Who am I?

7 perspectives

1. The Buddha

   Lumbini / Ganges valley

   Suffering arises from craving, and craving can be understood

2. Nagarjuna

   Southern India

   All things are empty (śūnya) of independent, permanent essence

3. Dōgen

   Kyoto → Song China → Eiheiji

   Practice and realization are one (shushō ittō)

   “To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.” — Genjōkōan (Shōbōgenzō)

4. Ibn Sina (Avicenna)

   Bukhara → Isfahan

   The soul is aware of itself even suspended from all sensation

5. David Hume

   Edinburgh

   Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions

   “A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.” — Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, §10

6. Simone de Beauvoir

   Paris

   One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman

   “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” — The Second Sex, introduction

7. Hannah Arendt

   Germany → United States

   The banality of evil: harm done by thoughtlessness, not monsters

   “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” — The Life of the Mind (thinking section)