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Creating a concept of self– Part one

Joseph Goldstein · Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center · Three-Month Part 1 · 5 October 2016 · 57 min

0:23 So many aspects of the Buddha's teachings about the nature of suffering and the possibilities of freedom resonate with our own common sense understanding of things. The importance of non -harming as the foundation for living together, whether locally or globally. The understanding that all things in our lives are changing. And that if we cling to or grasp at that which in its nature changes, we suffer. So these principles are not hard to understand, at least intellectually, even if it takes practice to realize them. But there's one aspect of the Buddhist teaching that is really counterintuitive, that really offers a very different way, a profoundly different way. Suggest a fix

1:27 Of understanding ourselves and the world. And it's one that challenges our entire world view. And this is the deep understanding and realization of selflessness. Anattā. Emptiness of self. The insubstantiality of all aspects of our experience. So realizing selflessness, realizing anattā. is the great liberating jewel of the Buddhist teaching. As Suggest a fix

2:05 our mindfulness and awareness of this mind -body process grows more stable, grows more precise, we find that the self, what we think of the self, is not what we thought it to be. We begin to understand that the body is not self, that thoughts and emotions are not self. That even awareness or consciousness is not self. Gradually, as we settle into the practice, we begin to see that the self is a concept. It's a mental construct. It's a fabrication of our minds. So sometimes when people even hear about this, no self, sometimes it may feel a little scary. Or create a little anxiety, imagining that somehow when this realization deepens, we go up in a puff of smoke and suddenly disappear. Suggest a fix

3:24 And the mind can conjure up all sorts of ideas about what this understanding entails. Suggest a fix

3:34 But in the experience of selflessness, we actually can experience both as A bit of a surprise because it's so counter to our usual way of understanding things. But also it can come as a great relief. All those troubling aspects of our personality and also all the good qualities, they don't belong to anyone. They're all simply appearances arising out of certain conditions, certain causes. Appearing when those causes and conditions are there and disappearing when the conditions change. Suggest a fix

4:26 And it's precisely because all of these qualities of mind are not intrinsic to a core self that we're actually able to cultivate those which are wholesome and abandon those which are unwholesome. If these were some intrinsic part of ourselves Suggest a fix

4:54 we'd kind of be stuck, you know, in whatever pattern, habit patterns. And so all of this was summed up by one teacher in a very pithy phrase, no self, no problem. And that is really true. So tonight, I'd like to speak about how the mind creates this concept of self. Creates this deeply held view that we have. And also how we can free ourselves from this great illusion. Suggest a fix

5:43 The Abhidharma, which is the collection of teachings of the Buddhist psychology, and it's a very detailed, precise analysis of the mind and all the qualities in the mind and all the elements of the body. Suggest a fix

6:01 The Abhidharma Buddhist psychology provides a very useful vocabulary and framework for understanding how the self is created, how the sense of self is created, and how we can see through it. So it describes the mind as Suggest a fix

6:28 the faculty of knowing. So mind basically means consciousness, the capacity to know. Knowing sights, knowing sounds, smells, tastes, sensations, thoughts, ideas. Suggest a fix

6:46 So in its most fundamental meaning, mind refers to consciousness, that which knows. But what we usually refer to as mind also means something a little more expansive than simply consciousness, than simple bare knowing. Because in each moment of experience, Different qualities of mind, which in Buddhist jargon are called mental factors. So these are different mental qualities that arise in different combinations in every moment of knowing. So in knowing of a sight, a sound, a smell, a taste, a sensation, a thought, there's the bare knowing, which is consciousness, and then a variety of different mental factors. Suggest a fix

7:45 In different combinations, which color that moment of consciousness in a particular way. Suggest a fix

7:55 The Buddha very clearly and with amazing clarity and brilliance, he was able to see and recognize those factors of mind, those mental qualities which bring about happiness. And he called those wholesome factors. He saw which mental factors arising in particular moments of consciousness create suffering. And he called those unwholesome. Suggest a fix

8:34 And I find this very useful because it illustrates the very pragmatic aspect of Buddhist ethics. Suggest a fix

8:46 What we're really doing is training in happiness. It's not a matter of of following commandments. We see what factors bring about happiness. These are called wholesome, and we cultivate them. We see those which bring about suffering, and we learn to let them go. Suggest a fix

9:16 So there's the simplicity of bare -knowing consciousness, and in each moment, this consciousness is colored by a variety of mental factors, sometimes wholesome, sometimes unwholesome. Suggest a fix

9:33 There's one particular mental factor, factor of mind, that is common to every moment of consciousness. So it's always arising in every moment. And it's one that plays such an important role in the unfolding of our lives that the Buddha singled out this factor along with vedanā, along with feeling tone. to be one of the five So when the Buddha was describing the totality of our experience in terms of the five aggregates, he singled out this one particular mental factor, kind of made it its own aggregate. So it illustrates the importance of it. This is the mental factor of perception. And the function of perception, The role that perception plays in our minds is to recognize, name, and remember each arising object. Suggest a fix

10:51 So, for example, we hear a sound. Consciousness simply knows hearing. Consciousness is just bare knowing. Perception picks out the distinguishing marks of that sound, and we name it bird. We create a concept for it. We store it in memory. The next time we hear that sound, it's perception which recognizes, oh, that's a bird. So you can see how perception is really conditioning our whole understanding of the world we live in. It's the way we construct and interpret our world through these concepts. Suggest a fix

11:44 Perception can also happen on a pre -verbal level. For example, animals or infants may experience things through the sense doors and distinguish them and even remember them but not necessarily have a word for them. Perception happens both on the verbal and pre -verbal level. Suggest a fix

12:16 Just to reassure you, all of this is going someplace. This is just, this is just... Setting the stage. But it's important to set the stage to understand what follows. Suggest a fix

12:37 When perception, this faculty of recognition, is balanced with mindfulness, it's like putting a frame around a picture. Why do we put a picture in a frame? In order to focus our attention so we can see the picture more clearly. Suggest a fix

13:01 The point is not to To look at the frame, the point is to direct our minds towards the picture. In the same way, when perception is in the service of mindfulness, and mental noting is really a function of perception, we're naming the experience with a simple note. Suggest a fix

13:26 That mental note, that perception, the point of it is to frame the experience so that we can be more mindful, so it's focusing our attention. on the nature of what's arising. Suggest a fix

13:43 Here's where it gets interesting. Suggest a fix

13:49 When there is perception without mindfulness, which is our usual way of being in the world, we know and remember only the superficial appearance of things. We give a name or a concept to what arises, and then, without mindfulness, Our experience becomes limited by that concept. It's like we're looking at the frame instead of the picture, and there are countless examples of this, some of which I'll enumerate. But a very simple example, go outside, look at a tree, we recognize it as a tree, we think that we're seeing a tree. The eye does not see a tree. Tree is a concept, a useful one. The eye sees color and form. But we are so used to experiencing the world through the lens of our concepts. Suggest a fix

15:09 We recognize tree, name it a tree. Oh, look at that tree over there. And we think that we're actually seeing it. And we are in a superficial way. Suggest a fix

15:23 If we use the concept tree to focus our attention, To really see, to really look, there is a whole world of experience that can be revealed. You know, of light and shadow and components. Suggest a fix

15:44 But that's only if we don't get seduced by the concept. Oh, this is just another example of how concepts can limit our understanding. Suggest a fix

16:01 The son of a friend of mine, I don't know, he was... In grade school, it might be second grade or first grade. And the teacher asked the class, what color are apples? And my friend's son said white. And the teacher said, no, apples aren't white. Apples are red or they're green or they're golden. But this young boy was insistent, no, no, no, apples are white. And the teacher was insistent, no, no, they're red or green. And so this went on for a while, and then, you know, with great frustration, the young boy said, you know, when you cut open an apple, what color is it? Of course, the inside of all apples, well, most apples, anyway, are white. But we can get so caught by a superficial perception that we're not actually open to another view, and sometimes a deeper view. Suggest a fix

17:07 So our perceptions, our concepts, About what we're experiencing, this overlay on experience, very often condition how we feel about that experience. And one of the startling things about all this is that often our perceptions are inaccurate. And yet they're conditioning the experience we're having. So I'll just give you two examples of this. One happened to me, and this is a story I've told many times, but it's so striking. It's the first time Sayada Upandita came to teach here. This was 1984. It was a very intense retreat. He's a very demanding teacher. You know, practicing really hard. He was big on heroic effort. And so I was doing walking meditation just outside. Suggest a fix

18:08 You know, in the front of the building. And I glance up and I see him looking down. I mean, walking. So... Suggest a fix

18:18 Okay. Lift, move, play. I started walking really slowly. And I'm walking back and forth and I glance up again and he's still looking. And it feels a little strange to me, but I'm pretending to be diligent all the while thinking about why is he watching me. So this went on for some time and then at a certain point I just stopped and I looked up and it wasn't Upandita at all. It was a lampshade. Suggest a fix

18:53 And I had created this whole world with quite a lot of anxiety because of a concept. Suggest a fix

19:05 Another time, this is a story a friend told me. They were building a house in the woods, and as they were building it, they saw some great blue herons flying around. So they're beautiful birds. And then the house was finally built, and they move in, and they hear this chirping in the basement. And they got all excited. Somehow they thought, you know, there was a nest and, you know, there were these little blue herring chicks, you know, and chirping away and it made them so happy. And then one day they had some repairs done. Somebody came, went into the basement and came up and said, you know, your smoke alarm is broken. The chirping was just a broken smoke alarm. Suggest a fix

19:48 And all of a sudden the very same sound became so irritating and they had to immediately fix it. It was exactly the same sound. One concept led to one experience. A different concept led to a different experience. This is happening all the time in our lives. Suggest a fix

20:12 So I'd like to point out these are kind of simple and in some way trivial examples, but the power of concepts plays a tremendously powerful role both in our own lives and in the world. And without attention to them can sometimes be the cause of tremendous suffering. So this is not an insignificant aspect of the dharma. I just want to mention some of the concepts that play such a critical role in our lives. Suggest a fix

20:58 Concepts of place. You know that the world is divided into all these countries and states. How many wars and how many people have been killed? Over boundaries. The Earth has not created boundaries. These boundaries are a mental construct. And it's very striking. Those of you who can remember when the first astronauts went into space, many of them had an almost mystical experience about seeing the Earth as a whole. You know, seen from outer space. And, you know, they all described it as this most beautiful, unified planet. And yet we create concepts, create these boundaries, and kill each other over them. Concepts of ideology. Suggest a fix

21:58 It's tragic how slogans, ideological slogans, can stir up so many people, and sometimes in very violent ways. Just ones that are in the news over recent years. On one side, from one side, you know, some countries are the axis of evil. From the other side, the great Satan. These are slogans. These are ideologies. These are concepts that get put out. And millions of people get caught up in the emotions around them. Suggest a fix

22:41 Concepts of ownership and possessiveness. This is a really interesting one. What does it mean to own something? Suggest a fix

22:54 Mark Twain, the great American humorist, once wrote a short story about horse traders in Russia. But he told the whole story from the horse's point of view. And the horses never thought for a moment that they were owned by anyone. They were in relationship to various human beings, some kind, some cruel. But the idea of being owned did not arise at all. Suggest a fix

23:27 But sometimes there's huge suffering that comes about from investment in this concept. We look at the legacy of slavery in this country, the effects of colonialism, the idea that a person or a country can own other people or own another country. We see the effects of this still in the... Suffering and the conflicts that are going on in this country and around the world. Or on a much simpler level, if you think that it's just out there, I'd like you to do a little imaginative exercise now. Imagine walking into the hall and finding somebody sitting in your seat. Suggest a fix

24:30 It would probably be a moment. You might not shoot them. But I'll bet there would be some kind of reaction in the mind. What are they doing in my seat, in my place? So it goes very deep. Suggest a fix

24:51 And the Buddha said, we can't even be said to own this mind and body, much less anything else. Now with all these concepts and further ones, I'm not suggesting that we do away with concepts. or that concepts are bad. Because all of these concepts have uses. We can use them skillfully. The concept of ownership can be a useful concept or a place. Suggest a fix

25:27 But we have to understand that they are constructs of our minds. They are not reflecting some underlying reality. And when we understand that, we're then not so attached to them and we can use them in a skillful and appropriate way. Suggest a fix

25:48 The next concept that I want to talk about has huge ramifications. If we could understand this next one, I would say, I'm going to make up some number now, but 80 % of your suffering would be eliminated. Suggest a fix

26:13 Maybe 70%. Some big amount. And that is the concept of time. The concept of past and future. How is it that we experience the past? How is it that we experience the future? Suggest a fix

26:38 We're sitting or moving about and we have certain thoughts, maybe memories, recollections, remembrances. Suggest a fix

26:49 We put a concept on this class of thoughts, past, and then with some mental gymnastics, we take this concept, I don't know how exactly we do this, but we take this concept past and throw it back behind us as if the past is actually back there. Suggest a fix

27:17 And we do the same thing with future. We have certain kinds of thoughts, imagining, anticipating, worrying, planning. So we have this class of thoughts, put a concept future, and with that same mental agility, Throw the concept out ahead of us as if the future is out there waiting for us. Suggest a fix

27:46 And all this time we are not seeing that our experience of past and our experience of future is happening as a thought in the present. Now I am not discussing the metaphysical nature of time. I'm talking about how we actually experience. If we are lost in this construct, in this concept, it's as if we are carrying past and future as mountains on our shoulders going through life. How much of your day is spent lost in thoughts of past and future? With all the attendant feelings and emotions and everything that comes along with it. The concept of past and future is a huge burden which we're carrying when we don't see that the actual experience is simply as a thought in the moment. Suggest a fix

29:04 A thought in the moment is very light. It just arises and passes. This insight does not require 30 years of meditation to understand. Suggest a fix

29:24 This can be seen in a moment. Suggest a fix

29:31 Retreat is a very good place to investigate this. You might keep an eye out for time thoughts about the retreat. So you're sitting or moving about and you're having a really hard day. Oh my God. Three more weeks. Nine more weeks, whatever it is. I'll never make it. And you just feel depressed and heavy. Or maybe you're having a great, you're about to get enlightened any moment. Oh, only three more weeks. I wish I could be here a year. In both cases, what has happened? There was a thought in the moment. That's all it was. But we created a concept, a time concept about it. And then burdened ourselves with everything we've invested in that concept. Suggest a fix

30:36 This is hugely liberating to see this. And it doesn't mean we ignore those thoughts which we're calling past or ignore those which we're calling future. We engage with them in the appropriate way, but we actually see that they are just thoughts in the moment. And so our engagement with them is immeasurably lighter. Suggest a fix

31:11 I don't know where this came from, but it's... Suggest a fix

31:18 If past and future really exist, where are they? I think that's a good question to ask. Suggest a fix

31:29 Now we're going to take this a step further because it's not only time thoughts about past and future, which are so prevalent and which we get so lost in. We also create a concept of present. Suggest a fix

31:51 It may seem a bit strange because so much of the instruction and the teaching, be present, stay in the present moment. But the present, too, is a concept. Suggest a fix

32:06 And it's possible to practice being in the present, but with a kind of fixation to the present. So the Portuguese poet, Frederic Pessoa, he said, Live, you say, in the present. Live only in the present. But I don't want the present. I want reality. It's a beautiful expression of something the Buddha talked about in the Dhammapada, and this is a very profound instruction. Suggest a fix

32:49 This is an instruction that could do it. So, take it in. Let go of the past. Let go of the future. Let go of the present. And cross over to the further shore. With the mind wholly liberated, you go beyond birth and death. Suggest a fix

33:21 So this could be a very interesting place to explore in your practice. You know, when you really are settled and in the present flow, just moment after moment, if it comes to mind, you might just bring to mind, okay, let go of the present. What would that mental move be? It's kind of a... It's a letting go. It's basically letting go of clinging to the present. I call it channel zero. You know, it's like... Suggest a fix

34:04 Which is really the mind that is not clinging to anything at all. Okay, concepts of place, of ownership, of ideology, concepts of time. Another big one. You have been exploring a lot and have been getting a lot of insight into are all the concepts we have around self -images. We create a concept about ourselves, about who we are, and we present ourselves to ourselves in that way and we present ourselves to the world in that way. And as soon as we have a self -concept, a self -image, Of any kind, it is already a limitation. It is already a contraction. It's as if we've poured ourselves into a mold and then wonder why we feel constricted. Suggest a fix

35:14 It would be very helpful to keep an eye out for whatever particular self -images are arising, you're holding to. On retreat, one of the most common expressions of self -image. Is good yogi, bad yogi? You know, when things are going well, I'm the world's greatest yogi. And when we're struggling, it's as if I've never meditated before. I'm the world's worst yogi. And so then we get caught up in that self -assessment. And then we project it onto others and think, oh, they're great yogis or they're terrible yogis. And then we compare ourselves. And we're just lost in this world of self -image. And I really got caught by this in that first retreat with Saida Upandita in 1984. As I say, it was a very intense time. Suggest a fix

36:13 People were practicing with tremendous determination. And at a certain point, I saw all the yogis who I thought, these are the really good yogis. You know, they were just moving so carefully. And I saw they had little notebooks. And they were writing things down. So in my mind, I thought, oh, Sayadaw gave them some secret instruction. And he only gave it to the good yogis. And I must be a really bad yogi. So I fermented in that for a while. But then I saw the yogis who I thought were being quite careless. And they didn't look very mindful at all. And then I saw they had notebooks. You know Suggest a fix

37:14 So then I thought, oh, I must be such a good yogi that Saida thinks I don't need one. And it was just, you know, at the end of the retreat, Saida didn't say anything about having a notebook, and people were just using them at different times to make some notes about their meditation in order to report. It had no significance at all. And yet my concepts about it... Fed into this tendency to create a self -image and comparing. So that's just one example of innumerable examples. Keep an eye out. Really pay attention to whatever self -images you construct, you create. Because they are simply a concept in the mind. Suggest a fix

38:11 You know, concepts become limiting even about things that seem more fundamental. Like age or culture or race. How old is your breath? Suggest a fix

38:32 Is anger or love or joy or delusion or mindfulness? Is that European or African or Asian or American? No, it has nothing to do. There are more fundamental realities. Even the idea of race is a construct. Seen to be a construct without any basis in science at all. It would be like creating the concept of race based on the color of one's eyes rather than the color of one's skin. There's no basis for that whole construct. And yet look at the immense amount of suffering that has been caused by people buying into that mental construct. Suggest a fix

39:34 Now, this is not to say that these concepts don't point to certain differences of experiences we have. Because they do. There are different cultures. And I feel very differently at 72 than I did at 22. So there are differences that are experienced. But if we get caught by the concept about them, it solidifies the sense of who we are and we're missing. Or overlooking the underlying commonalities of all our experience. Suggest a fix

40:16 And we fix the sense of ourselves and we fix the sense of who others are all through this attachment to concepts not realizing that they are concepts and constructs. Suggest a fix

40:34 So the deepest conditioning and habit of mind and the root cause of so much suffering In the world. Is the attachment we have to the concept of self. To this mental fabrication. Suggest a fix

40:58 The idea, and often it is a felt sense, that there is someone behind experience to whom it's all happening. We create a reference point for all of our experience. And then we call that reference point self. I. So how does this happen? Because right here, if we explore it, we can see how the sense of self, how and why the sense of self is so strongly conditioned. Suggest a fix

41:41 We become attached to and identified with this notion of self because we are relying on a superficial perception. It's like looking at the tree and thinking we're seeing tree and not realizing. The tree is a word in our mind. You know, we get up in the morning. We look in the mirror. There's Joseph. There's me. That's who I am. And then not looking more deeply to actually see and experience what is really there. So an example that I think we've used at different times during the retreat is that of a rainbow. You know, after a storm, a rainbow often appears and we see it. And it's beautiful and we feel a certain delight. Suggest a fix

42:39 But if we have some strong mindfulness and wisdom, we not only see the rainbow, but we actually can see and understand the underlying reality of air and light and moisture, the conditions which create the appearance of rainbow. Suggest a fix

43:05 This allows us, when we see... The underlying realities and not just the superficial perception, it allows us to delight in the joy of it, in the beauty of it, at the same time not being attached to it because we realize it is only an appearance. So we might think of self, of Joseph, of each one of us like a rainbow. There is a pattern to all the different conditions of mind and body that are coming together moment after moment. And we can recognize the pattern. And we can name it. We can use a concept. And it's fine to use the concept self. Suggest a fix

43:58 But we don't want to become misled into believing that that concept refers to something underneath the appearance. and this is precisely our Exploration in meditation. Going beyond the appearance to see and experience all the changing elements of this mind and body. We really see moment after moment what it is that's actually arising. So the question arises, can arise, well on the level of rainbow or the level of self, we are seeing that. We are seeing the rainbow. Is it real? Is the rainbow real? So one teacher, one Tibetan teacher, expressed a response to this question really clearly with regard to the question, is the self real? Suggest a fix

45:04 He said, it's not that you're not real. We all think we're real. And that's not wrong. But you think you're really real. You exaggerate it. I love that. We are real and we interact just in all the conventional ways we do. That's not wrong. But we're not really real in the way we think we are. And the practice on meditation is to open the doorway to that understanding. Suggest a fix

45:49 How much of our sense of self comes from a superficial perception of the body? Our first response to, who are you? This is me. This is who I am. We point to our bodies. Suggest a fix

46:10 Because the body seems so solid and real. So in sitting or in moving about, begin to notice how frequently we overlay our experience of the body with certain concepts of shoulders or back or arms. Suggest a fix

46:35 But we never feel the back. We never feel the arm or the shoulders. There is no sensation called shoulder. There is no sensation called arm. What we're feeling, maybe this tightness or pressure or lightness or vibration, that's our actual experience. But so habitually, we overlay that experience with a concept and then identify my shoulder, my back, My arm. How often would you say, my tightness or my pressure? That hardly ever comes up. And yet very commonly we'd say, oh yeah, my shoulder, my back. And for conventional purposes it's fine, but it is misleading because the concepts we use don't change. Suggest a fix

47:42 Back today, back yesterday, back tomorrow. And because the concept doesn't change, we think that there is some underlying reality that doesn't change. And yet as soon as we go beneath the concept to the actual felt experience, we see the body as a changing energy field. We have a very different relationship to this experience that we're calling body. Suggest a fix

48:29 I want to reiterate that Concepts can be useful. We can use them in the service of mindfulness. And so just as an example of that, one of the instructions early in the retreat was to use the phrase, there is a body. To use it sitting, in moving about, there is a body. So we're using the concept, body. But what is the actual experience you have? When you drop in, there is a body. In sitting or moving, Suggest a fix

49:08 the experience becomes there is a body, and then we're actually feeling the body as sensations in space. The concept falls away because it has focused us in the actual experience of what's being felt. So concepts can be useful, but we have to see that they're only a pointing. Suggest a fix

49:40 It turns out that this talk is going to have two parts. This week and next week. Because I'm about halfway through. Suggest a fix

49:54 But I'll just spend a few more minutes and it will lead into the talk for next week. Suggest a fix

50:07 So a strong sense of self also happens, as you know, when we become identified with thoughts and emotions. You know, with all the internal stories. That we tell about ourselves and about the world. Suggest a fix

50:31 And we've talked so much over these weeks of really paying attention to the empty, insubstantial nature of thought. And I find this to be one of the most freeing, immediate benefits of mindfulness of the mind of thoughts. When we look directly not at the content of the thought, But at the nature of thought itself. You know, we've spoken about this often and this is really just a reminder. As different thoughts come, you might hold the question, what is a thought? And when you look at it so directly, you see there's not much there. And yet when we don't see it so directly, we live in this mind -created world. Suggest a fix

51:24 It's as if we're living in the dream of our thoughts. Suggest a fix

51:30 With all of the emotions and reactions that come along with it. There's a story of a Zen hermit monk living in the mountains. He was a great artist. He lived in a cave. For whatever reason, he spent years painting in great detail a painting of a tiger on the wall of the cave. He was such a great artist. And he did it with such precision that when he finished, he looked at it and got frightened. Suggest a fix

52:14 I love the mental note, painted tiger. When you're caught up in some story, in some train of thought, in some big drama, you might make the note, painted tiger. It's just thoughts arising in the mind. And if we can see them in that way, we're not... Creating a sense of self by identifying with them. And then the thoughts come and go and we learn from them whatever we need to learn, but there's no contraction, there's no constriction, no creation of self in those thoughts. Suggest a fix

53:09 Okay, next week I'm going to continue with this and how we create the sense of self not only with identification with the body, with thoughts, But also with moods and emotions and even the identification with consciousness itself. But I think I'd like to end somewhat confessional the reading I'm about to read. Suggest a fix

53:48 Because it comes from one of my favorite genres of reading, which is mysteries and spy books. But you never know where wisdom comes from. Generally, this genre is looked down upon. However, Suggest a fix

54:13 I'd like to share with you some of the wisdom. It's from a book called Bangkok Tattoo by John Burdett. It's about a Buddhist detective. Suggest a fix

54:29 These are my closing remarks. Suggest a fix

54:36 You see, dear reader, speaking frankly, Yeah, so. Suggest a fix

54:41 And without any intention to offend, you are a ramshackle collection of coincidences held together by a desperate and irrational clinging. There is no center at all. Everything depends on everything else. Your body depends on the environment. Your thoughts depend on whatever junk floats in from the media. Your emotions are largely from the reptilian end of your DNA. Your intellect is a chemical computer that can't add up a zillionth as fast as a pocket calculator. And even your best side is a superficial piece of social programming that will fall apart just as soon as your spouse leaves with the kids and the money in your joint account. Suggest a fix

55:43 Or the economy starts to fail and you get the sack. Or you get conscripted into some idiot's war. To name this amorphous morass of self -pity, vanity, and despair self is not only the height of hubris, it is also proof, if anyone needed, that we are above all a delusional species. We are in a trance from birth to death. Prick the balloon and what do you get? Emptiness. Take two steps in the divine art of Buddhist meditation and you will find yourself on a planet you no longer recognize. Those needs and fears you thought were the very bones of your being turn out to be no more than bugs in your software. Suggest a fix

56:50 So you could think of our practice as debugging the software. So let's set the Suggest a fix

57:01 rest to follow next week. Suggest a fix

Talk by Joseph Goldstein, recorded at Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center, 5 October 2016. Original at Dharma Seed: https://dharmaseed.org/talks/37245/. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

Listen on Dharma Seed · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0