Different voices. Shared questions.

A teaching about the deepest Self and a teaching about not-self can both unsettle familiar ideas of who we are. Reading them together is most revealing when we let their disagreement remain visible.

“Perfect love casts out fear” and “hatred ceases by love” are easy to place beside one another. Their fuller settings make the encounter richer: one concerns confidence before judgment; the other the ending of hatred.

Our experience is influenced by what we notice, think and judge. The Dhammapada and Epictetus both direct attention to this influence, while giving it different ethical and philosophical meanings.