harvard philosophy class getting good reviews

Harvard University professor Michael Puett teaches a class on classical Chinese philosophy that has gotten buzz for being one of the school’s most popular courses.

“A lot of my students enter college thinking, ‘I have four years to find myself and get really good at figuring out who I am and what my talents are,’” Puett told The Huffington Post. “What they find in practice is that it’s a fruitless search.”

Puett said that, according to Chinese philosophers like Confucius, Xunzi and Laozi, we should do away with the notion of a “true self” altogether. Our goal, instead, should be to recognize which habits, preferences and patterns shape our identities most and try to overcome these patterns to realize greater potential for our lives.

Practices like meditation and mindfulness, which grew out of Buddhist, Taoist and other philosophical and spiritual movements of Confucius’s day, weren’t just intended to help us practice self-love and acceptance, Puett said. “They were developed to help us overcome the self.”


LINK



meditation > drugs