January 15th

Three new members making nine of us for a hopefully instructive and interesting exposure to ideas that normally we do not consider. We watched a short video on the immensity of the Universe. The largest known star or sun is so big that if you travelled at 900 kph it would take 1000 years to circumnavigate. And as there are billions of stars as many as grains of sand in all the world's shores, it puts us in perspective. But we then discussed the all in the mind evidence so perhaps we are the centre of the Universe. Then we looked at an inspiring short video of a young man with no limbs who despite this handicap loved life.
We also discussed the following,
"Selflessness,"
Mark Epstein and the Dalai Lama in Thoughts Without a Thinker
"One of the most compelling things about the Buddhist view of suffering is the notion, inherent in the Wheel of Life Image, that the causes of suffering are also the means of release; that is, the sufferer's perspective determines whether a given realm is a vehicle for awakening or for bondage. Conditioned by the forces of attachment, aversion, and delusion, our faulty perceptions of the realms -- not the realms themselves--cause suffering. (pg. 16)
"Selflessness is not a return to the feelings of infancy, an experience of undifferentiated bliss, or a merger with the Mother -- even though many people may seek such an experience when they begin to meditate, and even though some may actually find a version of it. Selflessness does not require people to annihilate their emotions, only to learn to experience them in a new way."
"Selflessness is not a case of something that existed in the past becoming nonexistent. Rather this sort of "self" is something that never did exist. What is needed is to identify as non-existent something that always was non-existent." Dalai Lama.
"It is not ego, in the Freudian sense, that is the actual target of Buddhist insight, it is, rather, the self-concept, the representational component of the ego, the actual internal experience of one's self that is targeted."
"Conceptual thought does not disappear as a result of meditative insight. Only the belief in the ego's solidity is lost. Yet, this insight does not come easily. It is far more tempting -- and easier -- to use meditation to withdraw from our confusion about ourselves, to dwell in the tranquil stabilization that meditation offers, and to think of this as approximating the teaching of egolessness. But this is not what the Buddha meant by Right View.
Mark Epstein is a senior student of Vipassana meditation and a practicing psychiatrist in New York City. He is author of Thoughts Without a Thinker and Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart. The XIV Dalai Lama is the political leader of Tibet-in-Exile, a great spiritual teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, and author of many fine books.