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Losing Ourselves
- Learning to Live Without a Self
- Narrated by: Eric Meyers
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
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Losing Ourselves
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Summary
This audiobook narrated by Eric Meyers reveals why you don’t have a self—and why that’s a good thing
In Losing Ourselves, Jay Garfield, a leading expert on Buddhist philosophy, offers a brief and radically clear account of an idea that at first might seem frightening but that promises to liberate us and improve our lives, our relationships, and the world. Drawing on Indian and East Asian Buddhism, Daoism, Western philosophy, and cognitive neuroscience, Garfield shows why it is perfectly natural to think you have a self—and why it actually makes no sense at all and is even dangerous. Most importantly, he explains why shedding the illusion that you have a self can make you a better person.
Examining a wide range of arguments for and against the existence of the self, Losing Ourselves makes the case that there are not only good philosophical and scientific reasons to deny the reality of the self, but that we can lead healthier social and moral lives if we understand that we are selfless persons. The book describes why the Buddhist idea of no-self is so powerful and why it has immense practical benefits, helping us to abandon egoism, act more morally and ethically, be more spontaneous, perform more expertly, and navigate ordinary life more skillfully. Getting over the self-illusion also means escaping the isolation of self-identity and becoming a person who participates with others in the shared enterprise of life.
The result is a transformative book about why we have nothing to lose—and everything to gain—by losing our selves.
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Critic reviews
"Popular books on the illusion of self tend to be crass and sensationalist, the academic ones dull and turgid. Jay L. Garfield has successfully followed the less trodden middle way. As a result, the promise of losing yourself in a book has never been more literal."—Julian Baggini, Times Literary Supplement
“Wise, useful, and surprising, this is a remarkable and brave exploration of selflessness and personhood by the brilliant Buddhist scholar and philosopher Jay Garfield. It is a book for our time, when the author opens for the reader the ethical implications of selflessness, and, to quote him, ‘what it means for our understanding of our place in the world.’ A wonderful book.”—Roshi Joan Halifax, Zen Buddhist teacher and author of Being with Dying
What listeners say about Losing Ourselves
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ognjen
- 22-05-23
Self delusion
Anyone who wants to understand the nature of his/her self must read this book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Joe
- 08-05-24
Changes how you see everything
This book is fantastic. I love the meeting of Eastern and Western traditions, and Garfield does brilliantly at bringing them together in conversation here. He does well presenting and refuting the arguments for a self, as well as providing a reasonable alternative. I had thought I understood the Buddhist idea of no-self before this, but now I realise it's much more radical, and the self idea is much more pervasive than we might think.
I was worried it would be too difficult to follow the philosophical arguments over audio, but that wasn't a significant issue. I did go back and listen to sections again a couple times, but I likely would need a similar amount of going back when reading too.
This is one of those books that change how you see everything.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anon
- 03-04-23
Brilliant
Jay Garfield is always an interesting writer and I found this a fascinating listen. It’s very well narrated, although I would have loved to hear Professor Garfield reading it, as he has a wonderfully engaging voice.
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