Laura asked:

I have a few questions after reading through a melange of Eastern and Western philosophy,
particularly that of Buddhism and Objectivism. Are these two schools of thought in any way
reconcilable? Can desire ever successfully overcome the personal ego? If so, does transcending the
personal ego lead to stagnation or activity? Is it only through abandoning the notion of an individual
self-hood that life becomes fully enriching and receptive?

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So let me get clear on this. You've been reading Ayn Rand and also some sort of commentaries on
"Eastern" philosophies, and you find them contradictory. Yes, they are. Absolutely. They are intended
to be. Are they reconcilable? Probably not. Can "desire" "overcome" the "ego"? You got me. What do
those words mean, anyway? Does "transcending" this "ego" lead to... no, look, I'm sorry, but here are
a couple of comments on all this.

First, what you've read does not sound like philosophy to me, as that term is usually employed by
philosophers. It sounds like predigested self-help homilies. And you're not asking philosophical
questions, but questions about how to feel better. If that's not true, then you need to stop using jargon
and ask your questions more clearly; alternatively, define terms like "enriching" in such a way that
they can be meaningfully addressed. If what you want is to feel better, you're on the wrong website.

But I'll assume that you are actually serious about this and truly want to find something solid in all this
mush to think about. Ok, then here's what you do. Go read some of these:

Dupre, L. Religious Mystery and Rational Reflection: Excursions in the Phenomenology and
Philosophy of Religion.Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998.

Eliade, M. The Sacred and the Profane.Translated by W.R. Trask, The Cloister Library. New York,
NY: Harper & Row, 1961.

James, W. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature.New York: Collier
Books, 1968.

Laski, M. Ecstasy in Secular and Religious Experiences.Los Angeles, CA: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.,
1990.

Ross, N.W., ed. The Way of Zen: An East-West Anthology.New York: Random House, 1960.

Watts, A.W. This Is It: And Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience. New York, NY: Collier
Books, 1971.

Watts, A.W. The Way of Zen.New York, NY: Mentor Books, 1964.

For some very basic background in religious mysticism and Zen.

Then go read some of these:

Apostle, H. G. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.2nd ed. Grinnell, IA: The Peripatetic Press, 1984.

Audi, R. "Intuitionism, Pluralism, and the Foundations of Ethics." In Moral Knowledge?: New
Readings in Moral Epistemologyedited by W. Sinnott-Armstrong and M. Timmons, 101-36. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Edgerton, R. B. Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony.1st ed. New York: The
Free Press, 1992.

Flanagan, Owen. Varieties of Moral Personality: Ethics and Psychological Realism.1st ed.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.

Harrison, L.E., and S.P. Huntington, eds. Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress.New
York, NY: Basic Books, 2000.

Johnson, M. Moral Imagination: Implications of Cognitive Science for Ethics.1st ed. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1993.

MacIntyre, A. After Virtue.2nd ed. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984.

May, L., M. Friedman, and A. Clark., Eds. Mind and Morals: Essays on Cognitive Science and Ethics.
2nd ed. Boston: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1998.

Nussbaum, M.C. "Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach." pp. 32-53. Ethical Theory:
Character and Virtue.edited by P. A. French, T. E. Jr. Uehling and H. K. Wettstein Midwest Studies in
Philosophy, 13. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988.

Urmson, J. O. Aristotle's Ethics.11th ed. Malden: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1998.

For some background in ethics from a more Western viewpoint. This is just toe-dipping; the literature
here is enormous.

Then go back and rethink and reformulate your questions.

Steven Ravett Brown