18th May

Just nine of us today. After 15 minutes of general chat we watched video about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. A Theory of Human Motivation. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, all of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. Maslow use the terms Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, and Self-Actualization needs to describe the pattern that human motivations generally move through.
We all agreed with the author and although we may know the truth of it the reminder was still beneficial.
After the break we looked into Eastern philosophy.
The egoic mind is the cause of suffering. Nothing more. Suffering only happens in response to a thought. We suffer because we think something about what is happening, what happened, or what might happen. We create a story about what is, what was, or what will be; then we suffer over it. We particularly suffer over fears, which are negative ideas about the future, although any idea can cause suffering if it is believed.

Even positive ideas can cause suffering. Something as simple as, "I'm doing great" can cause suffering because there will come a time when the egoic mind will declare, "I'm not doing great." Every positive thought has as much potential for suffering as a negative one because it carries with it the fear of losing what is desired.