This talk focuses on compassion to others by starting to pay attention to the numerous ways in which we are constantly judging others. Noticing how judgment creates a sense of separation between a “self” and an “other”.

Dukkha can be understood as the suffering that arises when we identify with the self-centred dream and separate ourselves from Reality. When surrender to the Reality of this moment the resistance is let go off and the unnecessary suffering falls away leaving us with the reality of just this moment.

Continues the exploration of the self-centred self and how we make that subtle shift to realising the reality of no-self.

Gives some biographical background to Hakuin and then gives a commentary on his poem about Zazen.

This is a reading of a short story that I wrote to present a metaphor of Zen practice within a unique Australian setting.

The practice of awakening from the illusion of the self-centred self can be described as a gradual process of “decentering”. The self-centred self holds memories of developmental trauma leading to feelings of shame and low self-worth or these memoires are dissociated from consciousness. The ego self is also part of the protective system which seeks to control the environment to ensure that we don’t experience that kind of trauma again.

Continues to explore the concept of the multiple self as the normal state of self and identification. This helps to explain how continuity of identity is maintained while at the same time we move through different self-states – therefore this capacity enables us to change and stay the same at the same time.

I have always found Joko Beck’s distinction between Necessary and Unnecessary suffering as very helpful. This insight or discernment between these two allows us to suffer intelligently. Accepting pain or change without resistance is a form of intelligent suffering.

This talk explores attachment to the self, or self-clinging. It makes sense to think of the self as a verb rather than a noun. The process of becoming attached is what selves do. This is what I call “selfing”. This talk explores how selfing can be beneficial and how it can be harmful.

The teaching of Zen in the USW by newly arrived teachers from Japan such as Shunryu Suzuki, coincided with the rise of self-psychology found in the work of influential therapists such as Carl Rogers and Heinz Kohut. Rogers and Kohut popularised the notion of self-esteem and how the self could be injured in childhood leading to disorders of the self. This social construction of the individualistic self, contrasted with collective identity found in other cultures and shaped how western Zen developed a psychological approach to Zen practice.