Please Note: The parking lot is likely to fill up early as the UU Church is having a large event.
Buddhist Notions of the Self/Manas
This is what I heard on September 29, 2005. As she lead Touching the Earth in the Ocean of Peace Meditation Hall, Sister Chan Khong said, "We only know about 15-20% about the people closest to us: our parents, our spouse, our best friend. And we only know 35-40% about ourselves."And this is what I have read in "Understanding Our Mind" by Thich Nhat Hanh:
"...manas is described as "love of self"..." p.93
"Even though manas is blind and its functioning creates so much suffering for us, all the other consciousnesses are at the same time present in it. If we try to eliminate manas, it would be like destroying ourselves...In Buddhism, there are no external enemies-there is only ourselves. The object of manas is just a representation, an image in our minds, not something real outside of us." p.101
"The object of manas is the mark of a self, found in the realm of representations, created at the point where manas and store consciousness touch. At that point, the object called "self" appears. It is the product of the constructed mind, based on ignorance and delusion." p.104
As we pass through the season of resolutions of self improvement, remember that Zen Buddhism teaches us that we already have Buddha Nature. Our practice is to release ignorance and delusion and negative habit energy to find that we already have what we are searching for.
Be well,
Dijana