Topics Include: 1) Equanimity as the resolution of the question of karma and anatta or non-self. 2) The nature of sankhara or karmic formation as a process of cause and effect beginning with our thoughts and rippling out into the world. 3) So what are our thoughts? Thoughts are responses to our experience based on our conditioning. 4) But all of the conditioning influences in our life are impersonal. So, where is the “self” in terms of what we think and how we respond to our experience…that is the definition of “non-self”. 5) The illusion of self in terms of how we think that what we think is who we are. 6) But, if I am only my thoughts and my body which is non-self, who am I? 7) Who I am is the capacity for pure conscious awareness itself. That is the difference between pure conscious awareness and thinking? 8) Pure conscious awareness as basically mindfulness. 9) Prapanca, or the tendency to proliferate our thoughts around our experience. 10) What is the difference between thoughts and emotions? How are human beings different from animals? 11) How do we see the difference between thoughts and emotions, and what does it mean for awakening? 12) The role and purpose of meditation. 13) Understanding equanimity as the true gateway to final awakening.
28 January, 2023
38 min.