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May 25, 2023

"It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question." --Eugene Ionesco

Question Everything: Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

"So what does it mean to think outside the box? All of us live and swim within a world of concepts. And our first very powerful concept is who we are, who we think we are. You have ideas about who you are that you want everyone else to know about. We identify with our gender, our nationality, race, social class, education and then we're somebodys brother or sister, husband or wife, mother or father. We play so many roles. And we all have memories telling us who we are. Im a happy person. Im an unhappy person. I had a wonderful childhood. I had a terribly abusive childhood. I'm a spiritual person. I'm totally worldly. It's all concepts. And those concepts box us in. They say we can do this much, can't do more than that. These are my limits. And everything which we see and everyone we relate to, we relate to from this tight box of very limited judgments, prejudices and perceptions..." Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo was one of the first women from the West to be ordained as a nun in Tibetan Buddhism. She spent 12 years meditating in a Himalayan cave, and later established a nunnery in India. She shares more in this talk about thinking outside the box.