mike@exploringenlightenment.online
Welcome to my YouTube talks about enlightenment
1. Introduction to enlightenment
Personal experience; introduction to no-self via the Cula-Saccaka Sutta in the Pali Canon; some terms related to enlightenment. (29m)
2. The Buddha and Susan Blackmore
The Pali Canon, Walpola Rahula, more on the Cula-Saccaka Sutta; five aggregates; no-self; ethics, conditioned arising; Susan Blackmore’s ‘Ten Zen Questions’, self as fiction, no such thing as time. (39m)
3. The Buddha, Plotinus and Walt Whitman
Introduction to Plotinus and Whitman, the ‘lost Buddhas of the West’, counter-religion of the West, Neoplatonism, Hebraic v Hellenic, Porphry, Plotinus and the elevation of self, beauty points to the divine, via negativa / via positiva, Whitman’s expansive sense of self, Whitman as spiritual teacher, eclecticism, Bucke, Beat poets, possibly gay, Leaves of Grass, hiding his teachings, Thoth and Tat, Rajneesh, Douglas Harding, Krishnamurti, Andrew Cohen, K. and Bohm, no-self, elevated self, expanded self. (46m)
Beauty as a way of exploring different paths to enlightenment, in the cases of the Buddha, Plotinus and Whitman. (1 hr 29m)
5. Enlightenment, ‘God’ and Meister Eckhart
Language and meaning, ‘God’ as a contested term, the teachings of Meister Eckhart, the parallels between Eckhart and the Buddha. (59m)