Group 1 questions and thoughts

Well, they are really my own questions and thoughts on the book. Upon completion of the book, I came to understand the some of the thought processes of Buddhism in Matthieu Ricard's perspective. Its basically about happiness coming from within, and not outside sources or circumstances; and training the mind to be able to achieve this level of introspection. Honestly, not a bad idea; but I wonder if that is really all that necessary for happiness or required for pragmatic views and ideas?

Richard talks a lot about letting go of the “ego” and the self and often times refers to them as being the same thing. What ever the “self” is, it must be some from of “thinking thing” as Descartes put it. “I think therefore I am”, a quote by him that details his understanding of the self. Whether is it an illusion or not, it is still there and I can't see it as being part or the cause of egocentrism. It is ultimately a personality trait, not some inevitable by produce of having a sense of “self”.Maybe the “self” isn't the cause of Westerner's ills/personality traits, they could just be arrogant. Is losing the self really required to reach some state of inner peace or ability to diminish anger? On page 84, Ricard talks about how a simply punch angered him for almost an hour. He blames this on the ego, but maybe if he was used to taking a hit, it wouldn't have bothered him either. I have had similar experiences in my life, at one time a friend of mine and myself was hit by a person for no real reason. While my friend fretted the entire experience long after it had happened, I moved on as if a simply mosquito had bitten me and forgot the incident until just now. It had nothing to do with letting go of the ego for me, I was simply used to getting hit and it just didn't bother me. It was more of a product of training and improving the self, rather than destroying it.

“Is losing the self really required to reach some state of inner peace or ability to diminish anger?”

“Honestly, not a bad idea; but I wonder if that is really all that necessary for happiness or required for pragmatic views and ideas?”