Ego and the Self

Topics include:  1) How we tend to repress negative emotions as a way of defending our sense of self;   2)  What is the ego, what is non-self: the importance of understanding our mind;   3)  Understanding the stages of evolution of the ego;   4)  The Buddhist interpretation of the ego;  5)  Seeing the ego formation process as a process of conditioning or karma;  6)  How our karma plays out through our thoughts and create a sense of our narrative self: the work of Jeffrey Martin;   7)  The untoward effects of our attachment and identification with a false sense of a narrative self;   8)  Understanding our connectedness with all life on this earth;   9)  Meditation as the vehicle for self understanding and wisdom;  10)  Seeing this wisdom within the world of suffering we see today.  

February 15, 2025

Topics Include:  1) The fundamental basis of Buddhism: understanding our mind;  2)  The healthy development of a self and the Buddhist concept of non-self;  3)  Modern psychological studies in the development of a healthy sense of self and ego;  4)  How the way our life unfolds is fundamentally a process of cause and effect or karma;   5)  Seeing our ego as a “social construct”;   6)  The difference between “conventional reality” and “absolute reality”;  9)  How identification with the ego can lead to suffering;  10)  How to reconcile our ego-centric self with our interconnectedness with all other beings;  11)  The Buddhist rejection of a fixed, unchanging, permanent soul or God;  12)  How non-self seen in the Five Aggregates: form, feelings, sensations, mental formations, and consciousness;  12) Understanding what holds us in common with all other sentient beings.  

February 22, 2025

Topics Include:   1)  What is the relationship between a healthy sense of self or ego and the Buddhist concept of non-self;  2) How modern psychology and neurobiology validate and confirm the Buddhist concept of non-self;  3)  the early stages of ego and self development in children;  4)  Seeing the self as a construct, constantly changing and evolving, not something permanent, unchanging or eternal;  5)  Building a strong sense of self in psychological terms, while seeing our relationship to all other sentient beings:  the difference between conventional and absolute reality;   6)  How identifying with our karma can become our ego in a negative way;  7)  Common ways in which we become identified with our ego in a negative way:  self talk; being attached to our identity;  the need to be right all the time;  being overly sensitive to praise and criticism;  constant comparison and envy;  fear of vulnerability;  our tendency toward control and resistance;  defining our ego by our material and social status in the world;  8)  the role of mindfulness;  9)  Seeking happiness in the wrong places: the basis for greed, hatred, and delusion;  10)  Finding a life of balance and peace: the middle way;  11)  What is enlightenment?

March 8, 2025

Topics Include:  1)  The question is who am I, if not my self?  2)  How modern psychology and neurobiology defines the self;  3)  The mind as a construct or a collection of processes happening in the brain;  4)  The illusion of continuity;   5)   The default mode network;   6)  Memory reconstruction;   7)  My sense of body ownership;   8)  The process of temporal binding;   9)  Emotional consistency;   10)  Confabulation and narrative;  11)  Predictive processing;  12)  The final question:  Who am I in the light of what modern neurobiology tells me? 

March 15, 2025

Topics Include:  1)  Buddha’s fundamental premise: it is selfish, self-centered behavior that causes suffering in the world;  2) the origin of the Buddha’s teaching on non-self;  3)  How modern psychology and neurobiology have come to affirm the Buddha’s teaching;  4) Review of modern psychological research: the reality of karma;  5) Review of modern neurobiological research;  6)  The Buddha’s teaching on non-self:  the five aggregates: form, feeling, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness;  7)  The analogy of a candle flame, or a river;  8)  The story of King Milinda;  9)  Two ways of understanding non-self: as a collection of parts and a system of processes: how we are interconnected with all other phenomena in this world.

22 March, 2025

Topics Include:  1)  The underlying premise of the Buddha’s teaching: our preoccupation with our self;  2)  The basic premise of non-self;  3)  Review of modern psychology and neurobiological research;  4) The Buddha’s teaching of non-self:  the Five Aggregates of Clinging;  5)  Non-self from the perspective of Dependent Origination:  6)  Non-self from the perspective of Co-dependent Origination;   7)   Understanding the web of interconnection;  8)  The teaching of Thich Nhat Hahn and  Interbeing;  9)  How we can understand the world through the lens of interdependence.  

29 March, 2025

Topics Include:  1)   Importance of the Buddha’s teaching of non-self or anatta;  2)  How do we bring this understanding of non-self into our everyday lives?   3)  Review of modern psychology;   4)  Review of contemporary neurobiology;   5)  Review of the Buddha’s teaching on the five aggregates of clinging and dependent origination;  6)  What does the truth of non-self mean for me in terms of how I live my life?   7) How can I live a life with a sense of no solid self?  8)  How does non-self affect my relationships?  9)  Realizing non-self in my daily activities;   10)  Understanding non-self in our moral interactions with others;  11)  How non-self liberates us from suffering;  12)  What happens when the illusion of a self falls away?  13)  What is awareness?  14) What are the larger implications of the illusion of self and it’s impact on human kind?  

12 May, 2025

Topics Include:  1)  Why the concept of non-self is important in the Buddha’a teaching;   2)  What psychology and neurobiology say about the self;  3) What the Buddha teaches us about the sense of self: the five aggregates and dependent origination;    4)  How the teaching of anatta or non-self becomes the teaching of sunyatta or emptiness in Mahayana Buddhism;  5)  The final teachings of the Buddha to Ananda on non-self in his final moments;   6)  Extending the idea of non-self to the concept of emptiness:  The Heart Sutra;  7) The teaching of Nagarjuna: all phenomena are empty of inherent existence:  8)   All phenomena are comprised of parts, processes, and mental labels and therefore have no intrinsic essence to them;  9)  How we use mental labels as words to objectify our environment;  10) How words constitute our thoughts and create abstract maps of reality but not that reality itself;   11) So, what is wisdom?  Do we really see reality as it truly is?  12)  So, what is reality?  Nagarjuna’s teaching on the Middle Way.    13)  What is the moral and ethical implication of not seeing reality the way it really is?  

26 April, 2025

Topics Include:  1)  Why the concept of non-self is important in Buddhism;   2)  The revolutionary nature of the idea of non-self;  3)  How the self is seen modern psychology and neurobiology;  4)  The Buddha’s teaching on non-self:  The Five Aggregates and Dependent Origination;   5)  The historical transition from the teaching of non-self to the teaching of emptiness or sunyatta;  6)  Nagarjuna and the concept of emptiness;   7)  The three basic concepts of emptiness:  parts, processes, and conceptual designations;   8)  Nagarjuna’s teaching of the Middle Way;  9)  How we see the world as objects and what that means in our lives;  10)  Nagarjuna’s teaching on conventional and absolute reality;  11)  What is the result of realizing the two truths?   

10 May, 2025

Topics Include:  1) A brief review of the series: the importance of non-self in the Buddha’s teaching; the verdict of modern psychology and neurobiology; the teaching of non-self; and transition to the teaching of emptiness after the death of the Buddha;   2)  Nagarjuna and the teaching of emptiness;   3)  Parts, processes, and mental labels:  the components of all reality;  4)  What is a conceptual designation?   5)  Nagarjuna’s teaching of the Middle Way;   6)  Nagarjuna’s teaching on conventional and ultimate truth;   7)  Examining the concept of “emptiness of emptiness”;   8)  The meaning of Zen: direct experience vs conceptual knowledge;   9)  Emptiness in Tibetan Buddhism;   10) How do we describe ultimate reality?

17 May, 2025

Topics Include:  1) Summary of the teachings of emptiness or sunyatta and how we can bring this understanding into our everyday lives;   2)  Nagarjuna’s definition of emptiness;   3)  The two realities: conventional and absolute reality;   4)  The role of mental constructs;   5)  Letting go of views and beliefs: achieving a sense of non-clinging wisdom or spacious openness;   6)  Bringing this wisdom to our everyday experience;   7)  Chogyam Trunpa Rinpoche’s “reference points” or ways we depend on to define ourselves and make sense of the world;   8)  The creation of “cocoons” to hide us from the reality of our experience;  9)  The consequences of relying on our reference points;   10)  What is our “basic goodness”?  11) Overcoming our “reference points”;   12)  The “Sacred Warrior” and the “Universal Monarch”;   13)  Finding “magic” in our experience;   14)  Reflections on Trungpa Rinpoche;  15)  What is our true connection to ultimate reality?

24 May, 2025