Is It True? Questioning Our Experience of Reality (2019)

August 4, 2019

In this talk, Dharma teacher Fred Eppsteiner begins by discussing recent mass shootings from the point of view of understanding how external actions arise from people's minds. He further explains that if we truly want to change the external unfolding in our society, that the Buddha teaches us we must transform the minds of the people in that society. Then Fred goes on to discuss the importance of challenging our experience of reality. Although our 5 senses are always based in the reality of the present moment, our thinking mind constantly skews this direct experience, coloring it with our own conditioning and reference to our self. Because of this, Fred encourages us to challenge our experience by asking ourselves if our story about it is true. He further guides participants to look deeper into not only whether the story is true, but to see who is aware of the story in the first place.