Identity, Part I

From a Buddhist or Western psychological point of view, it’s impossible to find a single unchanging you. We can think, “This is me.” But because conditions are always changing, this can’t be true. The Buddha described the experience of identity as forming when five different factors or “aggregates” come together. We suffer less if we hold our personas lightly and understand that our selves are ever changing. How do we do this?

Date of talk: July 27, 2003
Length: 50 minutes