The older we become, the more past selves we leave behind. The process of “becoming” is endless; we are different people in different contexts but also at different times. What happens to those other beings? Do they cease to exist when we become someone new, or do they remain stacked deep underground in the caverns of our minds, waiting for the right moment to come back to life?
This week, Payton explored the theme of identity in Buddhist thought and the way that who we think we are changes day by day, moment by moment. And more importantly, where those selves might live now.
Payton began by reading an excerpt from the abstract of a paper for the British Journal for the History of Philosophy by Andrea Sangiacomo, a faculty member of the University of Groningen,
The discourses are concerned with how existence is used to support and consolidate a certain attitude of ownership, appropriation, and entitlement over contents of experience, in virtue of which one can claim that this or that is ‘mine’. The problem with this move is that it seems to require a degree of stability that is at odds with the fundamental uncertainty (anicca) of all conditioned realities. Existence is used to somehow cover up uncertainty, and thus allow for a semblance of genuine ownership and possession, while in fact possession and ownership are just deluded views doomed to be contradicted by the structural uncertainty of actual experience.
We then listened to excerpts from two talks on the topic of “becoming”,
Jose Reissig, To Study the Self: https://dharmaseed.org/talks/12713/
Gregory Kramer, Bhava, Becoming: https://dharmaseed.org/talks/25379/
Also mentioned during our discussion was the author David Hinton.
