An 8-year old girl, pointing to her arm asks: “Daddy, where is my ‘self’? Is it in my arm?”
Category Archives: Discipline
Truth is an acquired taste. Its easier to spend your whole life honing your skills in proving yourself to ‘be right’ and to put truth firmly aside. Work hard enough and you could become a Grandmaster of self-deception. But even then there will always be small gaps in your armour …
Part 2:
It sometimes takes communicating a thought in writing or speech, to realise how wrong it was. Unexpressed, there’s no reality-test.
‘All’ ‘words’ ‘are’ ‘in’ ‘scare’ ‘quotes’ ‘whether’ ‘we’ ‘like’ ‘it’ ‘or’ ‘not’. ‘Qualifications’ ‘can’ ‘never’ ‘be’ ‘final’.
Toward a psychology of ‘non-self’
Is it possible that questioning the existence of a ‘self’ could become part of mainstream psychology and perhaps even mainstream society? Perhaps with the help of a spiritual philosopher-neuroscientist-atheist-polemicist?…
http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/blogs/heather-wax/sam-harris-already-has-his-next-book-planned
Three ways we attempt to deal with objects of desire/addiction (two more traditional, one more modern):
1) Banish or ‘cover up’ the object of desire e.g. ban alcohol, force woman (and men) to hide most of their bodies from public view,
2) Remove or distance oneself from the object e.g. become a monk in a monastery, keep no alcohol or junk food in the house,
3) Permit oneself to be in the presence of the object of desire, and rely on self-discipline or mindfulness to engage with this object in a ‘responsible’ healthy way.
This last way seems to involve the most ‘freedom’ and yet so many of us are hooked on at least *something* e.g. overeating, smoking, alcohol or other drugs …
Its not so important whether you are religious or atheist (or Democrat or Republican), so long as you don’t hold on to your beliefs with a clenched fist.
Measuring non-attachment
Perhaps the most beautiful and insightful – albeit double-barrelled – personality test item I have ever seen –
“I find I can be calm and/or happy even if things are not going my way.”
Answer with the following:
1 = Disagree Strongly,
2 = Disagree Moderately,
3 = Disagree Slightly,
4 = Agree Slightly,
5 = Agree Moderately, and
6 = Agree Strongly.
From paper: A Scale to Measure Nonattachment
Insight Junkie 