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Decentering the ego-self and releasing of the care-consciousness

Resource type
Date created
1999
Authors/Contributors
Author: Bai, Heesoon
Abstract
This paper explores ways of cultivating an extraordinarily expansive caring consciousness for an extraordinarily challenging time such as ours. This is not the first time humans have faced the challenge of caring. But now the scope and urgency of the challenge have changed. Morality bas always been centrally about extending care-consciousness beyond the narrow confines of the individual self to the other, be it the family, clan, village, or nation. We are now challenged to extend care-consciousness to the whole of the biosphere and to the whole of humanity as a constituent part of it. Also, unlike before, we do not have the luxury of evading this challenge for the same reason that we could not afford to let a critically wounded person lose more blood. In both cases, intensive care is a must. My argument proceeds in two stages: first, I analyze the conditions that afford caring, and then I examine one "experiment" in caring consciousness, that of the Buddhist theory and practice of caring. I select this example because it illustrates clearly the conditions of care-consciousness that I analyze in the first part of the paper.
Document
Published as
Bai, H. (1999). Decentering the ego-self and releasing of the care-consciousness. Paideusis, 12(2), 5-18.
Publication title
Paideusis
Document title
Decentering the ego-self and releasing of the care-consciousness
Date
1999
Volume
12
Issue
2
First page
5
Last page
18
Copyright statement
Copyright is held by the author(s) with limited rights held by the publisher of the final publication.
Permissions
You are free to copy, distribute and transmit this work under the following conditions: You must give attribution to the work (but not in any way that suggests that the author endorses you or your use of the work); You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
Scholarly level
Peer reviewed?
Yes
Language
English
Member of collection
Download file Size
Bai - Decentering Ego Self.pdf 6.92 MB

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