Continuing his exploration of selflessness, Joseph Goldstein helps listeners live in the balance of both relative and ultimate truth.

This episode is a continuation of a talk that started in episode 259, "Selflessness, Dukkha, and Freedom."

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/insighthour and get on your way to being your best self.

This time on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein discusses:

• The impersonal nature of experiencing peace
• Seeing with consciousness rather than with the subjective mind
• Reframing the language of experience with a passive voice
• Being fully present in the moment without identification
• Understanding death and dying as the natural flow of impermanence
• Having an easeful mind even when the body is afflicted
• Understanding both relative and ultimate truth
• The wonderful and joyful practice of generosity

This episode was recorded at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and originally published on Dharmaseed

“We work to understand the dynamics of our conventional reality and all the challenges of it, even as we understand the essential selfless nature of it all. This is really the heart of a mature spiritual practice, the union of these two, not the separation." –Joseph Goldstein

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Unpacking the Buddha’s notions of self and nonself, transience and suffering, Joseph Goldstein leads listeners into the heart of liberation.

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/insighthour and get on your way to being your best self.

This time on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein illuminates:

• Why the Buddha paid so much attention to the concept of self
• How a felt sense of self traps us in desire and attachment
• Seeing the term ‘self’ as a designation rather than something that exists in and of itself
• Slight adjustments to our language during practice: ‘the body breathes’ rather than ‘my breath’
• Using the template of The Five Aggregates to describe experience
• Genuine experiences of momentary peace as a peak into Nirvana
• Taking an interest into the landscapes of our own minds
• Transience and the way that things are always becoming otherwise
• The ungovernability of the mind, the body, and all aspects of reality
• How selflessness can lead to both Dukkha and freedom

This episode was recorded at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and originally published on Dharmaseed

"As long as we are caught up, identified, and entangled in the view of self, then we spend our lives defending it, gratifying it, grandiosing it, judging it; we have all these responses that come out of this felt sense of the self." –Joseph Goldstein

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Distinguishing aspiration from striving with ego, Joseph Goldstein gives listeners permission to have a sense of purpose along their spiritual path.

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/insighthour and get on your way to being your best self.

This week on Insight Hour, Joseph Goldstein discusses:

• Having a sense of purpose within the impersonal nature of all things
• Aspiration: understanding why we are practicing
• What the Buddha said about purpose and aspiration on The Eightfold Path
• Seeing the world objectively without reference to the self
• Being a great faith follower versus a dharma follower
• Resting in our practice and letting go of unhealthy striving
• Insight Meditation Society and its commitment to diversity
• Maintaining the right attitude and openness to all experiences

This episode was recorded at the Insight Meditation Society Forest Refuge and originally published on Dharmaseed

"The Buddha definitely laid out a goal. The Eightfold Path leads someplace—it's not just meandering around, not going any place. The Eightfold path is leading to awakening, to enlightenment. We can have that aspiration which sets the direction for our practice, we can say that is a sense of purpose, but we're seeing it not so much in terms of an egoful striving, but a realization of our values and what leads to the accomplishment of our values." – Joseph Goldstein

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