare attention', like plucking the lotus without getting your fingers all wet, and not getting sucked into every roadside attentions and human dramas, not getting sucked into becoming a part of the circus but just a casual audience killing time for lack of better things to do till the end comes knocking at the door or one can sit and meditate and become one with time itself where it is timeless or space itself where it is space-less - emptiness. But for so long as you are breathing in this bag of bones you will have to come to a thorough understanding of who you are through one form of practice or another albeit fasting or simply enjoying good music.