If suffering is the illness, the Buddha's diagnosis is sobering: the disease is incurable. Anguish is an inherent part of the relative world in which we live. So he proposed a radical solution. If we can't get rid of the disease, let's get rid of the patient. If there is no one to suffer, there is no suffering. Brilliant! But hardly the answer we were looking for. We shy away from the topic. Meanwhile, many of the difficulties we face as a species are rooted in a hyper-developed sense of self. This talk considers ways to take ourselves more lightly.

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