Hello and welcome to another episode of Mindfulness Plus.

I'm your host Thomas Mekonki. Thanks so much for listening today.

The topic I want to explore today I call the unique self.

I'm not the first one to call it that, but I keep calling it that.

The unique self.

This is a big topic.

It's not one we can cover in a single episode.

It's one I've touched on in past episodes and past seasons.

I think one thing that sticks out about it that's interesting right now is that in Buddhist practice, there's a lot of language around no self. I hear a lot of confusion around no self. People without the experience of no self trying to make sense rationally

of what no self might mean. So I'm aware that when I introduce a concept like unique self,

this could be even more confusing.

Hopefully by the end of the episode, you have a good taste, a good sense of what I'm pointing to here.

It's a really important aspect of the practice, and it is not at all unrelated to the term no self, Anata, in Buddhism.

Where to begin here?

I'll start, you know, being in dad mode, I have had a chance to observe human beings up close

in a way that I never have before, especially having two kids now.

It is especially present to me how different these kids are from day one.

My son June has always been a ham.

Like it's the weirdest thing.

Before he could even really talk, he was already using language to make jokes.

And my wife had to point it out to me.

She picked up on it before I did that June would call something the wrong name on purpose

...