Monday, May 25, 2026

If there's no self, whose NDE is it?


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Egoless Led Zeppelin (JBLZE) in Hollywood?

Meet the future legendary "Mr. Jimmy" [Sakurai] as he shreds on guitar for an adoring crowd

There is a self, but it's ultimately impersonal.
What is a "band"?* It's a lot like a Buddhist "SELF," a "UCLA" (the American college), or a Greek SHIP of Theseus. It has a name, from which it derives its stable identity, but does it really have anything else for long? It's an illusion.

To demonstrate: I went to a college called UCLA. It doesn't exist. It started as a campus near USC, which is close to the skyline of DTLA/Downtown Los Angeles.

Plant, baby, is there really a "manic" nirvana?
If anyone can grasp these few examples, such a person will understand why the Buddha taught that ultimately speaking, there is no self, no soul, no essence, no abiding consciousness that travels from life to life or stands still here now.

That's impossible to accept. So reject it. Of course there's a self (atta). It's writing right now, and another self is reading right now...in a conventional way of speaking. No one is saying there's not that.

That being the case, WHY would the historical Buddha ever say there wasn't a self? We have to consider that. What is the reason, what did he mean, was he serious?

How does "suffering" come to be? 12 links.
The answer is: It is the unexamined assumption of what this "self" is that keeps us from awakening, keeps us from enlightenment (bodhi), keeps us from liberation (vimutti, moksha). There is something, lots of "things" (dhammas, "phenomena"). Such things arise by a process the Buddha called Dependent Origination (Conditioned Co-Genesis, Mutual Interdependence, this-that-that-this). This is, so that comes to be; when this is not, that does not arise -- as if "this" is not really more than "that."
  • Understanding D.O. in one example: What is a "candleflame"? If we break it down, deconstruct it, we find that it is five things. Who cares? Well, it's important because in place of this "self" we all believe in and never question the existence of, the Buddha is going to teach us that what we have been failing to see and penetrate is this very principle of conditioned co-arising or D.O. Okay, then, what five things?
  • Where does suffering go?
    There is (1) wax, (2) wick, (3) heat, (4) oxygen, and (5) a very mysterious process of combustion. (Add to the list or take away, it doesn't really matter for the example to sink in). When these five are in a functionally integrated arrangement, bam, candleflame! Where did it come from? When it goes out, where will it "go" -- east, west, north, south, hell, heaven, the sphere of nothingness, the ground, my neighbor Robby Joiner's yard never to be seen again like all my frisbees? No, the designation does not apply; it is not correct to say the candleflame "goes" here, there, or anywhere. We just say it goes "out." That is to say, when these [factors, conditions, limbs] are present, that [candleflame] arises. When they are not, it is not. Therefore, in a sense one can say that a "candleflame" does not really exist, which is to say it does not exist independent of those factors upon which it utterly depends.
  • A candleflame does not exist.
    Yet, we don't think it is any of those factors. It really seems independent, a new thing that came into being or brought those things (causes and conditions) with it. When does it come into being? When does it manifest what we conventionally call its "being" (beingness) into existence? When the final element (aggregate) is added. Try it. Put together any four of the five elements. There won't be a candleflame. Now, add the fifth. Viola! "Candleflame" arises in the mind -- which is what these five aggregate processes look like. We think it arises in the world, but probably all that was there before is still there now, nothing actually having been added. And when it goes out, one or the other factors (limbs) upon which it depended has been exhausted or removed. Right? Try it. Can we say that, for example, the heat is the candleflame? No, because there's heat everywhere yet there are very few candleflames. Is it the wax? No, because there's a world of wax yet relatively few candleflames.... But when we add the final element, "candleflame" seems to jump into existence. And, of course, it does conventionally speaking. But ultimately speaking, it does no such thing. It doesn't really ever exist, in a manner of speaking. I'll make this point again and again until it clicks what's being said and what is not.
UCLA does not (ultimately) exist. Here's why.
This "UCLA" that I say does not exist, isn't it right over there in Westwood? There sure is something called "UCLA" in Westwood right now. But what was born and originated near USC, other than the name or some transient traditions and a charter or photos, and what things came over from that first place that remain unchanged?
  • All of the faculty are different
  • All of the students are different
  • All of the curricula, books, desks...
  • In fact, let's imagine the first place burned down and was completely incinerated, so that nothing, not a brick, not a scrap of the original went from DTLA to the Westside, would we still call it "UCLA"? We sure would! Why? What we identify or imagine to be UCLA is moving from here to there.
  • In a century, will there be a "UCLA"? No, but there almost surely will be a college (university) called "UCLA." All the faculty, students, books, lesson plans, and ephemera will be different, but it'll still -- in a sense -- be good ol' UCLA, at least in our minds and on some plot of real estate somewhere in LA.
There is no ship
Is it the same ship or a different ship?
Aside from the example of an empty college, a figment of our consensus reality to call this this and that that, maybe the ancient Ship of Theseus example would better communicate this. A ship sets off for Greece but along the way has to change the sails then the oars then the floorboards then the wheel then, piece by piece, every single piece. Is it still the same ship that arrives in Greece?

Whaddya mean "there's no car?" It's right here!
The nice answer is that it neither is exactly the same ship, but we can't say that it's another. It is, of course, not the same, but to say it's different does violence to our language and what we mean, as Bhikkhu Bodhi pointed out in As It Is. The same with your car. You could take it into the mechanic over and over so many time that they change every single piece. Then is it still the same car? It's your car either way, but not a lick of it remains, not a single piece. But a paper somewhere at the DMV says it's yours, even with a new license plate and engine block number, paint job, glass, carpet, upholstery, gas, oil, screws, everything.

There is no oxcart
There is no such thing as an oxcart.
In the same way, in ancient times, an oxcart. What is it? It is, broadly speaking, five components fitted in a functionally operational way (wheel, axle, body, steering, ox). Add pieces to the definition or take them away, it doesn't matter. But five is easy. Whose oxcart is this? It belongs to Thad. Its wheels are broken. Change them. Axle is broken. Change it. The body is broken. Change it. The steering is shot. Change it. Ox is exhausted. Change it. Now, every part having been changed, what oxcart? That one. Whose oxcart is it? Thad's. Why? It's because in a conventional sense (by our agreement and his delusion) it has been his all along, even though it is completely different. He has no control over it really; he can't keep it from breaking apart. But we still call it his, and we seem to have no trouble identifying it even as every single part gets switched out.


This "SELF," what is it? It is five things (form, feelings, perceptions, formations, consciousness). Whose is it? This one's mine. What do you call it? "Me." Sometimes "I." It's myself, I mean, my self. My soul. My ego. My personality. My atta (Sanskrit atman). My vessel into which I load my store of karma (deeds, doings, intentional acts, or all of my willed actions).
  1. By "form" you mean this rapidly deteriorating arrangement of materiality composed of solidity, movement, cohesion, and temperature? That's the one! So this material form, this body (this temporary vessel or vehicle), is actually just Four Great Elements, which are not "elements" as such but rather qualities of materiality, in a sense quanta or quantities of it because all material particles (rupa kalapas) are actually composed of all four elements or dhatus (or maha bhuta) but in differing amounts, so that when solidity is in preponderance, it gets labelled "solid" but still has all of the other features to a lesser degree. This is "you"? No. It is my body, but I am not the body. The body changes, but "I" stay the same forever and ever, the eternal self, the unchanged soul, the essence or core of the ego (psyche), the invisible watcher, holder, and owner of all that stands.
  2. Okay, these feelings, that's "you"? Yes, that's me. I'm the feeler. So you're not the feeling? Well, no, not exactly, but feeling-feeler, same thing. Okay, all of them? Which all? You are all pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings passing through? Yeah, sort of, I am the feeler.
  3. All right then. These perceptions? Yes, I am the perceiver. And you are the perceptions passing through, too? Sure, okay, perception-perceiver, I am the all.
  4. And these other mental formations, like these volitions, impulses, motives, intentions (cetanas)? Yes, I am the intender. And the intention? Intention-intender, same thing. I am the all, the owner, the doer, the knower, the experiencer, the controller or the one-who-thinks-he's-in-control.
  5. Okay, and this consciousness? Yes, I am consciousness. All of them? "All"? "You" are eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind-consciousnesses? Uh, yes, I am consciousness. And all the consciousnesses passing through conscious experience? Uh, I guess.
  • "Self" as impersonal processes
    Does anyone know why the Buddha called each of these heaps an "aggregate"? It's very important. It is because there are trillions of them, not one form, one feeling, one perception, one formation, one consciousness. At least with the oxcart, it seems like there is one (or more) wheels, axle, one body, one steerer, one ox, and the conglomeration of those forms one oxcart. But with "SELF," there are no such single items. There are aggregations (heaps of rupa kalapas) of material particles, countless numbers of them in every "material" thing, and that's just the body, the form, which has 32 main parts and lots of subsidiary parts, so many that one cannot find it tenable to consider one's "self" this body. So we cling to the other four mental formations as "self." (Yes, we call the fourth heap "mental formations" or sankaras, but the fact is that feelings, perceptions, and consciousnesses are all mental formations, too. The Buddha segregated them into these five for explanatory and insight purposes. As we develop liberating insight into these, we will clearly know-and-see that what we took to be MY feeling was just feeling being felt -- arising, turning, and passing away at all times, hurtling towards destruction, never standing still for even a submoment. The reason a feeling lasts is not because it arises and hangs around for a while then, realizing it's impermanent, it leaves. One feeling arises, turns, passes away, as another almost identical feeling arises, turns, passes away, in succession until this process dies out, at which time "the feeling" which was a heap of feelings passes to be replaced by another kind of feeling. The same is true of the other four aggregates. Science tells us this material body is nothing but a conglomeration of cells, which are molecules, which are atoms, which are quarks and strong-and-weak forces and thingies and whatnots, ever more subtle until they're not even material.
Add ingredients to the definition of "SELF" or take them away, it doesn't matter. The same is true. What we call "self" is not-self. It is impersonal, and radically impermanent, and ultimately disappointing, painful, stressful, incapable of ever fulfilling us.

*What is a "band"?
With John Travolta as Robert Plant
If ANY of this has made sense, let us deal with the problem at hand: What is a "band"? It's a group, an assemblage, an aggregate, a "heap" of four or five basic members. Whose band is it? (Whoever owns the name, which is just about the only stable thing other than ownership rights of music catalog performed and/or written under that name).
 
What five?
Fifth member Pete (Manager Peter Grant) is the best like Fifth Beatle Pete Best
 
So one day four guys and their manager became the New Yardbirds. And they got threatened with a lawsuit, so they became Lead Zeppelin. But Peter Grant, the manager and fifth member, said, "To avoid mispronunciation, let's call the band Led Zeppelin." All agreed. They played, recorded, became famous, and then the drummer had a son and died. End of the story. Led Zeppelin was over. But capitalism and greed being what they are, Led Zeppelin lived on. There was even a reunion of sorts, but they couldn't bring back the dead, so they did the next best thing: They brought in the next of kin, drummer John Bonham's son Jason. It was like having 3.5 of the original four members present. It worked!

It worked so well, that everyone but Jimmy Page or Robert Plant could have quit, and the behemoth could have gone on like the Who, Stones, Chicago, or any other massive rock act has done for years and years until not even a single member of the original band is touring! How is that possible?! Ship of Theseus. Oxcart.

Who am I? There is no me?
What're ya doin in my hole?!
In fact, there's an Early Buddhist or later Chinese Buddhist parable that may illustrate this even better: A man (let's say it's YOU) is walking and falls into a deep hole, at the bottom of which are two ghoulish demons arguing as they prepare some human stew from human limbs strewn all around their gloomy hole. Seeing you fall in, the angry one asks what the h*ll you're doing there and tears your arm off. And the other, just to p*ss off the first, grabs another arm from off the ground and attaches it to your body. It works! You move the fingers. These demonic ghouls have black magic powers. You're elated to get your arm back, which p*sses off the first, who then tears off your other arm. The other grabs another arms, attaches it to you. Again it works, you're elated, and it, being p*ssed off, tears off a leg, which is replaced, a torso with heart and head. Getting all five limbs torn off and others reattaches, you get the heck out of the hole. Who got out? Who went in. All five limbs are still down in the hole, but here "you" are running away. Is it you, is it not you, is it sort of you?

There is no UCLA?
"UCLA" can restart anywhere with anyone.
Is there one "UCLA," many UCLAs, no UCLA? Is this feeling the self, is that perception the self, is this consciousness what dies and is reborn -- or is it all an impersonal ("empty," devoid of self) process just rolling on? And that's all it's ever been? Ask Jason.

Because Jason must have asked all the remaining members of Led Zeppelin, Inc. to join him on tour. But for one reason or another (think ego, clashes, not wanting to ruin the profitable brand, and solo careers), they did not. So he did. Jason did. Jason went on tour.

Is there a Robert Plant? - Now and Zen
The O2 Arena show (called the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert) was in 2007, and on Saturday night, Jason Bonham said he's been doing JBLZE about 16 years or so. That seems to be how long Jason and Co. ("JBLZE," Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Evening) have been at it. They don't need Page; they have "Mr. Jimmy" (Sakurai) on guitar, and he looks and plays more like Page did back then than Jimmy Page does now.
Original Led Zeppelin drummer John's son Jason’s Led Zeppelin Experience Evening “Kashmir” LIVE The Greek Theater Los Angeles Hollywood, California May 23, 2026

Anattā is not a joke or punchline. All things are impersonal and always have been. And so long as we do not realize it (or that they are impermanent and disappointing, too), we will cling. And by clinging, we will suffer. And the way to let go (and stop suffering) is to realize the True Nature of All Things.

All things are impersonal: anattā
Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary of Doctrines and Terms edited by Wisdom Quarterly

What are the Five Aggregates in Buddhism?
THERE IS NO SELF (an-attā, not-atta): "not-self," egolessness, soullessness, the impersonal nature of all phenomena (particularly the Five Aggregates clung to as "self") is the final and most incomprehensible of the Three Universal Characteristics of All Existence (ti-lakkhana).

The anattā doctrine is unheard of throughout the universe, except that a supremely awakened buddha has made it known (or a nonteaching buddha has cultivated up to supreme realization) and thereby opens up an escape from the phenomenal world of endless rebirth and incomprehensible suffering.

This doctrine teaches that neither within body-and-mind (nama-rupa, the bodily and mental phenomena of existence) nor outside of them can there be found anything that in THE ULTIMATE SENSE able to be regarded as a self, soul, self-existing real ego-entity, or any other abiding essence or substance.

This is the central doctrine of Buddhism. Without understanding it, real knowledge of Buddhism is altogether impossible.

It is the only really specific Buddhist doctrine with which the entire structure of the Buddha's Teaching (Dhamma) stands or falls.

All of the remaining Buddhist doctrines may, more or less, be found or hinted at in other philosophical systems, doctrines, or religions. But the anattā-doctrine has been clearly and unreservedly taught only by a buddha.

It is on account of this that the historical Buddha was known as the anattā-vādi, or "Teacher of Impersonality." [He was also called a karma-vadin for emphasizing personal actions and karmic results.]

Whoever has not penetrated the impersonal nature of all existence and does not comprehend that in reality there exists only this continually self-consuming PROCESS of arising, turning, and passing away of bodily-and-mental phenomena and that there is no separate (independent, self-standing) ego-entity in or outside of this process, that person will be unable to understand Buddhism.

That is, that person will be unable to understand the teaching of the Four "Noble" (Enlightening) Truths (sacca) in the correct light. One will instead think that it is:
  • one's soul, self, ego, or personality that experiences suffering (dukkha, disappointment, pain, distress),
  • one's personality that performs skillful and unskillful deeds (good and evil actions)
  • one's soul who will be reborn according to such actions (karma),
  • one's personality that will enter into some kind of everlasting heaven, sphere, place, or state the Buddha called "Nirvana" (Pali Nibbāna),
  • one's "self" that practices on the Enlightening (Noble) Eightfold Path.
So it is said in The Path of Purification (Vis.M. XVI):

"Mere dukkha [ignorance] exists;
No experiencer of dukkha is found;
Deeds are, but no doer of deeds is there;
Nirvana is, but not one who experiences it;
The Path is, but no traveler on it is seen." More

Get Him to the Greek: smoke Epstein
Rock's future: Japanese Buddhist girls?
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Tao of Not Trying: Alan Watts, Lao Tzu, B Wen


Care about what they all think, prisoner?
Wu wei (Chinese 無為, simplified Chinese 无为, Pinyin wúwéi) is a concept [popular in Zen Buddhism] from ancient Chinese philosophy that literally means "not-acting" or "non-doing," variously interpreted and translated as actionlessness, inaction, or effortless action [1, 2].
If I could be Zen, would I be a Taoist?
In Taoism, it denotes the nature of Tao, meaning that while the Tao (the way, path, or flow of nature) is the source of all existence and manifestation of all phenomena, its intrinsic formless essence is that it acts or moves in a silent, invisible, ineffable, often-unnoticed manner that may even seem motionless and effortless [3, 4, 5, 6, 7].

Accordingly, Taoists aspire to live their lives in alignment with such a harmonious state of free flowing and unforced activity.

In a political context, it also refers to an ideal form or principle of spontaneous and non-aggressive governance [8]. More

The Path of Least Resistance

Let nature reign and all will be well?
Ziran (Romanized tzu-jan) is a key concept in Taoism and East Asian Buddhism. It literally means "of its own" or "by itself" and therefore "naturally; natural; spontaneously; freely; in the course of events; of course; doubtlessly" [1, 2].

ETYMOLOGY: This Chinese word is a two-character compound of zì (自, "self," "oneself," "from," "since") and rán (然, "right," "correct," "so," "yes"), which is used as a -ran suffix marking adjectives or adverbs (roughly corresponding to English -ly).

What is the most intelligent response? Flow
According to the Shuo Wen lexicon, the character 自 zi means "nose" [one's nose, oneself when not interfered with by outside influences.] In Chinese culture, the nose (or zi) is a common metaphor for a person's own point of view [3]. More

A decolonized intro to Taoism
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God=Tao? Converting Taoism into Christianity


How could the true "Tao" ever be limited to a personality? Pantheon of Taoist Gods (Tao.org)
  • Matteo Ricci, Latin Matthaeus Riccius (Oct. 6, 1552–May 11, 1610) was an Italian Catholic Jesuit priest and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China missions.
Ricci: You will worship our God
He created the Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, a 1602 world map written in Chinese characters. In 2022, the Apostolic See declared its recognition of Ricci's heroic virtues, thereby bestowing upon him the honorific of venerable [1]. Ricci arrived at the Portuguese settlement of Macau in 1582, where he began his missionary work in China.

He mastered the Chinese language and writing system.

The West's Vatican will rule China!
He became the first European to enter the Forbidden City of Beijing in 1601 when invited by the Wanli Emperor, who sought his services in matters such as court astronomy and calendrical science.
 
He emphasized parallels between Catholicism and Confucianism but opposed Buddhism.

He converted several prominent Chinese officials to Catholicism. He also worked with several Chinese elites, such as Xu Guangqi, in translating Euclid's Elements into Chinese as well as the Confucian classics into Latin for the first time in history. More

Who was Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism?
  • Lao Tzu (aka Laozi)
    LAO TZU     (Romanized "the Old Boy," Chinese Laozi, 老子, Pinyin Lǎozǐ) was a legendary Chinese philosopher and sage traditionally credited with writing The Book of Changes or Tao Te Ching (Pinyin Dào Dé Jīng), one of the foundational texts of Taoism.
Traditional accounts identify him as Li Er, born in the 6th century BC in the state of Chu during China's Spring and Autumn period (c. 770–c. 481 BC). He is said to have served as the royal archivist for the Zhou court.
 

He is also said to have met Confucius (c. 551–c. 479 BC), and to have composed The Book of Changes before withdrawing into the western wilderness.

Modern scholarship, however, has questioned both Lao Tzu’s historicity and the traditional attribution of the Tao Te Ching to a single author. More
Confucius
CONFUCIUS, born Kong Qiu, was a Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Much of the shared cultural heritage of the Sinosphere originates in the philosophy and teachings of Confucius [1].

His philosophical teachings, called Confucianism, emphasize personal and governmental morality, harmonious social relationships, righteousness, kindness, sincerity, and a ruler's responsibilities to lead by virtue [2].

He considered himself a transmitter for the values of earlier periods, which he claimed had been abandoned in his time... More

 
What is the Tao in Lao Tzu's Taoism?
Outline of the aura: Qigong
Taoism (pronounced Daoism) is a philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China and is a major influence on Zen. It emphasizes harmony with the Tao (道).

With a range of meanings in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include "Way," "Road," "Path," or "Technique," generally understood in the Taoist sense as an enigmatic process of transforming ultimately underlying reality [2, 3].
 
Taoist thought has informed the development of various practices within the Taoist tradition, including forms of
  • meditation,
  • astrology,
  • qigong,
  • feng shui, and
  • internal alchemy [4].
Meister Lam in Jiuzhaigou: Qigong
A common goal of Taoist practice is self-cultivation, a deeper appreciation of the Tao, and a more harmonious existence [with nature].

Taoist ethics [that blended until they are thought to be of Buddhist origin in Zen] generally emphasize virtues of effortless action, naturalness, simplicity, and the three treasures of compassion, frugality, and humility.

Taoism is a distinct tradition with its own scriptures, priestly lineages, and ritual systems, but it has long been closely intertwined with Zen and Chinese folk religion, and the boundary between them is often fluid in practice [5].

The core of Taoist thought crystallized during... More
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Mandy Kahn: Deep Dive Poetry, PRS (5/26)

Peace activist Mandy Kahn hosts Deep Dive Poetry at prs.org
Friends, Peace Class meets on Wednesdays, but tonight we take a deep dive. On Tuesday (May 26, 2026) the Deep Dive Poetry reading series returns to Manly P. Hall's Library of World Religions at the Philosophical Research Society (PRS). At the last Peace Class, I talked about:
Loving Boundaries

Walking, I looked up and saw myself.
We are here to learn to choose peace. Choosing peace looks like choosing to honor the Earth and her holy forests and waters. It is choosing to honor others with love, kindness, gentleness, and choosing to honor ourselves with self-love, self-kindness, self-gentleness.

As an aspect of this project of learning to choose peace, all will eventually learn how to share metta or universal love-without-end while still maintaining boundaries that honor self.

Only the lower mind thinks that one must choose between honoring others and honoring oneself.

Only the lower mind thinks, “Should I take an action that benefits me or one that benefits others?”

From the perspective of the higher mind, the Peace Mind, one can see that there is always an action (karma) available that both honors the self and all others.

When we are operating from the Peace Mind, we see with the Peace Mind's faculties. The Peace Mind is the place of infinite options, infinite opportunities.

Only someone outside of the Peace Mind could believe that a choice between self and others could be required.

Often, the options that honor both self and others will look like kindness with loving boundaries, or unconditional love with loving boundaries.

The gate that guards my garden of loving
Now, these boundaries are not limits on the amount of love expressed; one can express love-without-end, love-without-condition, and still engage loving boundaries.

These are boundaries that protect the individual even as s/he shares love-without-end, universal, limitless love.

What does it look like? Imagine a cottage surrounded by a tall garden wall with a locked gate.

If I expanded and became voluptuous, would the world still love me or just judge me?
 
Can I be safe in my garden AND share it?
To visualize love-without-end being expressed while maintaining loving boundaries, imagine being the inhabitant of that cottage. You send love-without-end over the wall, into the town, all the while still maintaining a protective wall. The inhabitant keeps her/his ground safe.

All day, every day, we can flow our love over the wall. It can flow from us without ceasing, and it can be a love without judgment, a love that surrounds and supports everyone equally, a love that enriches and heals and purifies all who are touched by it.

Our love can heal others, support others, care for others, and can still keep this boundary in place.

Because we are a part of others, it never honors others when we dishonor ourselves or give of ourselves in a way that does not serve us as we serve them. Over-giving harms others, even as it harms us.

Regardless of how others react to our boundaries in the moment, know that our lack-of-boundaries never serves others in the long run. Why? It hinders our ability to be of service to them and to everyone, and to ourselves in the future.

Service to self and service to others are aspects of the same thing. One's highest action always serves both self and others simultaneously.

Participating in service to others that does not honor self is simply a phase that many will pass through before choosing forms of service that also honor self.

Serving others feels so good to us, so right to us, that sometimes we experience “service rapture.” That selfless “service rapture” can be a kind of high. We can love the joy of serving so much that we over-give and burn out. This is simply a lesson to be learned.

When we give from grace, from strength, from fullness, we refill even as we give, and burnout is not reached. We give, fill, give, fill, give, in a harmonic flow—and when we do, we can feel when it is time to rest, and we can feel when it is time to act, and we naturally do what is called for, knowing that serving self by resting is also an aspect of serving others.

What was I doing way up there?
This flow state of service is always eventually learned by every evolving being.

Honoring self and honoring others is one. We are one. We are one in separate bodies. When we realize this, we begin to serve all parts of self—the self that appears to be us as well as the self that appears to be others—in harmonic flow.

When we learn this flow, when this flow becomes natural to us, we are of highest service.

Different situations and different relationships require different forms of loving boundaries from us.

The easiest way to see what kind of boundaries are required in any situation is to gaze at it from the place of our Peace Mind. From here, it is clear how to both honor ourselves with boundaries and to send love-without-end over our garden walls.

Even in a private magic garden, I love everyone
We will know that we have learned these lessons as a society when kindness is expressed in our penal system.

Now we live in a society that maintains a penal system that attempts to “scare people straight”—to use punishment, fear, cruelty, and harshness to build fear into an individual in an attempt to reform that penitent.

This system is based on the belief that fear could ever inspire inmates in such a system to choose more loving actions. It will not. It cannot.

Fear-based reform tactics build fear, hatred, resentment, anger, and frustration in an inmate, and those things flow back toward all of us in the collective, where such things affect everyone to our detriment.

One cannot build fear in another and not also build fear into the collective. We are all part of the collective consciousness.

But a separated mind believes, “As I punish this person, I make myself safe from punishment.” That can never be true. We are too connected for that to be possible.

That which we put into others we put into ourselves and into all whom we love and hope to protect.

When we understand this, it becomes natural for us to treat all people, even those who have acted in ways that are less than loving, with love. But we learn to do this while maintaining loving boundaries.

This is what we will learn to express in our penal system.

When we have learned this completely, when we have treated all inmates with love, while maintaining needed physical boundaries, we will have evolved to a place wherein no penal system is needed.

On the way to the experience of no penal system being required, we must first learn how to share love and maintain boundaries. That is the next lesson for us to learn.

Yes, high, thick walls may be required to create general safety. But cruelty and torture behind those walls is never required. We can have those walls, and we can send love over them. We are never safe from our own cruelty.

When there is a place within our town or our state or our country or our world where people are treated with cruelty, aspects of that cruelty affect us and those we love most.

Once we understand this, we can begin to look at the penal system as a place of opportunity. Our opportunity is to consider this question: "How can I express my love-without-end here while still maintaining needed boundaries?"

True transformation is inspired by the witnessing of acts of loving-kindness-without-end, compassion-without-end, joy-in-others'-joy-without-end, unbiased-looking-on-in-others'-equanimity-without-end.

True transformation is inspired by the Peace Mind witnessing acts of peace.

If our goal is to see fewer unloving acts taking place in our society, we can only reach that goal by modeling acts of peace: acts of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.

If our penal systems become places in which acts of true peace can be observed, they will become places of true and permanent transformation.

Transformation must be chosen by the individual; it cannot be enforced. After witnessing acts of peace, some will choose transformation.

Our job, then, is to give people the opportunity to witness acts of peace.

We can give people these opportunities, and we can treat them with respect, honoring and love, and we can still create needed boundaries that protect others, and ourselves.

Fear-based “reform” tactics do not only affect those who find themselves on the receiving end of them. They also build guilt, shame, regret, and resentment in their practitioners because these practitioners will always, on some level, recognize that actions of cruelty towards others are not their highest actions.

Love-based tactics heal. They heal those who carry them out, and they heal those who are on the receiving end of them.
 
They heal the relationship between practitioner and recipient in the moment, and they begin to heal the resentment, anger, and sadness that centuries of cruelty-based reform tactics have built up in our collective consciousness.

One act of love-based interaction in this format heals many levels of trauma left over from old cruelty-based strategies. As they heal old trauma, these love-based tactics create new possibilities of peace-on-earth for all beings.

Our penal systems are wonderful places to practice kindness-without-end with loving boundaries. Our lives are also wonderful places to practice this.

Where is life giving us the opportunity to both share unconditional love and to honor—and enforce—the space, the protection, and the boundaries that we require?

Special thx to Seven for helping me express this!
Once we can create loving boundaries in our own lives, we can safely flow more love-without-end into our world.

In brief, the better our boundaries, the more fully we can be an instrument of pure and ever-flowing metta and grace.
  • Zoom link to join Peace Class:
  • us02web.zoom.us/j/82150472713
  • Meeting ID: 821 5047 2713
  • Mandy Kahn, Peace Class, May 19, 2026, glow up and editing by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
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