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Love of All Wisdom

~ Philosophy through multiple traditions

Love of All Wisdom

Tag Archives: Dorothy Lele

How can you be yourself if there is no self?

10 Sunday Feb 2019

Posted by Amod Lele in Christianity, Early and Theravāda, Foundations of Ethics, Free Will, Modernized Buddhism, Self

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

20th century, autobiography, Boston University, Dorothy Lele, expressive individualism, Friedrich Nietzsche, gender, Milindapañhā, Pali suttas, Pudgalavāda, René Descartes

The rise of qualitative individualism in the West coincides relatively closely with Western interest in Buddhism. Nietzsche and Emerson, two of the most influential qualitative individualist thinkers, both had an interest in Buddhism stronger than was usual for philosophers of their time. And the greatest flowering of Western interest in Buddhism occured in the 1960s, the same time when qualitative individualism itself became fully mainstream.

Qualitative individualism can be put in many ways, but one of its most characteristic injunctions is “be yourself”. The injunction is often phrased further in terms of one’s true self. Such ideas are of central importance to the LGBT movement. A recent news profile asking Boston University students about the meaning of being transgender finds many of them echoing a common refrain: “discovering your truest self”, “finding one’s true identity”, “being their true selves”, “being truly, completely, unapologetically me”.

None of this seems like a great fit, on the face of it at least, with a tradition that has proclaimed for 2000 years that there is no self. Continue reading →

My mother’s meditations

09 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by Amod Lele in Confucianism, Family, Gratitude, Meditation, Modernized Buddhism, Serenity

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

autobiography, Dorothy Lele, S.N. Goenka

Over the past little while I have been reading more Confucianism, and becoming more sympathetic to it for a variety of reasons. I’ve hardly converted to Confucianism, which is probably just as well; I sometimes think I’d be the world’s worst Confucian – not having children, living far from my parents, and having grown up regularly challenging their authority. To be fair, my parents – a Marxist and a child of the sixties – effectively encouraged me to challenge their authority. Still, in recent years and months I have come to sympathize with Confucianism a lot more. And it feels like the very least I can do is honour my parents in this forum.

I chose this week to do so because my mother, Dorothy Lele, just celebrated her birthday, and I will start by speaking of her. Continue reading →

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