This video was randomly recommended to me and it's only 15 minutes long but it has it all, including a Buddhist Master who draws penises on the walls of temples.
@Tfmonkey I am all for clear thinking. Enlightenment as defined in this video (there is no separate self) is bullshit. This "Enlightenment" is just as fanciful as heaven and hell.
You can practice being present, and compassionate, and being in flow without denying a separate self.
But good on that monk to get the unenlightened to bring him liquor and beautiful women. What a good con.
@redmaple I see it as the opposite. The existence of a separate self implies a soul, or some individual "self" that exists, and THAT is fanciful.
Your sense of self-awareness and conscious reality are emergent properties of your brain. Your identify is mere memory. There is real science to confirm this. Here is a Ted Talk about it (there are longer videos about this too, but this is a nice bite-size one): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyu7v7nWzfo
@Tfmonkey I don't know if we are talking about the same thing. The existence of a "separate self" I do not translate to a soul. To have a self is to realize there is a limit to your pyhsical control and experience. So if I get cut, you don't bleed. And if you think thoughts, I don't hear them.
Because your identity is memory does not mean it is not real. We mentally experience ourselves through our memories/mind. We physically experience ourselves through our body.
