> I know you have discussed it many times, but I am not sold on replacing
> desires and their satisfaction.
From my perspective, at least, it's not really about replacing desires and their satisfaction, but looking clearly at the whole desire-satisfaction process and seeing what it's really all about, against the background of all reality (if you want to get really grandiose about it).
> ...then sort of. The assertion "we must share the same self" is a bit,
> I
> don't know... The self is rooted in the fact that there are individual
> members of the species , individual bodies.
Excellent observation -- that is what the concept of "self" we all start out with is rooted in. That self is inevitably launched on a course toward death (which the existentialists also made much of). Hence, it raises the question of how we relate to our own coming deaths, and how we generally use all sorts of ways of evading the issue.
There's an old Buddhist sort-of-chant-thing that goes:
" I am of the nature to grow old.
There is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature to have ill health.
There is no way to escape having ill health.
I am of the nature to die.
There is no way to escape death.
All that is dear to me, and everyone I love,
are of the nature of change.
There is no way to escape separation from them.
My deeds are my closest companions.
I am the beneficiary of my deeds.
My deeds are the ground on which I stand."
That's what Buddhist theory/practice is really about.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ When I was a little boy, I had but a little wit, 'Tis a long time ago, and I have no more yet; Nor ever ever shall, until that I die, For the longer I live the more fool am I. -- Wit and Mirth, an Antidote against Melancholy (1684)