I recently wrote that ideas can change us at the very core of who we are. I was on TED last night and I watched the below presentation by Dan Dennett which reinforced that idea within me. And yes, I see the irony there.
This is an amazing presentation, I hope to attend a TED conference one day in person. I may not agree with everything that is presented there, but I would love to have the chance to listen in person and participate in the conversations that must take place all over the conference.
This all made me wonder how ideas have changed me. As I sat last night thinking about this I came to the understanding that my mind is very malleable. The definition of malleable is that a substance can take on the shape of something else without cracking or becoming less that it was.
Over the years I have accepted many ideas and allowed them to change me. Roman Catholicism, the ethos of the United States Marine Corps, becoming a married man and then having a family, Tibetan Buddhism; all of these changed me in ways I do and do not know of.
Buddhism has shown me what compassion is; that it is something to strive for, something to attain and nourish. I thought I knew before, but I am sure now that I had only glimpsed at it from behind the walls I had built. The story of Angulimala shows me that any one can be redeemed and that I should condemn no one. That was hard for me to see at first, that we all contain the Buddha-nature, it might not have presented itself yet, but we have it nonetheless.
I know I rambled on in this post, sorry for that, but ideas change us.
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