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No Self Ponderings
I was sitting out in my phys. ed. class, as I so frequently do - and given that my mind has been totally infected by buddhist related stuff as of late, I was thinking about how our idea of 'self' is just a product of our experience etc. and wondered that if I had lived the same life exactly - as you, or any other person - but were still 'me' would I turn out exactly the same way as the other person? (Not physically obviously, and assuming that there was no physical differences that would totally hinder me in living this other person's life.)
Initially, I thought that surely I would react to things differently - but isnt the way i react to things based on my previous experience?
Another question/point - If our 'self' is just a product of our experiences...
--> People who are gay often claim that they were born this way, but surely if our identity or 'self' is made up of our life experiences and past emotions - surely this cannot be true.
Any thoughts/answers?
(Im a buddhism-newb ftr, please excuse and correct my inaccuracies and mistakes
)
Initially, I thought that surely I would react to things differently - but isnt the way i react to things based on my previous experience?
Another question/point - If our 'self' is just a product of our experiences...
--> People who are gay often claim that they were born this way, but surely if our identity or 'self' is made up of our life experiences and past emotions - surely this cannot be true.
Any thoughts/answers?
(Im a buddhism-newb ftr, please excuse and correct my inaccuracies and mistakes
) 0
Comments
For example, when I was a baby, I was fairly quiet. To this day I am the quiet, calm guy. When my brother was a kid, he'd always have to be doing something, exploring, getting up to mischief, you name it. To this day, those traits are obvious in his personality. I think no amount of change in my childhood would make my personality different and I think no amount of change in my brother's childhood would make his personality different. Some things are just with us from birth.
That's one way of looking at it, sure. But then, the same could be said of peole who claim to be born heterosexual.
Well with the buddhist idea of no-self, what specifically is that refering to then?
A Rashomon Style story is where the same event is recounted by several characters. The stories differ in ways that are impossible to reconcile. It shows that two or more people can view the same event quite differently. The author invites the audience to compare and contrast these divergent points of view. Sometimes the work provides no definitive answer as to what actually happened.
More usually, the audience will get the definitive true version of the story at the end of the episode. One or more of the points of view will be obviously false and/or a transparent attempt to make the teller of the story look good. By the time a story uses this plot, we often know which characters are less trustworthy, but in real life we never really know.
It is inspired by the famous Akira Kurosawa film Rashomon.