The Buddha was, broadly speaking, an empiricist who denied that there are any fixed substances
underlying appearances; this is true as much for what one feels to be one’s inner self or ego as for the
outer world. He claimed that experience, rather than speculative metaphysics, holds the key to
wisdom. He assumed that the quality of all human experience depends on the mind and so had been
concerned with analysing and transforming the individual mind. To see that one was neither identical
with one’s thoughts as they arose continuously and discursively in one’s mind, generating desire,
anxiety, fear and guilt, nor indeed limited by them, was to be aware of the possibility of controlling
them and of moving towards a new kind of spiritual and intellectual freedom
underlying appearances; this is true as much for what one feels to be one’s inner self or ego as for the
outer world. He claimed that experience, rather than speculative metaphysics, holds the key to
wisdom. He assumed that the quality of all human experience depends on the mind and so had been
concerned with analysing and transforming the individual mind. To see that one was neither identical
with one’s thoughts as they arose continuously and discursively in one’s mind, generating desire,
anxiety, fear and guilt, nor indeed limited by them, was to be aware of the possibility of controlling
them and of moving towards a new kind of spiritual and intellectual freedom
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