Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

Self and Not-Self: Who (What) are You?

With Eugene Cash recorded on October 25, 2020.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

This talk explores classic Buddhist teachings about anatta: self and not-self as well highlighting how other traditions and modalities recognized self and what it means to be free from self. We investigate self and not-self through spiritual, poetic cultural and personal perspectives.

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Sophie Boyer

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Sophie Boyer – Week of 01 December, 2025

    This week’s theme is: Before Reactivity

    Desire and ill-will very often drive our experience without being noticed. Learning to stay in the space before it arises, no matter how uncomfortable it can be is the entry point that leads to resilience. This week Sophie Boyer invites us to explore some ways to become more familiar with that space and experience the freedom that emerge from it. Resilience as a space of non-reactivity.

    Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More

  • Nirmala Werner

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of 24 November, 2025

    We are delighted to have Nirmala Werner guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these sessions support and enrich your practice. This week’s theme is: Embodying the Four (or Five) Elements: Meditation for Everyday Presence. Rooted in Buddhist wisdom, this practice invites us to connect with earth, water, fire, air, and space as living forces within and around us. By attuning to their ever-shifting qualities, we find grounding amidst change-an anchor of presence, steadiness, and clarity to meet the movements of daily life. Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More

  • Beyond Mindfulness: The Fullness of Insight Meditation

    Mindfulness is the engine of meditation practice, and it tends to get all the press. But is mindfulness sufficient to transform our hearts, minds and lives? In this session, we’ll explore some of the other qualities and cultivations that are essential to deep on the spiritual path.

    Read More

  • Shaila Catherine

    How Conduct Bears Fruit: Training in Not-Killing

    In this session Shaila Catherine explores the fruits of karma and the consequences of action through a detailed consideration of why and how we practice ethical precepts. The focus for this talk is the commitment to not kill.

    Read More

  • Stephen Fulder

    From Mindfulness to Dharma: The Fourth Foundation

    The huge popularity of mindfulness is accompanied by a lot of confusion in relation to mindfulness in and of itself and how much it embodies the wider teachings of the Buddha. What is dharma? When, if and how is mindfulness the same as or different from dharma? This topic will be discussed in relation to…

    Read More

  • The Spectrum of Sensuality – Where do I stand?

    The extremes of addiction to sense pleasure and addiction to self-mortification are not the path to happiness. The spectrum of human sensuality spans from pleasure to pain, pleasant to unpleasant, from hedonic excesses to self-harm, encompassing a vast range that is likely different for everyone. What is considered the Middle Way for a monastic might…

    Read More

  • Ayya Santussika

    Choices – The Ones that Matter and the Ones that Don’t

    How many choices will you make today? Which ones are likely to lead to happiness and which to suffering? Often we have many more options than we think we do. The Buddha’s teachings offer clear guidance on how to make choices that help us develop our habits, our character, and our karma in a way…

    Read More