In his second book, Geoffrey Windham continues to explore what is means to be a human being, and what the being of being human might be. He synthesises ideas from Buddhism, Kabir, Krishnamurti, Lao Tsu and Werner Erhard in a style that points out both the joy and the absurdity of life. Brad Warner, the Zen Priest and Author, comments in his foreword, "Geoff's concept of 'Usual Me' is a great way of explaining one of the most difficult aspects of Buddhist philosophy in concrete, real world terms, and should be of great use ...
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In his second book, Geoffrey Windham continues to explore what is means to be a human being, and what the being of being human might be. He synthesises ideas from Buddhism, Kabir, Krishnamurti, Lao Tsu and Werner Erhard in a style that points out both the joy and the absurdity of life. Brad Warner, the Zen Priest and Author, comments in his foreword, "Geoff's concept of 'Usual Me' is a great way of explaining one of the most difficult aspects of Buddhist philosophy in concrete, real world terms, and should be of great use to anyone who finds the Buddhist idea of 'no self' baffling." Windham's central theme is the challenge of alienation. We are all strangers in a world that we make strange by insisting on our individuality. We localise ourselves and yearn to be whole. The attempt to regain a sense of wholeness while maintaining our individuality results in much of the suffering we all experience, as we make the mistake of believing ourselves to be self powered and try to fill the gap with stuff that we imbue with meaning both material and abstract, with the ultimate goal of wholeness. This desire, by its nature can never be satisfied. Even though we are not self powered, we do have the power to make and receive effects. The way we make and receive is a moment by moment choice, where we can choose whether to do the right thing or not and the act only exists in its doing. So the realisation is getting that trying to fill the gap at all is futile, but at the same time, moment by moment, circumstance by circumstance, filling the gap with as much of the right thing as we can muster.
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