Topics Include: 1) Paraphrasing the Buddha’s teachings on who we are as human beings. 2) Why we don’t see reality as it truly is. The nature of illusion. 3) We live in a small contained bubble of consciousness that is limited in scope and in which we only see a reflection of ourselves. 4) Our limited perception of the range of sensory experience. 5) Our experience is limited by the demands of survival and reproduction: the Darwinian imperative; and the pleasure principle. 6) The self reflective nature of consciousness: the creation of a narrative self. The work of Jeffrey Martin. 7) The abstract, conceptual nature of thought, the basis of our narrative self and the power of conditioning. 8) How we see only the surface appearance of things as objects and not the true essence of what they are. 9) Reality is a compound assembly of parts and processes brought together by karma or cause and effect. There is no eternal essence in anything, or, no Self. The story of Nagarjuna and King Milinda. 10) Realizing that we are not a concrete self, but the result of an ever-changing confluence of causes and effects. 11) We cling to something that doesn’t even exist. In the end, we are artifacts.
August 14, 2021
53 min.