0.1
Death, and the fact of it
Mortality as the fact every wisdom tradition is a response to. Becker's thesis that most of human culture is a defence mechanism against death-terror; the Stoic and Buddhist counter-move of turning to face it.
read
- anchorThe Denial of Death — Ernest Becker
- Staring at the Sun — Irvin Yalom
- When Breath Becomes Air — Paul Kalanithi
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich — Leo Tolstoy
- freePHIL 176: Death (Yale, Shelly Kagan)
do
Write your obituary as it would read today. Then write it as you'd want it to read. The gap between them is your real value system — keep it where you'll see it, and revisit weekly.
done when you can sit with the fact of your own death for ten minutes without flinching or numbing.
0.2
Suffering, and what it's for
The First Noble Truth meets Frankl: suffering is not a bug to be eliminated but the raw material meaning is made from. Sets up the two arcs of the next page — cessation in the East, endurance in the West.
do
For one week, log everything that hurts in two columns: the raw sensation, and the story you told about it. Don't try to fix either.
done when you can tell pain (the sensation) apart from suffering (the story you add) while it's happening.
0.3
The absurd, and meaning anyway
Camus: the universe is silent, and the only question is whether to quit, escape, or revolt. This is the hinge between 'there is no given meaning' and 'so you make it' — it frames the whole curriculum as a making.
read
- anchorThe Myth of Sisyphus — Albert Camus
- Existentialism Is a Humanism — Jean-Paul Sartre
- Midlife — Kieran Setiya
- A Confession — Leo Tolstoy
do
List five things you would still do if they changed nothing and nobody knew. Setiya's word for these is atelic — activities with no completion state. They are the answer to the page.
done when you can say, in one sentence and without borrowing it, your own answer to 'why not quit'.
0.4
The self that's askingoptional
Who is the 'you' whose soul this is? The Humean and Buddhist claim that the self is a process, not a thing. Bridges to the next page and cross-links to MIND's I Am a Strange Loop — do it once, it counts in both places.
read
- anchorReasons and Persons (Part 3) — Derek Parfit
- What the Buddha Taught (ch. on anattā) — Walpola Rahula
- Why Buddhism Is True — Robert Wright
- I Am a Strange Loop — Douglas Hofstadter
do
Twenty minutes of self-enquiry, Ramana style: sit and look for the looker. Not thinking about the self — looking for it.
done when you have looked for the looker and noticed what you actually found.