Destroying the ego

reply to post by InTheLight


And that quote is true if the Catapillar was trying to find out who he/she is while being identified as a Catapillar. The question, "who am I", must be allowed to go beyond the thought constructs of identity. You may be trying to find out who you are through the lens of your human story and conditioning, and as you stated that is a reflection thus a limitation. See the story, see the thoughts, and keep looking... what is there?

reply to post by InTheLight


It is okay to say, "I don't know". Here is a story you might enjoy:

Bodhidharma was a aesthetic monk from India who was asked to travel to China to share his wisdom and enlightenment with its people. It took him three years to walk through the Himalayas and into Emperor Wu's territory. Emperor Wu is often credited with being the one who made Buddhism China's national religion, and he had been looking for enlightenment for many years by now. He had made thousands of temples and monasteries, and he was feeding thousands of monks. He had put his whole treasure and wealth at the service of Gautama Buddha, and naturally the Buddhist monks who had reached before Bodhidharma had been telling him that he was earning great virtue, and that he would be reborn as a god in heaven.

When he got word that Bodhidharma had finally arrived, he called for his high ministers and soldiers to go with him to meet Bodhidharma and bring him back safely to their palace to teach. Upon reaching Bodhidharma, Emperor Wu immediately bowed to his feet and gratiously thanked him for coming. He was so excited to meet Bodhidharma that he could not wait to get back to his palace before asking him the questions that had been burning in his heart for some time. Naturally, his first question to Bodhidharma was, "I have made so many monasteries, I am feeding thousands of scholars, I have opened a whole university for the studies of Gautama Buddha, I have put my whole empire and its treasures in the service of Gautama Buddha. What is going to be my reward?"

He was a little embarrassed seeing Bodhidharma, not thinking that the man would be like this. He looked very ferocious. He had very big eyes, but he had a very soft heart. But his face was almost as dangerous as you can conceive. Just the sunglasses were missing; otherwise he was a mafia guy! With great fear, Emperor Wu asked the question, and Bodhidharma said, "Nothing, no reward. On the contrary, be ready to fall into the seventh hell."

The emperor was shocked and in great frustration said, "But I have not done anything wrong -- why would you tell me I will be reborn in the seventh hell? I have been doing everything that the Buddhist monks have been telling me."

Bodhidharma said, "Unless you start hearing your own voice, nobody can help you, Buddhist or non-Buddhist. And you have not yet heard your inner voice. If you had heard it, you would not have asked such a stupid question. These monks have been lying to you, they've been promising you wealth and prosperity in the next life in trade for wealth and prosperity for them here in this life. You've been trying to buy your way into heaven. You are not a noble man, but a cunning fool."

Emperor Wu became furious at this accusation, "Who are you to disrespect me!? I am the Emperor of this land... These people love me... I have built ten thousand statues made out of gold for Gautama Buddha... No one else has more love for Gautama Buddha than me... I have traveled to greet you and embrace you... And yet you call me a fool!?! Who are you to say such disrespectful things to me!?"

Bodhidharma erupted in almost a maniacal laugh, and then he fell deafly silent. Almost an entire minute went passed before he spoke, "I have spent years in isolation, deep in the caves of the Himalayas, meditating endlessly on this very question: Who am I? And I must tell you something... I have went to the very root of my heart and my mind, I have went deeper into this question than most have dared... and I have found nothing. Nothing but emptiness and silence."

Emperor Wu was still shaking up by Bodhidharma's first words, he was still angry and confused but he also realized this man touched on something that made sense to him on a deep level. He had been tormented with questions like these for decades now, and all he really wanted was peace and silence. "My mind is so full of thoughts. I have been trying to create some peace of mind, some way to escape this torment, but I have failed and because of these thoughts and their noise, I cannot hear what you are saying. I don't know anything about it. Please explain it further."

Bodhidharma obliged Emperor Wu's request, "On the path of Gautama Buddha there is no reward because the very desire for reward comes from a greedy mind. The whole teaching of Gautama Buddha is desirelessness and if you are doing all these so-called virtuous acts, making temples and monasteries and feeding thousands of monks, with a desire in your mind, you are preparing your way towards hell. If you are doing these things out of joy, to share your joy with the whole empire, and there is not even a slight desire anywhere for any reward, the very act is a reward unto itself. Otherwise you have missed the whole point."

Emperor Wu finally understood what he was saying and invited him back to his palace to continue his teachings...

reply to post by InTheLight


Bodhidharma asked the Emperor to meet him the next morning for his teaching, but he would not follow him back to his palace. Instead, he told the Emperor to meet him at a temple in a small village near where they were standing. Emperor Wu reached the temple at four o'clock, early in the morning in darkness, alone, and Bodhidharma was standing there with his staff, just on the steps, and he said, "I knew you would be coming, although the whole night you debated whether to go or not to go. What kind of an emperor are you -- so cowardly, being afraid of a poor monk, a poor beggar who has nothing in the world except this staff. And with this staff I am going to put your mind to silence."

The emperor thought, "My God, who has ever heard that with a staff you can put somebody's mind to silence! You can finish him, hit him hard on the head -- then the whole man is silent, not the mind. But now it is too late to go back."

And Bodhidharma said, "Sit down here in the courtyard of the temple." There was not a single man around. "Close your eyes, I am sitting in front of you with my staff. Your work is to catch hold of the mind. Just close your eyes and go inside looking for it -- where it is. The moment you catch hold of it, just tell me, `Here it is.' And my staff will do the remaining thing."

It was the strangest experience any seeker of truth or peace or silence could have ever had -- but now there was no other way. Emperor Wu sat there with closed eyes, knowing perfectly well that Bodhidharma seems to mean everything he says. He looked all around -- there was no mind. That staff did its work. For the first time he was in such a situation. The choice... if you find the mind, one never knows what this man is going to do with his staff. And in that silent mountainous place, in the presence of Bodhidharma, who has a charisma of his own.... There have been many enlightened people, but Bodhidharma stands aloof, alone, like an Everest. His every act is unique and original. His every gesture has his own signature; it is not borrowed.

He tried hard to look for the mind, and for the first time he could not find the mind. It is a small strategy. Mind exists only because you never look for it; it exists only because you are never aware of it. When you are looking for it you are aware of it, and awareness surely kills it completely. Hours passed and the sun was rising in the silent mountains with a cool breeze. Bodhidharma could see on the face of Emperor Wu such peace, such silence, such stillness as if he was a statue. He shook him and asked him, "It has been a long time. Have you found the mind?"

Emperor Wu said, "Without using your staff, you have pacified my mind completely. I don't have any mind and I have heard the inner voice about which you talked. Now I know whatever you said was right. You have transformed me without doing anything. Now I know that each act has to be a reward unto itself; otherwise, don't do it. Who is there to give you the reward? This is a childish idea. Who is there to give you the punishment? Your action is punishment and your action is your reward. You are the master of your destiny."

Bodhidharma said, "You are a rare disciple. I love you, I respect you, not as an emperor but as a man who has the courage just in a single sitting to bring so much awareness, so much light, that all darkness of the mind disappears."

Wu tried to persuade him to come to the palace. He said, "That is not my place; you can see I am wild, I do things I myself don't know beforehand. I live moment to moment spontaneously, I am very unpredictable. I may create unnecessary trouble for you, your court, your people; I am not meant for palaces, just let me live in my wildness."

"If you could get rid of yourself just once, the secret of secrets would open to you. The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe would appear on the mirror of your perception."
~Rumi

Is such a promise not worth exploring? No need to die physically to reach this state, only to die to the ego.

I do not believe there is one superior way to word, describe, or experience a state, nor are there states of awareness that are "superior" to others.

I see nothing "bad" or inferior about experiencing the physical world, and materialization and individualization,
and I see no reason to try to convince anyone else to "escape" it. They exist on the other levels possible too, and experience them each as they choose.



If you want to call that being inferior, being "bad", being a "prisoner of ego", you are free to do so. It is not my experience (for the experience in present is much much more- I just didn't eliminate the experience of phsyciality and individualism) .

Apparently ego is whatever concept YOU MEAN when you say "I".

If identify self as something that is feelings, thoughts, a physical form, a personality, with concerns, intents, preferences..... then I guess that is your ego.
If you identify with consciousness that has no preference, no feelings, no thoughts, no form, no preferences, or intentions.... then that must be your ego.

There might not be a static one size fits all interpretation of that word.

The essence I refer to has no preferences, so has no urge to proclaim physicality" bad" or" inferior". I do not percieve those sorts of judgements as real. They are for play, they are for creating experiences. They mean "I shall be attracted towards this" and I shall move away from this".


All that said, I understand the pleasurable experience of passivity and submission, and the human attraction to that experience as well- because it soothes the apprehension of unknown and lessens the response-ability in creating. If that is what attracts you, go for it.

I will add though, that this belief in "evil ego" can be very detrimental to some people, all the spiritual aspirations and idealizations aside.

There are many people, classified as mentally instable, that do not have an "ego" in the sense some of you are describing. That is, they are observers, they are conscious of forms and colors and smells and sensations of all sorts, and yet cannot tell which are "me" and which are "other". This superficial personality that you are demonizing is absent. They don't have any idea of what they look like to others, of having any visible image attributed to them by any one else.

Despite all these claims that is a superior state of being, I can bare witness that it is just as full of pain as being aware of self as a superificial being. Even without the mental skin, there is a physical skin, and it has pain receptors.
The only difference is that when pain happens it just is... it is everything. It is not "me" in pain, or "another" hurting "me", the universe is pure pain. Period.

So the statement that ego (as in a superificial self image) is a source of pain as a determining factor in judging what is "good" is meaningless.

The assumption that because YOU love the experience of escaping the superficial mental skin of self concept, so EVERYONE should , is not necessarily true.


This talk of escaping the grasp of ego reminds of the same discourse one finds about the concepts of "dimensions"- so obviously self contradicting that it is humorous! -When people talk of "ascending" (as if it is up) to the fifith dimension, and in so doing, escaping or disappearing form the third dimensional world!


If you have five dimensions, and you take away three, what do you have then? TWO!

If your consciousness gains more dimensions to it, it GAINS, not loses. It is only in that sense that one could call it spiritual growth- because it is expansion. Not escape.

But that is only my own opinion, my own perception, and I shall acknowledge my superficial ego, so that I can respect the existence of others and their perceptions. For their perceptions shall create their experiences, therefore they have validity too.

reply to post by Bluesma


Very good thinking.

It seems that when put in practice, killing the ego does have its uses for brainwashing. But we cannot expect anything less from a doctrine that proposes and promotes a vegetative state.

All I hear from your opponents is that we should be away with the ego, or we are not the ego, or that we should kill the ego. But that is their egos speaking, implying that what they think is the enemy of true being, the very idea they're trying to sell, is not even worth the effort in practice. If their wisdom is in fact pure awareness without ego, then it would show that they are without wisdom; their ego perfumes every single one of their words.

They claim that humans are never who they think they are all while ironically telling us who they think we are.. They claim that no one is their ego while the whole time acting and continuing as their ego. These are contradictions, not truth!

In my opinion killing the ego is impossible (if not laughable). To silence thought, language and the rabble of the senses sounds like a quest to be mindless.

Look what the thesaurus says about being mindless:

stupid, idiotic, brainless, imbecilic, imbecile, asinine, witless, foolish, empty-headed, slow-witted, obtuse, featherbrained, doltish; informal dumb, pig-ignorant, brain-dead, cretinous, moronic, thick, birdbrained, pea-brained, dopey, dim, halfwitted, dippy, fat-headed, boneheaded, chowderheaded.

Let's not even try...

But like any culture, however general or personal, the ego can be sculpted and refined by the artist who possesses it. The ego is our personal culture, and either we or someone else is the artist that forms it.

Quite scathing...I like that.

Originally posted by Bluesma
There are many people, classified as mentally instable, that do not have an "ego" in the sense some of you are describing. That is, they are observers, they are conscious of forms and colors and smells and sensations of all sorts, and yet cannot tell which are "me" and which are "other". This superficial personality that you are demonizing is absent. They don't have any idea of what they look like to others, of having any visible image attributed to them by any one else.

This why so many will not go into the void - they believe it causes madness - 'mentally unstable' is actually the ego.
The mind (with it's thoughts) is unstable - have you not noticed how it can never make up it's mind! It tells you that you did do the right thing and then it doubts and analyses. The humans condition is mental.
The 'observer' sees all that is arising - including all thought and sees the thought for what it is. The observer sees what there is to be seen - it has no concern for how it is seen. Being concerned with how you appear is ego.
The true self is imageless.

reply to post by Bluesma


Forget about the ego all together... it being bad or good... or of even existing. You may enjoy this story:

Buddha, Confucius and Lao Tse were at Paradise Resort sitting down at a table talking. A waitress came to their table with three exotic drinks she called "Life". She said it was the best drink in all of Paradise Resort and asked who would like to try it.

Buddha contemplated for a second and then said, "No, but thank you. Life is intoxicating and leads to suffering. It is very hard to sober up after you have drunk it."

Confucius practiced the golden mean, so he decided picked up one of the drinks and sip it to see if the Buddha was right. He took a sip and concluded, "Buddha is right, Life is suffering". He put the glass back down and thanked the waitress.

Lao Tse said, "Unless one drinks totally, how can one say anything?", and so he grabbed all three drinks and slammed them down, one after the other. Then he got up from his chair and began to dance with a giant smile on his face.

Buddha and Confucius ask him, "Are you not going to say anything?" And Lao Tse says, "This is what I am saying - my dance and my song are speaking for me. You are both right, Life is suffering but it is also so much fun! We must live totally, but with wisdom!"

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope

All I hear from your opponents is that we should be away with the ego, or we are not the ego, or that we should kill the ego.

edit on 28-4-2013 by LesMisanthrope because: (no reason given)

Who said that you should kill the ego?

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


Well, if we want to focus the discussion through spiritual structures of thought,
we could also use the paradoxial facet of existence.

The assertions such as "you cannot master or influence that which you do not own",
or the idea that it is only in embracing sufferance that it ceases to be.

These, I have found, in experience, are accurate. Yet they call for a state of mind which is ambiguous.

They mean doing away with intention to diminish or "be free of".

You can't embrace sufferance, with the intention of getting rid of it.
You can't be rid of sufferance if you do not embrace it.

You can't embrace ego, with the intention of getting rid of it.
You can't get rid of ego, unless you have embraced it.

These are, perhaps, truisms that can only be seen in one direction- retrospect.

To communicate them to another as a teaching direction is counter- productive.
Your "student" will be hindered from experiencing that state.

(if they choose to believe you)

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


Do not be so negative and hostile. Your avatar says you are not a philosopher and yet you think like one very much so. Philosophers are mad! They are insane! They cannot stop thinking about "what if?" and "how come?". They drive themselves insane thinking they can grab hold of the truth and own it. You've missed the whole point of what we are saying, instead you have projected your own fears and thoughts onto us. That is okay. Many men and women spit on and threw rocks at Jesus, they yelled at and cursed Buddha, even Ramana Maharshi, Krishnamurti and Maharaj (all lived in the past 50 years) were persecuted and called names. Look at all the so-called greats: Gandhi, MLK, Einstien... all of these people were ridiculed and hated. None of that changes the fact they found the Truth. It is not that they owned the Truth, but that they found it. They tried to point others, like yourself, to it. But people like you could not see it and so you spit on them and called them vegetables and crazy. Please look in the mirror... you are only projecting your own fears and your own thoughts. No one else is saying these things to you, we are embracing you and trying to help you see what you are desperately looking for. It seems nothing is good enough for your neurotic mind though... see this and be done.

Originally posted by Bluesma

I see nothing "bad" or inferior about experiencing the physical world, and materialization and individualization,
and I see no reason to try to convince anyone else to "escape" it.

You are in good company there, along with the majority of the world's population.

I agree that there is nothing "bad or inferior" about wanting to experience the physical world and happily remaining centered in the ego-self.

The prospect of detaching from the bonds of ego/mind is only attractive to those who are being pulled from within (for want of a better phrase) to open themselves to what lies beyond the play of mind and matter.

It is not for everyone, and that is neither good nor bad, but simply the way it is.

Originally posted by Bluesma

All that said, I understand the pleasurable experience of passivity and submission, and the human attraction to that experience as well- because it soothes the apprehension of unknown and lessens the response-ability in creating. If that is what attracts you, go for it.

I am not sure that I would associate passivity and submission with the battle against the mind. For me, it is the greatest challenge I could ever imagine having to face in this life, and I have had my fair share of challenges. It is not until you try to tame the mind that it truly awakens and becomes your own worst enemy.

Originally posted by openlocks


Do not be so negative and hostile. Your avatar says you are not a philosopher and yet you think like one very much so. Philosophers are mad! They are insane!

I stopped reading here.
Being "negative and hostile", while proclaiming it something one should not do.... you condemn yourself as you condemn an other.

This is EXACTLY what LesMisanthrope refered to.

reply to post by Bluesma


Very well. Then why continue in this thread if you are unwilling to read between the lines and learn from others? You call us arrogant and delusional, and yet we are listening to you and trying to help. Yet you keep with the personal attacks and hostility. Philosophy is insane! You don't have to like it, but just read any of the so-called great philosophers... they will tell you this very same thing! Read Albert Camus or Wittgenstein or Kierkegaard... they will say this same thing. There is no end to the conflict of searching, there are no satisfactory answers. Einstein finally succumbed to this in his old age.

If you are not here to learn, you must be here to challenge and argue. Why?

And I never said anyone should or should not do anything... I don't think you are even trying to understand what we are saying. Strange...

Those that know the truth just share with neutrality. This is the Buddha field.

Those that do not are angry and negative. They live in the world full of angels and demons (victim and bully mentality). It's a battle field for them. Fighting for survival.

I remember living on that battle field and when I found the Buddha field I couldn't help but want to give it to everyone. I know now that I cannot give it to anyone. Yet the sharing continues.

Originally posted by mysticnoon

I am not sure that I would associate passivity and submission with the battle against the mind. For me, it is the greatest challenge I could ever imagine having to face in this life, and I have had my fair share of challenges. It is not until you try to tame the mind that it truly awakens and becomes your own worst enemy.

I never claimed passivity was not a challenge!

That is why I said it is sometimes very helpful to elist the aid of another in discovering tht experience. In trusing another individual, a deity, a force, a religion, a group or club, all vehicles for systems of thought, which can be integrated after the state of passivity.

Mind seems like an enemy when it has a very structured conception of self that is to be transformed.

Like if a child has had an education that is very substantial- with teachings from adults, from school, from exterior sources.... that have given feedback which develops a mental conception of self as a form with characteristics, and specific beliefs on the nature of reality,, meaning, value, and ethic.

Then the path of passivity learning is more challenging, because it is like the chalkboard is filled with lots of stuff to erase- whereas if the child was neglected and isolated, with little feedback form exterior, there is less to erase.
There is less resistance.

If this is done later in life, it can be more challenging, have more resistance, due to the accumulation of experiences and formation of self concept. Though some seem to "stick" more than others. Some beliefs and views allow for more flexibility than others.

Originally posted by openlocks
reply to post by Bluesma

 

You call us arrogant and delusional,

..WHAT? I did? Where? I am afraid you have mistaken me for someone else...?

and yet we are listening to you and trying to help. Yet you keep with the personal attacks and hostility.

I realize I am being listened to and heard, and that desire to help is the motivation. (Yet I did not feel or express any suffering, need or desire to be "helped". )

I would like, however, to be helped in seeing where I did a personal attack or hostility. If you could please copy and paste- because somewhere there has been a misunderstanding.

Philosophy is insane! You don't have to like it, but just read any of the so-called great philosophers... they will tell you this very same thing! Read Albert Camus or Wittgenstein or Kierkegaard... they will say this same thing. There is no end to the conflict of searching, there are no satisfactory answers. Einstein finally succumbed to this in his old age.

You are free to have that opinion and it is valid. I only pointed out that your statements are self contradictory.
You are negating something- that is the definition of "being negative" (what you told someone not to do)

If you are not here to learn, you must be here to challenge and argue. Why?

Those are rather limited possibilities for motivation in coming to a discussion forum! What about friendly exchange with others? Sometimes friendly exchange includes disagreements on topics. If we all held the same opinions, views and perspectives, there would be no fun in communicating at all would there?
I do not intend to try to make everyone agree and see things the same, nor do I hoep to "find the anwers" - that is liek saying "I wish to end the game."

Most philosophers see it this way- the pleasure is in the trip, the process, of creating and exploring thought.
Einstein was not a philosopher.

And I never said anyone should or should not do anything...

Okay, so i must have misunderstood. I shall post what I misinterpretted and you can correct me-

Do not be so negative and hostile.

That ws in your post, it seemed to be written by you.
It said it was directed towards another (LesMisanthrope).
It seems to be a command on what he/she should do.

What is misinterpretted by me there?

Originally posted by Bluesma

Like if a child has had an education that is very substantial- with teachings from adults, from school, from exterior sources.... that have given feedback which develops a mental conception of self as a form with characteristics, and specific beliefs on the nature of reality,, meaning, value, and ethic.

Then the path of passivity learning is more challenging, because it is like the chalkboard is filled with lots of stuff to erase- whereas if the child was neglected and isolated, with little feedback form exterior, there is less to erase.
There is less resistance.

The self concept is an idea one has about oneself - it is not about education or knowledge acquired from adults and schooling..
The isolated neglected child would have a poor self image of himself, deep down he feels bad and so must be bad because that is what is assumed - I am bad and the world is bad - he is not going to be feeling warm and fuzzy when he reaches adulthood.
Deep down most adults feel isolated and neglected.

The self concept is formed by the feedback between self and exterior.
The less interaction between self and other, the less conception there is.

I have no idea where you get the "poor" self concept idea, but perhaps it is valid and can happen.
In my own experience, I did not form any idea of myself as being at fault or bad because there was no conception that there was anything "wrong" happening to be at fault for!

I did not know what being "good" was, so of course there was no conception that I was "bad" either.

The poor self image idea comes from feedback. Examples- having a person around who says "things are bad", "you are bad". An idea of bad and good forms in mind.

Without that, there is only the bodily draw towards pleasure and pain, which happens without thought.
The childs body will reach for things that it has experienced as pleasurable, or flinch away from things they have experienced as painful,

But there will be no mental conscious judgement that the thing percieved is good, or bad.
If you ask the child why their hand reached or flinched, they will have no idea why.

At that stage, the concept of self is limited to the percepion of a physical envelope existing, as the experiences of contact, allow it to recognize a skin boundry which separates self and not self.

Without the mental "skn" conception, emotions are impossible to distinguish. Mental structure provides a way of organizing and channeling e-motion.

Originally posted by openlocks
reply to post by InTheLight

 

And that quote is true if the Catapillar was trying to find out who he/she is while being identified as a Catapillar. The question, "who am I", must be allowed to go beyond the thought constructs of identity. You may be trying to find out who you are through the lens of your human story and conditioning, and as you stated that is a reflection thus a limitation. See the story, see the thoughts, and keep looking... what is there?

I'm not "trying" to find out who I am right now, as I am well aware of who I am right at this moment; it's more of a search for a higher self or purpose rather than accepting self/ego as it is at the moment. It's difficult to explain precisely. However, I don't want to limit myself as to who I may become tomorrow and the next day and the next because each day we have another opportunity to learn and spread our wings and take flight and become a butterfly.