Ch.4: Dependency
The genius of Tulku Urgyen was that he could point out the nature of mind with precision and matter-of-factness of teaching a person how to thread a needle and could get an ordinary meditator like me to recognize that consciousness is intrinsically free of self ... I came to Tulku Urgyen yearning for the experience of self-transcendence, and in a few minutes he showed me I had no self to transcend ... Tulku Urgyen simply handed me the ability to cut through the illusion of the self directly, even in ordinary states of consciousness. This instruction was, without question, the most important thing I have ever been explicitly taught by another human being. It has given me a way to escape the usual tides of psychological suffering - fear, anger, shame - in an instant.
- Sam Harris
This chapter aims to cover: What are the main forms of dependency? Smoking, alcohol, other drugs, junk food, gambling, pornography. How big a problem is dependency for health & wellbeing? What are the effective treatments? Identifying one’s own dependencies & working out a personal response.