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#Post#: 43308--------------------------------------------------
Your Ego Is Already Destroyed
By: Zara Songull Date: July 4, 2023, 12:57 am
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Many people on the spiritual path learn that the ego is a sort
of enemy to be defeated. There’s some kind of real you, and then
there’s the false self, obscuring it. If only you could tear
down the false self, and stop identifying with all the things
that aren’t really you, you could uncover your true nature.
It’s a decent story, but it has a big plot hole. See if you can
spot it.
According to the story, your ego is a durable illusion, and you
devote considerable effort to maintaining it. Some of your
personality strategies, known as “ego defenses”, function to
protect the ego against threats. You feed your ego when you have
the chance, building it up and strengthening it, so it can
withstand the barrage of life’s many challenges. This ego
structure helps you function in the human world, but it stands
in the way of your spiritual liberation. To have any chance of
discovering the truth of what you are, you need to break down
that structure, ruthlessly starve your ego, and overcome its
defenses. In a word, you need to destroy it!
Did you catch it? Do you see the glaring contradiction here?
If the ego was a thing with an independent existence, it would
persist without needing constant maintenance. All that
defending, protecting, strengthening, and feeding doesn’t
maintain the ego. Those activities *are* the ego. The ego is not
a thing. It is an array of ongoing efforts to make something
seem to exist that otherwise doesn’t. If your ego appears to
have coherence or continuity, it is only because you
continuously work to make it seem that way.
Said more simply, your ego doesn’t *have* a maintenance
department. It *is* the maintenance department.
You don’t need to destroy an illusion, even a durable one. You
need only stop producing it. But even that doesn’t require any
special effort. Your ego-maintaining activities are already
interrupted over and over again in the course of a normal day.
Let me see if I can illustrate the tenuous nature of the ego (or
at least my particular ego) with three mundane examples from my
day today. In each example, my ego-producing activities are
disrupted, and in each, an ego-recovery strategy reactively pops
up to compensate.
A MOMENT OF SHAME: In the morning, I go running. It’s hot here
in Cambodia, and I sweat a lot when I run. At the end of the
run, I’m cooling down by walking, and I stop for a fresh pressed
sugar cane juice on the roadside. The woman selling me the drink
asks, “You’ve been walking?” Now you might see that as a simple,
friendly question, but I am, for a moment, mortified. Here I am,
absolutely soaked, dripping with sweat, and she thinks I got
this sweaty just by walking. I desperately want to explain that
I’ve been running, and running hard. I’m not some wimp who
sweats buckets merely from taking a walk! A self-image I don’t
even realize I have appears - one in which I’m impressive
because I’m a runner - tough and capable. And then the image is
demolished by her innocent question. To put my self-image back
together, I want her to see me how I was seeing myself. I want
to defend the honor of my persona! The idea that a stranger, one
I’ll probably never see again, might think me less impressive
than I wish to be, evokes shame. And a strategy for escaping
shame is readily available! If only I could only explain my
self, my self-image might be redeemed.
A MOMENT OF FEAR: Some hours later, I’m driving on my motorbike,
when a car barges into the road from a driveway, directly in my
path, without pause or warning. Fear takes over my system,
helping me to brake and swerve. There’s enough room to maneuver,
and within a moment, driving returns to business as usual.
Everyone is fine. Immediately after the fear passes its peak,
however, it transforms into anger. I am sure the driver of the
car is wrong, that they should have looked first! In actuality,
the car was behaving appropriately for the cultural context, but
that doesn’t stop a flurry of angry fantasies from forming in my
mind: telling off the driver, or educating them on how to drive
more respectfully, or getting revenge by making them feel as
scared as I felt. Fear had knocked me out of my normal
assumption of safety and control. Something in the world
overpowered me, and flashed the possibility of death or injury.
My fantasies of overpowering someone else in response are a
strategy to stave off the fear and reinstate the illusion that
I’m in control.
A MOMENT OF CONFUSION: Returning home, I open my laptop to a
piece of writing I’ve been stuck on. A mere glance at the screen
is enough to evoke a familiar wash of feelings. I’ve been
writing up an exercise on the nature of thoughts. The material
is quite abstract, so devising concrete steps that students can
follow is a challenge, and thus far, I have been failing the
challenge! Looking at the page, a mix of panic, confusion, and
general aversion appears. My entire system prepares a strategy
to evade these feelings by switching to a less difficult task.
Procrastinating by doing something easy and comfortable would
certainly be better than a confrontation with my own
limitations! The impulse to procrastinate is a strategy for
turning away from confusion, returning my self to more familiar
and comfortable territory.
These are three everyday kinds of moments. I imagined someone
had a judgment of me. I got scared by something that momentarily
overpowered me. I was thwarted by my own limitations in my wish
to accomplish something.
Each of these moments is a blow to the ego. Think about just how
many such blows hit you on any given day. You imagine someone is
judging you. You’re dominated by someone or something. You face
your own limitations. You get embarrassed by a mistake you made.
You find yourself wanting to impress someone. You panic because
you perceive a threat. You forget what you were trying to do and
get confused. You scramble to fill a perceived absence. You feel
at a loss, or trapped, or like you can’t handle something. You
get blamed by someone, or misunderstood, or disregarded. You get
rejected, or disappointed, or insulted. You feel guilty because
you impose on someone, or resentful because someone imposes on
you. You feel betrayed by your own body, or bullied by society,
or like you don’t belong in the world.
You might think each of these experiences is merely a minor
attack. They are, for the most part, minor. The problem is that
the ego doesn’t exist as a thing that can withstand an attack.
All that exists is a range of ego-maintaining activities. Any
disruption to those activities effectively eradicates the ego.
The slightest insult is a killing blow. Whatever tentative sense
of self was being held in place easily gets knocked down and
broken into pieces. It’s like an ego Jenga, being blown over all
day long.
In each example I gave, an ego-restoring strategy spontaneously
arose in reaction to the ego blow. I wished to explain myself to
someone who I imagined was judging me, so that she might see me
the way I want to see myself. I fantasized about overpowering
someone else, in order to convince myself I am in control. I
looked for escape from the frustration of ongoing failure,
through more familiar activities.
These kinds of strategies reassemble my destroyed ego. The poor
thing has to be put back together over and over.
But what if I didn’t? What if I didn’t put the ego back
together?
Every single instance in which your ego-generating activities
get disrupted is an opportunity to reduce or slow or cease those
activities. Let’s look back at my three examples through this
lens. What are the opportunities each moment offers?
REMAINING UNDEFINED: In my running example, a self-image appears
of me being impressive and cool. I only notice I’ve been
maintaining that self-image because someone hints that her image
of me might be less complimentary. Uh oh! If she thinks I’m
unimpressive and uncool, is she right, or am I? My shame comes
from a suspicion that I’ve been wrong about myself all along,
and that suspicion, of course, is correct! I was never actually
impressive and cool. But neither was I unimpressive and uncool.
The positive attributes define one character. The negative
attributes define another. But I am not either character, and I
never was. I am embarrassed because I have been confusing myself
with a mere character, perhaps for a very long time. The impulse
to explain myself is a strategy to reinstate that character, to
redefine myself. If I don’t follow the impulse, and allow the
shame, I have the opportunity to remain undefined instead.
REMAINING INSECURE: In my motorbike example, I am enveloped in
the illusion of safety and control, when the appearance of
danger breaks the spell. Such illusions are woven out of several
strands. I construct an ongoing narrative in which the character
of my self is on its way from a past location to a future
destination. I believe this to be true both of my motorbike
journey, and of my life journey. I assume I will continue to be
the person I was in my recent memory, and the person I imagine
in my fantasy of the near future. Other strands of the illusion
keep me imagining that both I and the world are continuous,
consistent, predictable, orderly, and stable. Any given driver
on the road can remind me that none of those things are true -
fear is a fantastic disruptor of illusions! This fear isn’t only
a reminder that there is no guarantee anything will continue. It
is already a kind of death right now. Self is a narrative, and
the narrative has been shocked out of existence, leaving me in a
space of insecurity. There is no safety. I’m not actually in
control. The emergence of anger, and the fantasy of dominating
this particular driver, instead of being dominated, is a
strategy to reestablish my belief that my character has control
and can choose to persist. If I don’t entertain the fantasy, and
allow the fear, I have the opportunity to remain insecure
instead.
REMAINING DISORIENTED: In my writing example, something weirder
is happening. The panic I feel when I open my laptop is due to a
clash of identifications! Normally, without realizing it, I
identify myself with a familiar collection of thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors. I think those thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors are “me”. Looking at the unfinished piece of writing
before me, I discover that I am also identified with a goal - to
complete the writing. This goal, unfortunately, is impossible
for “me” to achieve. The task is beyond the current capacity of
that familiar cluster of thoughts and feelings and behaviors. To
engage with the writing requires a departure with the familiar.
“I” can’t do it, so to accomplish it requires not being me. I
know this intuitively, and so looking at the page disorients me.
It takes me beyond what I know myself to be, into an experience
without landmarks or guideposts. My impulse to procrastinate is
a strategy to return to the bounds of the familiar, to the
construct that I believe my self to be. If I thwart the impulse,
and allow confusion to take over, I have the opportunity to
remain disoriented instead.
I have the opportunity to remain undefined, instead of
reestablishing a self-image. I have the opportunity to remain
insecure, instead of restoring a self-narrative. I have the
opportunity to remain disoriented, instead of returning to
familiar self-territory. Being undefined, insecure, and
disoriented may not seem desirable, but those qualities are all
close to the true nature of things, to my true nature.
Whenever something interferes with your ego-producing
activities, there are two choices available to you. You can
deploy a strategy that restores the sense of an ego. Or you can
drop the strategy and remain relatively egoless.
There are many other qualities that can characterize
egolessness. You may find yourself undefined, insecure,
disoriented, open, boundless, centerless, unmoored, lost,
unknowing, empty, preferenceless, purposeless, meaningless,
timeless, goalless, or just plain weird. These are all aspects
of freedom, but freedom is something the ego does not tolerate.
Developing the capacity to tolerate these states gives you the
freedom to do things that are much more interesting than
maintaining an ego.
So, the question isn’t how to defeat or destroy the ego. You
can’t destroy something that doesn’t exist in the first place.
You can stop pouring your efforts into producing and reproducing
the ego illusion. But there’s nothing there to destroy. Your ego
comes pre-destroyed.
#Post#: 43309--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Ego Is Already Destroyed
By: lessboring Date: July 4, 2023, 6:17 am
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this is really make me confuse
I been fight my ego for three weeks，since the pain pass
throught my heart every second and the horror blockS all my
behavior
I want give my love to my wife and I want to be a wonderful
father
every time I want to sent my promise,sent my best word to my
famliy ,here it comes ,the horror like a HUGE wave destory all
my will
I can`t say a single word,i CHANGE INTO a completely different
person ,silence ,invisible,like a ghost wander around
people only remind me when there is a work need my skills,or a
duty calls my appearance,they would look around and say such
words like :
you been here the whole time ? I havent notice you are
here at office,what happend to you
I fight my ego every minute for last three weeks , IN THOSE days
I save every chance to read, I finished 6 or 7 books talks about
ego and the truth
this afternoon I deceide to take a break
and this email shows up
the title is Your Ego Is Already Destroyed
WHAT THE .......
#Post#: 43310--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Ego Is Already Destroyed
By: Terminus_Est Date: July 4, 2023, 10:59 am
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[center]
The Vanishing Act
Where was I, just now?
What happened?
To the traction of friction:
The Fight or Flight?
The running to or running from?
Where’s the source of tension?
The War of the World?
My enemy combatant?
Where is my history?
My excuse?
My case?
My face, in reflection?
Where is my source of self-import?
My badge?
My ID?
My credentials?
My crest?
My laminated leverage?
Where’s my wallet!?
My phone?!
My keys?!
Who am I?
What am I?
Where am I going!?!
I don’t know!
I’m becoming unknown
To myself…
Filled with joy and energy
Mystery and power
Delight and surprise
Moving with frictionless flow
A strange expression
Of magic and silence
Nothing more or less
Than an embodiment of the Abstract
Forever in awe[/center]
HTML https://www.reddit.com/r/ContagiousLaughter/comments/14mg805/the_bottomless_purse/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
#Post#: 43312--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Ego Is Already Destroyed
By: Inedible Date: July 4, 2023, 10:38 pm
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It sounds like you have depression and you need a healthy ego to
function in the world better. It is too soon to worry about
destroying your ego, and when the time comes, you still don't
destroy it or fight it. As long as you are alive you need your
ego to function in the world and to support your family.
#Post#: 43313--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Ego Is Already Destroyed
By: Zara Songull Date: July 5, 2023, 1:18 am
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While I certainly don't know if our mutual friend is depressed,
in my experience 'depression' is a failed paradigm. The
diagnosis, or self-diagnosis, usually does little to alleviate
suffering.
I prefer to consider that what we think of as 'depression' is an
attempt at liberation. From one perspective, you'd have to be
crazy not to be depressed, given the state of human affairs.
'Depression' is almost always a failure to play the character
one is expected to play. It comes from a knowing that something
is actually wrong, that being well-adjusted and playing one's
role does not produce freedom, or beauty, or evolution, or
whatever else we might actually be here for.
Whatever is called 'depression' is always an opportunity - not
to resume the life that led to the depression in the first place
- but to discover what you really are, or can be, if you can
shake free your conditioning. If you stop believing you're the
person you've always been told you are, what else is possible?
Depression is a clumsy attempt to reach for an answer.
#Post#: 43314--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Ego Is Already Destroyed
By: lessboring Date: July 5, 2023, 2:19 am
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here is the truth I been discovered:
I overrated myself,and rely on it too much
this ego cause this situation happen,I know what I did in the
past three years.
every feeling makes me pain bring a thing that I need to erease
in my unconscious reality, I need to recall all the KEY moment
that I follow this ego to bulit such a ridiculous surronding to
let me live.
I thought death is a better option last month ,so this ego need
to go hell for me.
yes,I konw i m depress,this whole thing shows in front of my
face ,remind me the crisist every second,I dont have the power
or life experience to be better mood ,so I came here to ask for
help,methods,thoughts ,words,anything
yes,I have asked MY inner world ,I try several ways that I GOT
during my medtation,for this part I only need a sign to keep me
going ,nothing came
SO what should I do,other than kill this ego and bulid a new
one,
as long as the problem still exist ,I really need all my strengh
to focus on this one thing
maybe when it`s done ,I will have the time and patience to move
on the Spiritual road
maybe when this ego is weak enough,I can make a breakthrough
I`m stuck
#Post#: 43315--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Ego Is Already Destroyed
By: Terminus_Est Date: July 5, 2023, 6:02 am
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It's good to be stuck, though it sucks to feel stuck to be sure.
Look, nobody knows how it happens when it does....it just does
when it does and, perhaps for many, it's after a prolonged
period of struggle, for whatever reason. It's almost like
something within has to become exasperated and then just gives
up, while retaining this internal intent, not associated with
effort whatsoever, which somehow finds its way through. All I
know (and trust me...I know precious little) is that something
just snaps, after writhing around inside a burlap bag for
lord-knows-how-long....and this cascade begins which might be
called the start of realization. Then, it's a cascade of a
tumbling house of cards....or the Jenga tower, as mentioned
(seen this vision more than a few times)....or dominoes along
this absurd Rube Goldberg style track, that's so surprising
you're gonna pee your pants, you'll be laughing so hard with
delight (maybe....I'm prone to fits of laughter, so...). And it
just goes on and on and on. Frankly, I don't see an end to it.
I'm not so sure about this "through" - ness. All I see is
endless unfolding mystery, like a blooming mandala fractal.
But, then again, WTF do I know about what's going on with anyone
else in terms of trajectory of progression of realization?
Exactly Jack Squat.
For what it's worth, purity of intention was/is key. The
ironic/paradoxical explanations kind of set things up....creates
the dissonance for intent to sneak through like a child slipping
outside.the room amidst the melee of a pillow fight.
Just....hang in there. Don't forget the intent part....kind of
like a prayer which doesn't know who or what it's being prayed
too...but knows without a shadow of doubt that something hears
and will "Make it so". This is what worked/is working for me,
anyways. At first it seems like something outside the
self....and then, suddenly, it's inside.
And then, the dividing lines blurs and things get weird
#Post#: 43317--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Ego Is Already Destroyed
By: Parsley Date: July 6, 2023, 7:35 am
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Thank you, Zara for explaing the different choice to the usual
restoring of the false self (Ego) in many situations of
every-day-life. With good examples.
"If you stop believing you're the person you've always been told
you are, what else is possible?"
"What if I don't put the ego back together?"
What if I don't react the usual way? What if I just stay with
what I feel (insulted, inferior etc.) without giving the next
thought any attention?
"Developing the capacity to tolerate these states gives you the
freedom to do things that are much more interesting than
maintaining an ego."
Love
#Post#: 43344--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Ego Is Already Destroyed
By: dpoirier Date: November 24, 2023, 4:08 am
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Zara, thank you so much for these incredibly clear examples of
how the ego gets reaffirmed by our thoughts and actions. Your
post has made clear something that has always been a bit fuzzy
for me. I wish you would post more of these wisdom-pieces, but I
fully understand how busy you are with everything and especially
the new course (looking forward to that!).
#Post#: 43345--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Ego Is Already Destroyed
By: fantianzhanche Date: December 6, 2023, 6:05 pm
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Thanks for sharing, I have similar findings
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