Presence meets Ego

[Easy]

 

 

In my understanding, our ego is nothing more than our self-awareness.

 

MH,

 

Did you mean by "self-awareness," (1) the awareness of one's discrete "self" (whatever that might be, illusory or not), or (2) self's awareness that would include awareness of the immediate environment, the presence of others, the task at hand, the current mental activity and the nature of the discreet self's relationship to The Other, which is everything except the discreet self. The latter is close to the Jungian definition of ego. In the latter, the amount of the self's awareness of the discreet self is always on a sliding scale ranging from, for example, a large sense such as the self-pity that might come while experiencing a monumental tooth ache, to a small sense that comes from losing one's self in one's work. I don't think anyone can be fully self-aware in the former (1) sense any more than one can see their own eyes without the help of a mirror.

Edited January 16, 2011 by Easy

[Birch]

No, really I apologize for maybe being too harsh. It's just I feel like you fake read, without any openness. It's like you don't care to take in anything related to you for the sake of clarity and help. Which I honestly felt from my heart I did with the upmost respect. But, it's like you are too deep into your ego and it's notions to care to open up. You get an emotional feeling and you just identify with it, and your mind works out intellectual justifications for it's existence, and you stand there, supporting it... as if it's the ultimate truth. I worked to help you correct your total misunderstanding for quite some time now, and nothing has sunk through the layers of your completely subjective projections... so... I talked about you as if you weren't here, in a kind of final attempt.

 

But... alas.

 

So... yes... Be well! Just... do your Taoist thing and evolve through that paradigm... this would be very good and add to my joy very much!! Just stop going around damning Buddhism, because you really, and honestly have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to Buddhism. This whole idea of, "I feel fear, so something must be wrong." Is just a reflection of your lack of self examination and nothing more.

 

Peace.

 

You'd be surprised just how much I have practiced "self-examination" VJ. And while I do feel I should respond to your posts about me, know that I don't take them personally. In other words, it doesn't hurt

 

You've decided on your own "paradigm" and you seem to know where that leads. I think I know where it leads too, and I'm not interested. In fact I'm starting to wonder where the Taoist forum went and whether I should go find a Taoist forum that is not IMO spoiled by such divergence and buddhist leaning dogma.

 

I suppose if you were a friend of mine, well, I might take what you're saying to me and about me to be an indication that we're not only not in agreement but that in addition to that, you have very little respect for me as a person. But, hey. You're not.

[Marblehead]

MH,

 

Did you mean by "self-awareness," (1) the awareness of one's discrete "self" (whatever that might be, illusory or not), or (2) self's awareness that would include awareness of the immediate environment, the presence of others, the task at hand, the current mental activity and the nature of the discreet self's relationship to The Other, which is everything except the discreet self. The latter is close to the Jungian definition of ego. In the latter, the amount of the self's awareness of the discreet self is always on a sliding scale ranging from, for example, a large sense such as the self-pity that might come while experiencing a monumental tooth ache, to a small sense that comes from losing one's self in one's work. I don't think anyone can be fully self-aware in the former (1) sense any more than one can see their own eyes without the help of a mirror.

 

Hi Easy,

 

Fair question. I'm not sure I can answer it though. (Afterall, I am still open to a better definition of 'self' than my current understanding allows.)

 

So, considering this I would have to go with your option (2.) above. But even this is difficult for me to speak to because even though this requires a separation of 'self' and 'other', from the point of view of Tao there is no separation, only precieved separation.

 

However, in the practical physical world, excluding all spiritual aspects, using opnly the five senses, there is 'this and that'. My butt is not joined to the chair I am sitting on even though it is firmly planted at the moment.

 

I am, therefore I should think. (Sorry for that.) I am not the tree even though the tree is just as real as I am. "I" can hug the tree if I wish to do so. If there were no separation I (self) could not hug the tree (other).

 

I think that is the best I can do at the moment.

[Vajrahridaya]

You've decided on your own "paradigm" and you seem to know where that leads. I think I know where it leads too, and I'm not interested.

Nice joke! You know that's not true.

Edited January 16, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[Vajrahridaya]

I suppose if you were a friend of mine, well, I might take what you're saying to me and about me to be an indication that we're not only not in agreement but that in addition to that, you have very little respect for me as a person. But, hey. You're not.

 

You are expressing the exact way you've treated everything I've said, from the very beginning. Everything you've read from me, fell on deaf ears which completely misunderstood the gist of everything I've ever said with little attempt to even try to understand it seems. Just project, project, project. You've never been open, or willing to see from another perspective.

 

You've never really read any of my posts, nor have you ever really read Buddhism or Hinduism or for that matter, because the level of your self projection is too strong. You don't have the capacity to understand Buddhism, if you don't even have the capacity to understand Hinduism. I think you lack this capacity based upon everything you've written here, including what you quoted in this thread, because that guy's perspective is just whacked! Actually, the poor fellow lacks any kind of intuitive intelligence. "The Hidden Agenda of Mantra Meditation"......??? More like the hidden agenda of the western ego plastered all over his take on things. EDIT: After re-reading from Bronte Baxter, I've changed my mind, the guy is actually quite stupid. Poor mind, to be stuck in such an underdeveloped brain. It's sad that he suckers people into his Western Ego (Me, me, me) perspective. One that has become increasingly clear that you share, and will hold onto for dear life! "Whaaaaa... Me, me, me, me", "Buddhism challenges the sense of self which I've been brainwashed to believe in and this makes me feel fear, so there must be something inherently wrong with Buddhism."

 

Everyone has their capacity, it's a good thing yours is at least spiritual. You have the capacity for Taoism, so I wish you well on that, and I hope your ego lessons, as it's made only of fear of the unknown. Since you don't have the capacity to understand Buddhism, it is part of the unknown that you fear.

Edited January 16, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[Birch]

You are expressing the exact way you've treated everything I've said, from the very beginning. Everything you've read from me, fell on deaf ears which completely misunderstood the gist of everything I've ever said with little attempt to even try to understand it seems. Just project, project, project.

 

You've never really read any of my posts, nor have you ever really read Buddhism or Hinduism or anything for that matter, because the level of your self projection is too strong. You don't have the capacity to understand Buddhism, if you don't even have the capacity to understand Hinduism. I think you lack this capacity based upon everything you've written here, including what you quoted in this thread, because that guy's perspective is just whacked! Actually, the poor fellow lacks any kind of intuitive intelligence. "The Hidden Agenda of Mantra Meditation"......??? More like the hidden agenda of the western ego plastered all over his take on things.

 

Everyone has their capacity, it's a good thing yours is at least spiritual. You have the capacity for Taoism, so I wish you well on that, and I hope your ego lessons, as it's made only of fear of the unknown. Since you don't have the capacity to understand Buddhism, it is part of the unknown that you fear.

 

Ah, here you go again. It seems only the other day, you'd picked out someone else. Alright. What do you actually know about my research on your religion? The only reason I'm not into it is because of the research I've been doing. That's all.

 

I've read your posts and they're all fine enough. I just don't want to go down that particular path, personally speaking. My "selfhood" might pain you, but it needn't, if you rid yourself of yours - because apparently that's what it would take - but I wouldn't ask that of you. Ever.

 

What do you know of my cultivation practices? Which, I may add, regularly include intent that all beings awaken. In fact I carry it with me wherever I go. I'll admit to a penchant for human awakening and well-being as a priority, but I suspect that comes from being one.

 

What do you know of my understanding of psychological projection? Do you understand it sufficiently to know when it's operating in yourself? And when it's not?

 

I didn't mention the Hindus recently, so can't speak to that one.

[Vajrahridaya]

Ah, here you go again. It seems only the other day, you'd picked out someone else. Alright. What do you actually know about my research on your religion? The only reason I'm not into it is because of the research I've been doing. That's all.

 

You can read all you want, but if you don't have the capacity to understand, then you're not really reading anything other than your own projections. You might think that because you read something, you understood it, and what you think about it, is the absolute truth of it.

 

It isn't.

 

I've read your posts and they're all fine enough. I just don't want to go down that particular path, personally speaking. My "selfhood" might pain you, but it needn't, if you rid yourself of yours - because apparently that's what it would take - but I wouldn't ask that of you. Ever.

 

For the umpteenth time... You don't rid yourself of your selfhood. This is what I mean, you just don't want to drop your misunderstanding, it's stuck in your head and it won't come out! All you do in Buddhism is expand your selves resources for information to an infinite paradigm... really. Your self becomes transparent and translucent, clear and open, instead of rock hard and rigid, like Bronte Baxter.

 

What do you know of my cultivation practices? Which, I may add, regularly include intent that all beings awaken. In fact I carry it with me wherever I go. I'll admit to a penchant for human awakening and well-being as a priority, but I suspect that comes from being one.

 

Yes, but you don't know what "awake" means, even conceptually... from the Buddha (awake) perspective at least. But, that intention of offering will bare fruit and help you along your way, that's awesome that you do pray for all beings.

 

What do you know of my understanding of psychological projection? Do you understand it sufficiently to know when it's operating in yourself? And when it's not?

 

I do to a degree greater than your own. I've conceded to well worded arguments revealing my ignorance concerning Taoism on this board. When I was Hindu, I did the same when it came to Buddhism, which was painful at first and scary too. I did project much of the same "crap" that you now project onto it, but then I realized how full of crap I was.... got humbled, and conceded to a greater view in Buddhism.

 

I didn't mention the Hindus recently, so can't speak to that one.

 

No, the guy you quoted, Bronte Baxter did. Who's perspective I assume you agree with, otherwise you wouldn't have quoted from him?

Edited January 17, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[Vajrahridaya]

I know a bunch of zen guys who kept on about how we must "kill" the ego. But then they'd also say that the ego doesn't exist. So what is it that y'all wanted to kill?

 

They mean the ego doesn't have inherent existence and is only relative to ones idea and experience of oneself. When they say kill the ego, they mean to kill the identity with limited self reference.

[Otis]

My understanding of ego is that it is essentially the habits, particularly the habits of consciousness. Living life by my ego is living by my algorithms, on automatic. Because those algorithms shape the internal environment within which all experience is defined, then the ego seems like air, like the necessary context of reality.

 

But to set out to "kill" this ego, is to take on new algorithm (the ego must die), and overlay it on top of the previous structure. So I am just sending the ego on a wild goose chase after itself, thinking somehow that through some great achievement of will, the ego will collapse and "I" will achieve enlightenment.

 

But that's all in the wrong direction. "I" cannot achieve enlightenment, because it is "I" which blocks the way of enlightenment. "I" am no more or less than my ego. As long as it is "me" trying, then "I" am only reinforcing ego.

 

So, what makes sense to me is: to stop trying. Stop trying to overcome ego, but also stop trying to defend or feed it. Stop justifying, stop giving extra weight to data that favors me, makes me special, or rewards my martyr/victim circuits. Stop mistaking my panics for real crisis, my pain for real injury. Stop projecting on the world. Stop blinding myself to what's in front of me. Stop blaming others, or making excuses. Stop taking offense at the world. Stop being dishonest.

 

IMO, nothing needs to be killed. I just need to surrender these training wheels of ego patterns, and risk being clumsy, as I move into the unknown.

Edited January 17, 2011 by Otis

[Marblehead]

Hi Otis,

 

Excellent post, I think.

 

Thanks for sharing.

[ben]

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

[rex]

Ego is a verb as well as a noun - it is something that is being constantly created. I suppose Presence would reveal fabrications and, if you're lucky, the deep source which silently supports and sustains ego as it does its thing.

[Jetsun]

Ego is a verb as well as a noun - it is something that is being constantly created. I suppose Presence would reveal fabrications and, if you're lucky, the deep source which silently supports and sustains ego as it does its thing.

 

I think ego also exists physically as muscular contraction of the body and tension and releasing those tensions is another way to discover it's groundlessness

[Marblehead]

I think ego also exists physically as muscular contraction of the body and tension and releasing those tensions is another way to discover it's groundlessness

 

I would have to question that although I have no idea what question to ask.

 

The muscular tensioning and releasing is more a result of our emotions possibly, but not exclusively, caused by our ego. I think to present ego as being more than a mental process might be an error.

 

But then, what do I know? Hehehe.

[SeriesOfTubes]

I would have to question that although I have no idea what question to ask.

 

The muscular tensioning and releasing is more a result of our emotions possibly, but not exclusively, caused by our ego. I think to present ego as being more than a mental process might be an error.

 

But then, what do I know? Hehehe.

 

 

I agree. I would put the chain of causation as follows (with specific example in parenthesis):

 

experience (ex: an event with potential harm to a body/mind)

 

perception containing both a subject and an object (ex: event perceived as potentially harmful to body/mind)

 

thought/cognition(ex: something bad going to happen)

 

emotion is generated (ex: fear)

 

feeling in body experienced (ex: hormones released such as cortisol/muscle contraction results)

 

optional: another thought/cognition based on feeling in the body, emotion, or prior thought creating a feedback loop.

 

 

I think the muscle contraction is the last unique link in the chain, so altering the cognition will cause both the emotion to subside and the feeling / muscle contraction to release. But altering the muscle contraction may create a new temporary feeling but will do nothing to alter the cognition. If a deeply held cognition/belief is transformed, toxins are likely to be released which were held in the musculature by contraction in the smooth muscle group so it is good to drink a lot of water. Notice the tendency for the bowels and bladder to become active after an emotional shift that ends in a big sigh of relief.

[Jetsun]

My thinking was that the main issue of the ego is control of our reality and it's main internal agent is repression, and it appears to me the only way to maintain repression is to keep permanent tensions in the body stopping the information which contradicts the ego's wish for reality which is stored in our body coming into consciousness. Without tensions in the body maybe all that we are would come into our consciousness as what would stop it?

[Marblehead]

Hi Jetsun,

 

Yes, that was a nice curve ball you threw into the discussion. I wish I could speak more to it but my ignorance of the subject would very quickly show. Perhaps there are others who can carry the discussion further.

[SeriesOfTubes]

My thinking was that the main issue of the ego is control of our reality and it's main internal agent is repression, and it appears to me the only way to maintain repression is to keep permanent tensions in the body stopping the information which contradicts the ego's wish for reality which is stored in our body coming into consciousness.

 

My perspective on this (and this is really just the fringe perspective of hypnoanalytic theory and hypnotists who work with emotion and insight, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt, I'm not trying to claim ultimate authority here) is that things can only come into consciousness as data, and will not accepted or defended by the mind as factual if they are in opposition with existing beliefs and experience held in the subconscious mind which generates emotion and governs the smooth muscle movements. I think when we speak of contraction we are describing differing states of "affect". The DSM definition of "affect" is visible expression of emotion such as subtle facial expressions and manifestation of bodily tension, that such muscle tension by definition corresponds to emotion but does not cause it.

 

Without tensions in the body maybe all that we are would come into our consciousness as what would stop it?

 

From this perspective, the critical factor of the mind (the comparing mechanism that says "yeah right!"), would still be there to stop it. The mind is likely to defend it's stored ideas about reality based on it's past experience, accepting as true things that are consistent with previously held beliefs and rejecting things that are inconsistent. My sense it that these prior beliefs would still be there to stop new information from taking hold without specific insight based on overwhelming or visceral experiential evidence sufficient to topple the old belief.

 

I think if you were to be sedated to the point of profound muscle relaxation, and be flooded to the max with sensation of what you are or reality or what-have-you, it would still just be information and temporary at best without some insight, e.g., "this is how things truly are", to create a new belief about reality for the mind to defend and accept within consciousness as part of itself.

[三江源]

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Edited March 23, 2015 by 三江源

[三江源]

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Edited March 23, 2015 by 三江源

[Otis]

My thinking was that the main issue of the ego is control of our reality and it's main internal agent is repression, and it appears to me the only way to maintain repression is to keep permanent tensions in the body stopping the information which contradicts the ego's wish for reality which is stored in our body coming into consciousness. Without tensions in the body maybe all that we are would come into our consciousness as what would stop it?

This is definitely how I experience it. When I am self-conscious, in "I" mode, then my body has a great deal of contraction and resistance to movement. When I am allowing my body to move itself, without my conscious direction, then the contraction lifts, and movement is very easy and painless. I am, during that period, stronger, more flexible, less subject to injury. This is the heart of my practice of authentic dance/movement/stretch, surrendering the "I" so that the body may emerge from my earlier attempts to control it.

 

The thoughts that most crash me back into self-consciousness and contraction are the ones in which I praise myself, followed by the open question: "how am I viewed?" But I also fall back into contraction, merely by asking "what is going on?" For example, if my ego "wakes up" from the practice of authentic movement, and realizes that I am standing on one foot, in easy and perfect balance, then all of a sudden, that balance becomes much more difficult. Because when the "I" realizes what I am doing, it tries to take over it, to make sure that it's all done according to my self-image. But the moment that the "I" tries to take over, then the act becomes much more difficult.

 

In many ways, my "I" keeps my body in chains. The ego isn't very good at manipulating the body (it's not its job). One of the few tools the ego has, is "no", putting on the brakes. And since the body tends to move in directions (e.g. towards risk, food and sex) that my ego is conflicted about, then the ego views that body as a wild animal, and seeks to tame and control it, through the never-ending application of "don't". I spend my whole egoic life, with the brakes on.

[三江源]

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Edited March 23, 2015 by 三江源

[三江源]

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Edited March 23, 2015 by 三江源

[Vajrahridaya]

My understanding of ego is that it is essentially the habits, particularly the habits of consciousness. Living life by my ego is living by my algorithms, on automatic. Because those algorithms shape the internal environment within which all experience is defined, then the ego seems like air, like the necessary context of reality.

 

I like the way you put this.

 

But to set out to "kill" this ego, is to take on new algorithm (the ego must die), and overlay it on top of the previous structure. So I am just sending the ego on a wild goose chase after itself, thinking somehow that through some great achievement of will, the ego will collapse and "I" will achieve enlightenment.

 

It's a metaphor for a much more abstract idea. Basically, what you kill, is your attachment to these algorithms as essential self.

For some people, kill could be the wrong word to use. I like the term, "transform" via Vajrayana or "self liberate" via Dzogchen much better.

 

But that's all in the wrong direction. "I" cannot achieve enlightenment, because it is "I" which blocks the way of enlightenment. "I" am no more or less than my ego. As long as it is "me" trying, then "I" am only reinforcing ego.

 

That is true in a sense, but there is definitely a process of alignment, creating deeper and subtler goals for the ego to focus on like coaxing it towards the end of a cliff before it discovers that the cliff was already an endless abyss and no coaxing was necessary, just recognition. As a Buddha said, "Attachment to dependent origination/emptiness, eventually empties attachment."

 

So, what makes sense to me is: to stop trying. Stop trying to overcome ego, but also stop trying to defend or feed it. Stop justifying, stop giving extra weight to data that favors me, makes me special, or rewards my martyr/victim circuits. Stop mistaking my panics for real crisis, my pain for real injury. Stop projecting on the world. Stop blinding myself to what's in front of me. Stop blaming others, or making excuses. Stop taking offense at the world. Stop being dishonest.

 

IMO, nothing needs to be killed. I just need to surrender these training wheels of ego patterns, and risk being clumsy, as I move into the unknown.

 

I completely agree. Terms are defined internally and certain terms are necessary at different times for different people and some terms are not needed ever for some people. It's all relative. I do agree that the idea of, "killing" the ego is rather extreme, black and white, somewhat intense, but sometimes it helps. It did for me, for a while there... that idea was very good for my particular psychology during the 90's.

Edited January 17, 2011 by Vajrahridaya