mindfulness

But first; Maybe the best answer on why we see us as unified beings;                 We are all striving for happiness, but is it maybe not so good.  First of all happiness seems to be a side effect of other sings as, coming home after a long walk where we had lost our direction.  In meditation we don't strive for happiness but for a more subtle feeling of contentment.  We are satisfied with what is; the breath, the sounds around us, the air against our skin, to be alive, to live on earth...  we know that feelings come and go, that good and bed times come and go. We cling to neither of them.  We have an ego, but we don't cling to it too much.  We have friends, probably a home and other basic things but we have some warm distance to all that too.  We appreciate  it much as we no it can change.  We become friend with feelings of loneliness, as we no that we have to accept them as a part of life.  We do things that have a meaning for us and for others.  As

If we, or anything, havent got a intrinsic self, what is we then? What holds us together? Suggestions; other people, nature, food, an income, animals, insects, memories of other people, nature, food.... Maybe a will to live, maybe curiosity, maybe interests, maybe Love.... Maybe genes, maybe compassion.... Maybe we dont know. But it's not anything internal...                                                                                                                                MEMORIES OF SPRING                                HIDDEN IN MY HEART                                 SHADES OF GREEN                                     AND THE WIND                                         EMBRACING  MY LONGING

What would that mean?  And if it is so - is it necessary to know it?  On the second question I guess the answer is no. Not many people care about the question. An even fewer care about an answer.  Existentialism via Sartre's pen has about the same view;  existence comes before essence.  Your actions are important, not what you are.  Sartre takes the example of a man working as a porter. He is no porter, as he has no essence.  He can quit his job, and  look for a new.  He is doomed to freedom and responsible for his actions. Lets have a look at these statements.  Sartre says that if he i looking for freedom he also wants to free everyone.  His freedom is dependent on others freedom.  But this is an act without autonomous values, since no God has decided them.  First when we do our actions the freedom will be there.  It-s sounds true but there are some questions there.  If we interact with others, how can we be totally free.  And what about our actions; Isn

Am I going totally nuts? Or may it be a relevant question? Jay Garfield thinks this in his book Engaging Buddhism - Why it Matters to Philosophy  To get a clue who he is; Here he is in a conversation with Robert Wright (though he doesn't discuss "my" question here); In the book he compares Buddhist thinking to western philosophers as Hume, Heidegger and Wittgenstein. If you search on his name at Wikipedia you will find out that he's a really serious guy. he puts his finger on the fact that philosophy didn't start in Greece and is still going strong in, for instance,  Asia. I qoute from his book (p 36) "For if the Madhyamaka metaphysical picture we are sketching is correct, the world as it is is not entirely given to us independent of conceptual imputation, either. That world, and the interdependencies that obtain in it, as well as its ontology of entities and parts, comprises, inter alia, the social world we construct. Such things as nation