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ideas:all_identities_are_fictional [2023-04-07 00:01] – created awfkiideas:all_identities_are_fictional [2023-04-07 00:33] (current) – awfki
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 ====== All Identities Are Fictional ====== ====== All Identities Are Fictional ======
-... is part of a line from Sapiens, the Graphic Novel, Volume 2 that is a great description of some core Buddhist philosophy  +... is part of [[the truth]] which is a line from a book. 
-that everyone needs to learn.+ 
 +It's a version of [[no self]] or non-self which is that Buddhist thing that sometimes gets twisted into the idea that you don't exist. 
 + 
 +You exist, but you're not what you think you are. It feels like you're a thing, like something you could point at at say this thing is  
 +separate from the other things.  Buddhism says no matter how hard you look you'll never find that thing, because it's not there.  
 +What you are is more like an event. You're an event that started with your birth and will end with your death.  Except that's not  
 +right either because those are pretty arbitrary boundaries. Didn't your event start when your parents met? But... that couldn't  
 +have happened without their parents meeting. So you work your back and you end up with what Carl Sagan said. 
 +<blockquote> 
 +If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. 
 + 
 +<cite right>-- Carl Sagan</cite> 
 +</blockquote> 
 +And likewise to make you, there has to be a universe so really your event started with the Big Bang. And after you die your influence 
 +however large or small that may be, will continue and create more ripples, so your event doesn't really end until the universe does. 
 + 
 +This is largely pointing out that you are not a standalone thing that exists in isolation, you are part of a larger whole. You couldn't exist  
 +without it and it can't exist without you. It might be, but it wouldn't be the same. Which is also part of [[no self]] and [[impermanence]]  
 +and all that jazz. 
 + 
 +FIXME - this should mostly be a pointer to [[no self]]