Three Things That Helped Me 

That's true! Thanks!

Ajahn Amaro is also a thick, conceited dope head. Just saying.

Thanks!

I'll see what I can do. He doesn't sit still for the camera very easily.

Thank you!

That's interesting. Now I have to re-read those parts of the book!

And the "cat" is looking at "me".

Oh my.

Thank you!

Are you calling me a wise guy?

I believe I am!

Thank you!

Thank you! I'm glad I could help a little bit.

Thanks. I've heard of General Semantics. I'll look into it!

Probably. My girlfriend's dad like to barbecue.

My question would be : why believe in stuff we don't understand?

It's a complicated question. The way I teach Buddhism is, I think, pretty close to "secular Buddhism." By that I mean, I never emphasize matters of belief. I don't care what people believe in, as long as they behave well. On the other hand, I do engage in many of the ritual aspects of traditional practice because I think they re important.

True!

Lol

Who is doing what you are doing ?

Bronson McNulty : Tricky.

Immanuel Kant developed his whole transcendental philosophy around the phenomenon ("shining up") of the revealing-concealing self (ger.: Ich). It seems to be a part of the philosophia perennis of reflecting upon anthropogenic universals.

Günter Appoldt : Can you paste the link?. Thanks. I google but got massive philosophy information but nowhere anything about what you mention in your comment.

@@lorenacharlotte8383 sorry, but I had no special source in mind. I just summed up what I learned alongside comparative studies between phenomenology and Zen (and before, via cultural "common-sensing"). I don`t know how things go in Northern America, where I assume You live, but in Germany we have a fairly good system of connected university-libraries for research. There I found some good Kant-biographies, but all in German and in rare editions, which helped much to understand his life and work better. What I know for sure, is that many middle Europeans, over many centuries, marvelled over how the "transcendental self" and the "I" (--> Edmund Husserl`s epistemological triade Ego-cogito-Cogitatum) are related to each other---as well as "the other(s), the world, and all the rest" (--> holistic matrix of the "windowless monads" à la G.W. Leibniz, who no the less also thought of a "mathesis universalis", which is rather counter-solipsistic, but that`s another story). Such meditations-contemplations---often starting on the semantic level: the everyday uses of self-(other-)indexing words, expressions, pragmas, and so forth---are part of the collective consciousness, I would say. Writers like Robert Musil, Hermann Hesse, Marcel Proust, which just spontaneously come to me mind,---yes, and not to forget some protestant mystics, like Tauler, Seusse, and Eichendorff (?), or F. Schiller and J.W. Goethe---and many others, im- and/or explicitly circle(d) around it. Eugen Herrigel tried to approach the "Zen (no)self" in the 1920ies, when teaching Western philosophy in Tôkyô, while his wife did some ikebana ... George Herbert Mead also did some meticulous studies on the "matrix" of the person, concentrating on the psycho-sociological field (maybe influenced by William James). I don`t know whether Susan J. Blackmore ("Consciousness") mentions the classics, but she gives a fairly good introduction into the whole matrix of Self-Noself-Consciousness. Hope this was of some help. Greetings.

One incidental remark: A comparative approach may sometimes be helpful to get in and out of frames. I happened to notice these weeks that the London Buddhist Centre keeps presenting some solid, "old-school style", (live-)videos via YT.

Thanks. I'll look for that book.

@@HardcoreZen Cool, I'm quite sure you'll like it. Would be great if you'd mention your thoughts on it sometime.

Please do some research about me. Thanks.

Hardcore Zen I have watched many of your videos and read some of your writings: It’s not about you: it’s about your advice. Thanks.

Could be!

Seeing the self that gets bossed around is the practise - thus the girlfriend is the great guru.

@@macdougdoug the problem is that the non celibate life has too many things coming from too many directions inaddition to contrary paradigms so "effective practice" is actually a "sour" illusion in that context conventional religion is "safer" in that respect because you don't get into the mystical side and drowned in the cross currents, the usual consequence as you point out "no-self" is a real thing, but when self necessarily includes spouse/girlfriend/children then you are going to be ripped apart non-productively i used to think that just a girlfriend and no children was ok, but even just a girlfriend doesn't work either, its a different paradigm

Aïe! True dat - tricky stuff. In the end though, is it not in the mundane that one tests the mystic's metal?

@@osip7315 what youre saying is you value silence in a relationship, and you havent found it yet