DHARMA: PERSON OF INTEREST (PDF-1716)

I am Western, not Asian. Years ago I studied Western philosophy and psychology, and not just once-over-lightly. For example, I liked the author Dostoevsky so much that I read all 52 of his novels, and I then took the Russian language in school; that kind of study. I read almost of all of the philosopher Hegel, and so on. But there was something in Western literature and philosophy that I found to be confusing and this led me into Eastern philosophy and psychology, from which I have never returned. I want to tell you something about what that was. It has to do with myself. Here in the West, the Ego or Self is a big deal, the big tar baby, something to wrestle with, try to overcome, and not get stuck in. Good luck! On the one hand we are told from early on not to be self-centered or selfish, not to think of our self so much and to think only of others. Then, on the other hand, we are told to love ourselves, to find and discover our self, and above all to always “be’ ourselves. Do you see the ambiguity in these two approaches?