Everything

I apreciate that. Don't get me wrong guys, I'm just trying to gain a deeper understanding of this whole ego concepts, cause it seems to be of big influence in my life. I also respect Otis very much for he seems very spontanious, dynamic and confident. If not naturally this way, Otis, you certainly do a good job at seeming that way. It is also hard for everyone uses the same words in diffrent manners, so I try to give as many symbols for each concept as possible. Like ego=identity=boundaries=limits=extent of ownership and power, etc. For example, I understandnthe concept of having a small but solid ego or replacing ego's by surrendering useless ego's, but total and complete egolessness seems like borderline patients to me.

I know for my self that I always regret it when I waste energy inefficiently. Regretting falls under that category so I also regret it when I'm regretting. Its weird, but it happens. So I've kinda stopped regretting alltogether. Regretting is very similar to revenge in my eyes. Only regretting is a destruction of self.

Well... Next time someone tells me to surender my ego I'll just suggest we jump out of a window together. If he refuses, I'll say like, your ego is in the way, coming trough!

I've noticed that your believes form your reality, your boundaries filter your reality, attracts similar concepts only when people are emotionally attached to them. Only then do people not have a willingness to let go certain unuseful parts of there ego. For example, I'm ugly, I dance at a party, everyone jeers, now I'm even more ugly and I suck at dancing. Why did that happen? Egolessness when it comes to dancing at a party. A mature person would have danced enough to know that jeering means no more to him then jeering and not say anything about his dancing skills nor his future mastery of dancing. That is how a solid ego stops people from pishing your buttons. It is not only true, but these kind of egos protect you need them too. They open up, when it is safe to do so. Do you mean something like that when you talk about ego and egolessness? The ultimate wisdom is that of a turtle. He has a thick shell, can stay in defence a long time, but he also comes out. He doesn't throw away his entire shell does he? I mean a hero would do that because a hero has no identity(masked), no bounds(superpower fantasies), no ego at all. The hero is what brings is into trouble, we get rejected by the environmet like a parent saying no to his child and we thus form boundaries. If parents say yes, we do not form boundaries and become dependant on them. So sure boundaries are formed early on, but the completion begins in puberty where tje child hets confused, feels vulnerable and the need to explore further then he always has. This is good, at these times we need to be a hero and go to the edge to explore our limits. This is the forming of a solid edge, identity, believes, knowledge of ones own limits, ego. But I'm not sure if you agree with the turtle concept on ego and egolessness. So lets say our ego is a wall, egolessness is a lack of wall, the ability to surrender your ego is having doors installed at this wall, with the door knob on the inside, for you to control. You open the door, give and receive. , explore new limita, stretching your bounds. When you talk about the lover temperament, do you see it as a bad thing that he starts to put limits on his sensual experiences. And do you think it is bad for to hero to descover that he has limits aswell? Also, i said agree to disagree in a relationship. You respond that it is actually letting go of the ego that allows you to do this? That one confuses me... You said to let go of the importance of your own opinion, not having to be right. But that sounds like you agree with the other person, and not disagree. I'm talking about agreeing to DISAGREE. You do not let go of your own opinions, you agree that you disagree for now and not make disagreement a big deal like a child would do. For example: when Dr. Wayne Dyer tals in his speeches, he has a way of surrendering your ego to open you up to all of his ideas. It is hypnotizing, great speeches. What happens in the end? I feel confident to do the impossible, like jumping out of a window or from a cliff and expect to fly. Don't we need the ego to tell us that we can't actually fly? Why get rid of the useful parts aswell?

I wanted add on the side that I actually experience that intellect is born out of curiosity, hehe. In my country we call this comment ant-f'ing but don't know the english word for it ^^ anyways... So yeah, when you grow wiser and smarter there is always letting go of ego involved. But only to a certain extent. We do not throw away our whole reality at once. Just the parts that are not usuful for our current environment. The most experienced of all is always reafy to throw his ego away, constantly receiving new ego's untill he find the best one. Funny thing is, my ego has told me that I know nothing since the beginning. I've not touched this part of my self since my childhood discovery of astronomy, physics and philosophy. It was infact the only piece of little ego I had. For the rest? I never had an opinion and still today my opinions remain vague compared that of others.

Wow, that great way of putting it. But I really see alot of addicts are actually letting go of life by not making decisions for them selves. My philosophy has always been "willingness to choose to do not. Indecisiveness is what a bastard would advocate his slaves to addopt. No one gains from telling you where your freedom lies, so don't even trust me for that matter to make decisions for you. Still I'm going to say I highly discourage indecisiveness.. LettIng the organism choose is like allowing your impulses to live for you, on auto-pilot. You can not learn if you do not engage in life. However, when you simply mean to let go and detach from your own ego only to observe it from a sky view perspective, then yeah. That great. That is increasing awareness of your self to learn from your own behaviour, monitor it, stay cool, etc.

Man... Big post, thanks. When I think about about someone getting angry at a person who throws the finger at you I suspect that he has no identity, no clear boundary, and thus no ego. The ego to me is the believes of a person, his preferences, his reality. So a child, not having a mature ego, is vulnerable to outside persons pushing his/her buttons. The mother gets angry, he gets sad. Because the child is not an individual, he is boundless, the parents form his boundaries for him. Then when hes grown up, he starts to reject and say no to his parents. He starts to develop his own boundaries, preferences, ego. He then meets the love of his life. He throws it all away, becomes egoless, loathing to be limited by boundaries and limits, like a child. He or she discovers that there is nothing bigger of a love killer then limits, rules, intellectual ideas, structure, ego. He/she throws ego away, but will feel drained and feel lacks in his life. Lies start to pop up in the relationship, fighting begins, addictions lurk around corners, loosers and winners are born fornthe following reason: Egolessness. Plus: egolessness should cause death so that identity and boundaries can be reborn more maturely and strong, but it doesn't happen in our society... There is no one good and up to date initiation into manhood for example. Constant love, passion, boundless, the peoples mind is your mind, being good to bad, bla bla. Everything this chapter says is about egolessness. People become one, they stick to eachother like gum and never feel they have personal time. They are no longer individuals... The other person becomes their half. In the end one dumps the other and walks away with all the resources of time, happiness, and freedom. One has to loose eventually. With ego, the person is constantly working and isolated, commited stubborn judgemental perhaps like you mentioned. They become deprived of love. So aren't both bad when they're taken to extremes? How about love, yet agreeing to disagree sometimes. Agreeing to be individuals and trust the partnership, trust the ego to not cheat and to return to love at the end of the day. Isn't that much more mature, isn't that how the most succesful and happy long lasting marriages have gone about doing their bussiness? We can't expect to feel a lack of self and then say "if you feel a lack, throw away your ego! Didn't work? Come let me show how to neglect and not use your ego more often for just 99 dollah! Still lack? Oh well you forgot this really cool technique thats all about love n egolessness and connection!" this is madness man. Don you know what the definition of madness is? Its doing the same thing over and over again and expecting diffrent results. I mean whats your say in all of this? I'm sorry in advanve for some lame text here btw, writing on iPhone very often. Not used to doing it quickly like a keyboard.

I see what you're trying to describe. I've experienced this aswell. The thing you are talking about Is the ilusion of memory. Living in the past or future, not realizing that every moment is actually new and diffrent and every moment someone becomes a new person aswell. When you look at amnesia patients who function pretty good and don't recall, they live in the present moment constantly. Kinda in a radical sense of what the buddhist is suggesting that we do. Everytime the meet you for the first time, or did they? Turns out they have hunches and feelings about people. For example they're prone to talk to their neighbours who they like most. You not meet a person for the first time because human nature is with ego. We can never truely be present and without ego, because a single unit of present moment is so small that space no longer exists and these stuff are simply not to be contemplated by human thought. We are not evolved to understand such things. We use science like math, which is egoless, to head into to present for us. Wen calculate in quantum physics. One who wishes to become truely like nature should kill himself in my opinion and plant a tree on top of his body. I mean isn't staying present minded and think pure present minded thoughts 100% of the time a bit radical and lifeless? We just become presently aware when we require to change our behaviour, when we learn, grow, calm down. I don't see a better connect in the presentnmoment either. If anything at all, a connection comes from empathy and mirroring the person neurologically. We in a sense become the other person with part of our awareness, his ego opens up and joins the boundaries of ours. We share our inner resources like happiness, ideas, and explore how our two souls interact and fit together. I know this present minded experience, expansion of awareness. But what does it accomplish really, change behaviour? Great, then you are talking about observing your own ego, becoming aware of the self, observing the self in the present moment, monitoring your own behaviour. A journal is great for that kind of stuff, some guys even film their entire life with sensecam to self observe better and increase awareness that way. But what does the present moment really have to do with it? It doesn't have got to do anything with present mindedness, because we are often present minded. The problem here is awareness and you advocate an expansion of this awareness during interaction within relationships. This is great for monitoring your own behaviour, as is a journal. But we have to sometimes fully put our selfs out their with all our focus on interaction. We can't constantly monitor everything. Sometimes you just learn and it becomes automatic and you move on to the next focus of learning. People use awareness on stuff like staring at a wall while they should focus it on more important things that could reveal life enhancing experiences. But only when you can judge for yourself that staring at a wall has been mastered enough for now. Is there perhaps more to the present moment then monitoring, making decisions and growing?

I dare to put my own life on the line here that there is. I have seen other intelligent creatures out there. I was on a boat when I saw these highly intelligent creatures. Some guy was with me and he called them dolphin and whale. He was actually shocked that I've never seen it before. He claimed that these creatures were actually more intelligent then humans and had a more complex way of communicating. That they could dream while still awake and stuff like that. The reason why we never discovered these intelligent creatures is because they're in the water so often! Not only that, its hard to communicate with them. I was like "we come in peace!" and that dolphin did not even hear me! I can not shout harder them that. We've got to find a way to talk with these intelligent creatures. Perhaps they can share tales with us of aditional intelligent creatures that live even deeper perhaps. I got really excited when I found out we're not the only intelligent creature in the universe Try asking fishermen or captains of a ship, they will tell you the same thing I did.

Why is letting our inner baby out a diffrent thing from curiosity? And how can our inner baby come and go when it is always there? We choose to become it or not. The most inellectually succesful people in the world always put emphasis on the importance of playing. Infact, they claim that constant work and labor makes you dumb and lack experience and thus creativity. Curisioty is the opposite of chaos and the opposite of organized. Curiosity is thus the perfect balance in the middle. In tune with the mysteries, prone to discover truth. It requires both play and education. You cannot be a baby all your life and expect to achieve great things, but being too serious with life doesn't help either. Also, it depends on the environment how one should act, or when one should be egoless or not. Playful or organized, caring or couragious. Addapt to the environment by choosing the appropriate one. You can never achieve perfect balance, but it certainly can be aimed for. One or the other to the extremes does not exist either in that sense.

With our current technology, food, water and schooling can become free for sure... Plenty of time when food and water are free, plenty of teachers around... I really hope for something like The Venus Project to become popular, I dreamed of such fairy tales since my childhood. My parents always talk about the joy of living in their original country, how they went out and gathered food, prepared the soil, walked miles to get drinking water... That is freedom to me.

I know what you mean with present minded. It really makes me calm and centered, but it also feels so detached and not "connected" like the experience of egolessness you guys are descrbing. Whats up with that? If anything at all, staying aware in the present moment kinda makes me tranquill, without the peoples care, simply observing the senses for what they are. Its great for calming down or relaxing, focusing, learning, growing. What about loving, connecting? Are you saying egoless by your definition means something totally diffrent from "without ego"?

Haha it certainly can be done, but its exhausting. In the end I love to return to tranquility and just enjoy the remaining sensation of joy in my heart and watch it fade away like the dripping water at cave entrances after the raining has ended. I have this feeling that after this egolessness and a return to ego at the end of the day I have done here what I came for. The day can end in peace and I'm ready to let go and end my day in memory of this great experience and become reborn into the new day. It really does feel like you lived numerous lives when you become egoless on a daily basis. The experiences cann be that rich, for good and worse. This childishness is really an exploration of your self in infinite varieties of experiences. I'm glad to hear that we must not become possessed by this lover temperament and channel it efficiently. It breathes life and meaning to all your realities. We must take care of our inner baby aswell and not have it become an addict. So that he will push you into crazy experiences again the next day.

Yeah i think that is excellent advice. For it is advice that follows you to places where words and ideas are not welcome. Welcome to the jungle!

Don't you think that we should be childlike only on certain occasions and not be childlike on other occasions? For example, sharing of happiness should be done childlike. From the heart, without the ego, innocent, loving, vulnerable. I do not think that we should be this way forever, on for certain people who are naturally this way, I believe they should even move away from such childish behaviour and grow mature first before returning to love again. A relationship with one self and others is not only about love and egolessness, there is also commitment and partnership. Too much love and soon lies will surface. Why? Because of boundlessness... Lies are fake identities to make us believe that we still have our own identity and ego, while in fact you have become the half of the other person. You have remained childlike so long that you have become a child... I see that happen to so many people, they see it as a good thing, afraid that the passion will be sucked out of their life they remain a child. Afraid of responsibility, afraid to explore there true self, to touch the bounds of their being. You can only remain a child for so long. But the ability to be childlike is a good thing, just don't make it the core of your being. Don't you think so?

That was my initial conclusion. That relative to the context, we are alot to be boundless. During love for example. The passion does not flow if we set out a clear identity and put limits to the love and passion that is allowed to flow between two persons. A good friendship has times of independence and times of codependence. Times where you become one and times where you are seperated. Wether this relation is towards yourself, the environment, or another person, it does not matter. I find it odd that this chapter mentions the sage as being childlike, as if he is that way all the time. It is not appropriate to be childlike all the time, but sure once in a while its great. We should not be posessed by the samurai code or something. We're human afterall.

But how is trusting the untrustworthy a good thing? It is childish to say that treating bad with good is good... You encourage destructive and self-sabotaging behaviour from others... It is not good, it is boundless, innocent, immature and destined for death. In a way you can say it is good to learn from bad mistakes, but to think that this is good is just delusioned. The very virtue of trust comes from your clear identity, knowledge of ones own boundaries and limits. If a man does not life from a place of authenticity it means he does not live according to his own personal limits. He cannot be trusted and does not have the virtue of trust... You smack a guy in the face, he says "I love you " that means he cannot be trusted because he is boundless, immature, and destined to die. This is how I see it, so you know where i'm at. How did you come about that trusting the untrustworthy is a good thing and gives you virtue or something?

So te is something that the sage has accumulated and allows him to be be generous? Like power, freedom, happiness or is it something else perhaps? I noticed how Alot of grandparents have nothing to do with there lifes but give give and give. Because they've so much to give away. So much joy to give away, so much power and freedom to give away. It is they who spoil the kids. So this being kind to unkind and trusting he untrustworthy is only to be done by the sage because of his excess Te? Or something? So it is not to be taken as example besides the accumulation of Te, whatever that might be, right? I really don't understand Te... ^^ What about the taking other peoples mind? Marblehead posted a link there which had a very complex take on that. Something about muddled mind and thus calm. Or trying to muddle the mind of the empire, but the empires mind is actually his mind or something? I didn't get it at all.

Holy cow!!! Is Tao Te Ching so vague? I think we can extract atleast 5 milion interpretations from this text alone then... I didn't understand a thing. Perhaps he is suggesting that we extract the emotions that come with TTC and throw the ideas away? For example, the sage does not treat bad people good all the time, for it depends on your definition of what good is. So we have to throw the ideas away alltogether because every word is relative and thus meaningless on its own. What matters is the emotions that we feel during the reading of a text. Is that what is being communicated? Being good to bad and trusting the untrustworthy sounds like a nice thing so we should always feel nice? Or something like that? If thas the case then I think I can change the title of 49: the sage has borderline personality disorder to "49: the sage always feels nice and empathises with those around him."

How do you suggest I read the translation. Simply accept it and not think about it? Have blind faith? I can do that, but then I would have blind faith in a misinterpreted version of the text, or does that not matter in TTC? Also, I totally agree on simplifying things. In fact, math is the most simple and thus most powerful tool in science. Just look at technology today and how it all depends on the most simple formulas created by mathematicians and physicists. This is my way of simplifying. I go think within the deep, as TTC suggests. Then I extract the core truths and try to fuse them together and abstract from it dense and pure value of truth. You must leave in order to return to simple. Go into the complex to return to the simple. Don't you agree?

No dude, I don't mind trying to understand. Its not a struggle in my eyes. I love challenging my believes and discussing such deep ideas. Sonyou guys are saying to remove your boundary for it is the cause of suffering. Identity and boundaries are one and the same thing to me. Your identity is what limits you and forms your reality, your lens. I find it hard to believe that someone can live without a boundary or identity. Only a baby has no ego because a baby is not yet mature enough to decide. Making decision mean growth and exploring boundaries, getting a more solid boundary and more clear identity over time as we mature. A child depends on the identity of its mother or father, thus a child is boundless. How can a boundless person nurture? It seems that boundless persons get nurtured. Plus the boundless hero dies because he has not explored his boundary or limit and reborns as a warrior with an clear identity and limits in mythological stories. The hero story ends always when he gets the gitl because he has no identity and thus can not relate to the girl as a person. Its not that I disapprove of the concept of egoless, I just don't understand the concept. How can one be egoless? Do we have to become a baby? Believe in nothing? Not hold dear to any ideas Or thougths? Isn't that faithless?

Unites the world but is not united with the world? That sounds much more rational. I don't know about teh though. Have to look it up I guess. Not sure what it means

Do you mean I have to learn from how my heart reacts when I read this text with my head? I become curious, feel curiosity towards this text and excited to learn even.

Oh... So this is a bad translation afterall? I thought so... Sorry though, don't know what te or virtue means exactly. Something about brightening your path? Or powering it.