Topic: Ego and Internal Dialogue

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“If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It's very important to be aware of them every time they come up.” ~Deepak Chopra

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“The ego is not master in its own house.” ~Sigmund Freud

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“When your mind becomes fixed on Me, you shall overcome all difficulties by My grace. But, if you do not listen to Me due to ego, you shall perish.” ~Bhagavad Gita

[Jennifer-]

 

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Thanks for the smiley Jen.

““The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue.”” ~CC

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““When a warrior learns to stop the internal dialogue, everything becomes possible; the most far-fetched schemes become attainable.”” ~CC

One of the things which is amazing is how much mind does chatter when you first begin meditation. It 'talks' and 'talks' and 'talks,' attempting to distract from the art of sitting still. Ego, thrives on activity, it thrives on 'hearing its own voice.' Its an odd bird in the landscape of mind, which is truly vast, but vies for the center of attention. But its not real. Its a phantom created over time, struggling to ground one from attaining their center which is connected to the spiritual path, and the Source of all things. Because of this, its roots in fear, its desire to hold consciousness, be the center, driving force, it struggles to distract. So until one can tether oneself from ego, recognizing it for what it is, simply a byproduct created by a smaller, and temporary mind, connected to the world, its a troublesome creature, til its done away with.

Which is very difficult to do, and there's many ways. Buddha say, created the eightfold path, a way out of the madness of ego-mind and its tyranny over it. Mind itself isnt the problem. Mind is like a clear sky. But clouds come by and those are 'thoughts.' The difficulty with the clouds of thoughts, is trying to attach to them, to try to think that it is what we 'are,' the clouds of mind, the thoughts. There is truth in that, 'what we think,' as he said, makes our world. So we shift from recognizing mind is not the clouds of thoughts, those are fleeting, those are ego - tethering to thoughts, an idenfitcation. Buddha mind is the clear sky. Buddha mind is a clear mirror without a smudge or stain, or even zen mind, no-mirror, no-mind. Which is like the expanse of sky less a troubling atmosphere which clouds one from being able to see, and it obscures it.

One of the lessons in buddhism is temporary mind, mind connected to ego, or the self (littler one), is that when it tries to conceptualize anything, its bound to get a 'wrong view.' Ego is clouded daily with wrong views about everything. So the struggle for something important such as right view works like this. You recognize the clouds hiding the expanse of a clear sky, you know its there. But you also know, there are clouds, and see them for what they are. Thats all you can do with the littler mind is reconigze that the Buddha mind is eluding, its in hiding, so your view is going to be wrong no matter what you do. Therefore, that is, right view. To see things as they are, 'hidden' from you to begin with. Unless one is a full-blown buddha, one will have wrong view, its the way it is. One can only recognize this and continue in working in meditation on being a buddha.

It doesnt even have to be closed eyes, silent meditation, though it should be some of it. Gazing in nature, being quiet and just observing things as they are, without judging, without thinking, without do-ing. Like last night, I was sitting on my porch with the lights off, listening to crickets in the distance, which sounded like hundreds of them doing a symphony. Thats one way of meditation. To simply be silent, and listen to the quiet of the night. As a matter of fact, outdoors is really good. If you have the luxury of sitting by a river like I do, thats also good too. Cause mind is also like the river. We, when we move on, go back like a drop into the river. And the river, all of them, run and connect and merge in their own way, into one big water. They run as they do. They have their own 'oneness' and connection that way.

Today I was thinking about Niagra falls, a rather aggressive expanse of water. That can be also viewed as mind, say, when quite out of control. Sharp turns of water which if you dropped off the edge would pull you under. A beautiful sight though, but the falls can take someone under, so still water is much better.

A quiet river with less waves is much better. Gentler mind in comparison to the rough ride mind can do when it creates such waves. Smooth sailing.

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Tonight when meditating, the image of the caterpillar going into the cocoon or chrysalis came to mind. Then the image of lead to gold, and another. The moth which annhilates itself in the flame being drawn in to it.

Those are three good examples given by mystics in history, in what to do with ego. To become 'rid of it' per se, is to follow the path of that. The higher self say, is already there, always has been in charge. Connected to the Source, not bound to duality (the main obstacle of ego which it is birthed from). Not self-important, not fearful, not judgmental. It simply waits until the right time where the ego has been transformed into something which is made of gold.

If we rid ourselves of ego, without a transformation process, we would lose consciusness of who we are. Some of the various saints in past did odd things like that, to where they emptied themselves so fully, you know, those hollowed-out looking beings, they went truly mad. So it makes more sense to do a transformation, of course, which is extreme and not easy, to be able to do it.

Ive said before but one repeated dream I had, I would be in the passenger seat, with an unseen force driving at the wheel. I would suddenly realize what was going on, and proceed to try to 'take over' the wheel. All was driving smoothly until I began to do this. Then, all went erratic. This dream was simply my 'other self' explaining to me, ego cannot be in charge. Its got to get out of the drivers seat, and allow something greater than it to drive, right smack into the jaws of the unknown.

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Ego is a social fiction for which one person at a time gets all the blame.
~Robert Anton Wilson

Last night when sitting on the porch, to my left a bright lamp from a distance caught my eye in the darkness. I focused on it for a bit, watched the light appear to 'spread' into an oval, then suddenly, it just went 'out,' probably on a timer.

I sat there thinking about our own 'light going out.' That is an unnerving thought to ego. It fears that. But it should fear that because as long as ego keeps remaining in the drivers seat, the phantom *I*, that is what will happen. Cause the unreal cannot deal with the real. It will not be able to contend with it. Since its whole creation is based on the qualities of fleeting thoughts, and not the clear sky, it will not make it.

The other thing is per wrong view ego makes countless mistakes, and acts on those views. So without taking a death, while living, in the body of course, surrendering to something greater than ourselves, or even say, creating the double which is like, a surrendering too (now we're not thinking we can do it ourselves), then we have a shot. The other aspect, allowing the Source to do whatever it must, to grind at our egos each and every day, which it will do anyway, but we can either give it permission which is difficult, or not give it permission which then feels like a war has been waged in an unwinnable battle. So we give up, if we're smart, and allow the Source, or Spirit, to transform us into spirit too. Its the only way we have a shot of retaining our light. So we dont simply go 'out on a timer.' When our time is up, we dont simply perish. If we want to make it, we have to do away with what we 'think we are.'

Then we must walk the path always keeping our intent focused if we wish to make it thru. There are many ways. This is one of them

1. Right View     
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech    
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort    
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration

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http://www.maithri.com/articles_new/ego_desire.htm

The feeling of a separate "I", which we call ego-consciousness, is directly related to the strength of ignorance, greed, and hatred. The deepest meaning of ignorance is the believing in, identifying with and clinging to the ego, which as we have seen, is nothing but an illusive mental phenomenon. But because of this strong clinging to ego-consciousness, attachment/desire, anger/hatred arise and repeatedly gain strength.

The ego needs activity in order to exist. Like and dislike, attachment, aversion, greed and hatred are the main overt activities of the ego. The more desire and aversion we have the more alive we feel, the more real and concrete the ego seems. In reality, the ego depends on desire, its life-blood is desire. The ego and desire are like the two sides of a coin — one cannot exist without the other. The ego is projected desire, and desire is projected ego. It is like pedalling a bicycle: if we go on pedalling, the bicycle goes on moving; but if we stop pedalling the bicycle will start slowing down and eventually collapse. The more we go on generating desire the ego seems very real. When desiring stops the ego then appears as an illusion.

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Is there an Eternal Soul?

Belief in an eternal soul is a misconception of the human consciousness.

The Soul Theory

With regard to the soul theory, there are three kinds of teachers in the world:

- The first teacher teaches the existence of an eternal ego-entity that outlasts death: He is the eternalist.

- The second teacher teaches a temporary ego-entity which becomes annihilated at death: He is the materialist.

- The third teacher teaches neither an eternal nor a temporary ego-entity: He is the Buddha.

The Buddha teaches that what we call ego, self, soul, personality, etc., are merely conventional terms that do not refer to any real, independent entity. According to Buddhism there is no reason to believe that there is an eternal soul that comes from heaven or that is created by itself and that will transmigrate or proceed straight away either to heaven or hell after death. Buddhists cannot accept that there is anything either in this world or any other world that is eternal or unchangeable. We only cling to ourselves and hope to find something immortal. We are like children who wish to clasp a rainbow. To children, a rainbow is something vivid and real; but the grown-ups know that it is merely an illusion caused by certain rays of light and drops of water. The light is only a series of waves or undulations that have no more reality than the rainbow itself.

Man has done well without discovering the soul. He shows no signs of fatigue or degeneration for not having encountered any soul. No man has produced anything to promote mankind by postulating a soul and its imaginary working. Searching for a soul in man is like searching for something in a dark empty room. But the poor man will never realize that what he is searching for is not in the room. It is very difficult to make such a person understand the futility of his search.

Those who believe in the existence of a soul are not in a position to explain what and where it is. The Buddha's advice is not to waste our time over this unnecessary speculation and devote our time to strive for our salvation. When we have attained perfection then we will be able to realize whether there is a soul or not. A wandering ascetic named Vacchagotta asked the Buddha whether there was an Atman (self) or not. The story is as follows:

Vacchagotta comes to the Buddha and asks:

'Venerable Gotama, is there an Atman?

The Buddha is silent.

'Then Venerable Gotama, is there no Atman?

Again the Buddha is silent.

Vacchagotta gets up and goes away.

After the ascetic has left, Ananda asks the Buddha why He did not answer Vacchagotta's question. The Buddha explains His position:

'Ananda, when asked by Vacchagotta, the Wanderer: 'Is there a Self?, if I had answered: 'There is a Self'. Then, Ananda, that would be siding with those recluses and brahmanas who hold the eternalist theory (sassata-vada).'

'And Ananda, when asked by the Wanderer: 'Is there no Self?, if I had answered: 'There is no Self', then that would be siding with those recluses and brahmanas who hold the annihilationist theory (uccedavada)'.

'Again, Ananda, when asked by Vacchagotta: 'Is there a Self? If I had answered: 'There is a Self', would that be in accordance with my knowledge that all dhammas are without Self?

'Surely not, Sir.'

'And again, Ananda, when asked by the Wanderer: 'Is there no Self?', if I had answered: 'There is no Self', then that would have created a greater confusion in the already confused Vacchagotta. For he would have thought: Formerly indeed I had an Atman (Self), but now I haven't got one.' (Samyutta Nikaya).

The Buddha regarded soul-speculation as useless and illusory. He once said, 'Only through ignorance and delusion do men indulge in the dream that their souls are separate and self-existing entities. Their heart still clings to Self. They are anxious about heaven and they seek the pleasure of Self in heaven. Thus they cannot see the bliss of righteousness and the immortality of truth.' Selfish ideas appear in man's mind due to his conception of Self and craving for existence.

Anatta: The Teaching of No-Soul

The Buddha countered all soul-theory and soul-speculation with His Anatta doctrine. Anatta is translated under various labels: No-soul, No-self, egolessness, and soullessness.

To understand the Anatta doctrine, one must understand that the eternal soul theory _ 'I have a soul' _ and the material theory _ 'I have no soul' _are both obstacles to self-realization or salvation. They arise from the misconception 'I AM'. Hence, to understand the Anatta doctrine, one must not cling to any opinion or views on soul-theory; rather, one must try to see things objectively as they are and without any mental projections. One must learn to see the so-called 'I' or Sour or Self for what it really is : merely a combination of changing forces. This requires some analytical explanation.

The Buddha taught that what we conceive as something eternal within us, is merely a combination of physical and mental aggregates or forces (pancakkhandha), made up of body or matter (rupakkhandha), sensation (vedanakkhandha), perception (sannakkhandha), mental formations (samkharakkhandha) and consciousness (vinnanakkhandha). These forces are working together in a flux of momentary change; they are never the same for two consecutive moments. They are the component forces of the psycho-physical life. When the Buddha analyzed the psycho-physical life, He found only these five aggregates or forces. He did not find any eternal soul. However, many people still have the misconception that the soul is the consciousness. The Buddha declared in unequivocal terms that consciousness depends on matter, sensation, perception and mental formations and that is cannot exist independently of them.

The Buddha said, 'The body, O monks, is not the Self. Sensation is not the Self. Perception is not the Self. The mental constructions are not the Self. And neither is consciousness the Self. Perceiving this, O monks, the disciple sets no value on the body, or on sensation, or on perception, or on mental constructions, or on consciousness. Setting no value of them, he becomes free of passions and he is liberated. The knowledge of liberation arises there within him. And then he knows that he has done what has to be done, that he has lived the holy life, that he is no longer becoming this or that, that his rebirth is destroyed.' (Anatta-Lakkhana Sutta).

The Anatta doctrine of the Buddha is over 2500 years old. Today the thought current of the modern scientific world is flowing towards the Buddha's Teaching of Anatta or No-Soul. In the eyes of the modern scientists, man is merely a bundle of ever-changing sensations. Modern physicists say that the apparently solid universe is not, in reality, composed of solid substance at all, but actually a flux of energy. The modern physicist sees the whole universe as a process of transformation of various forces of which man is a mere part. The Buddha was the first to realize this.

A prominent author, W.S. Wily, once said, 'The existence of the immortal in man is becoming increasingly discredited under the influence of the dominant schools of modern thought.' The belief in the immortality of the soul is a dogma that is contradicted by the most solid, empirical truth.

The mere belief in an immortal soul, or the conviction that something in us survives death, does not make us immortal unless we know what it is that survives and that we are capable of identifying ourselves with it. Most human beings choose death instead of immortality by identifying themselves with that which is perishable and impermanent by clinging stubbornly to the body or the momentary elements of the present personality, which they mistake for the soul or the essential form of life.

About those researches of modern scientists who are now more inclined to assert that the so-called 'Soul' is no more than a bundle of sensations, emotions, sentiments, all relating to the physical experiences, Prof. James says that the term 'Soul' is a mere figure of speech to which no reality corresponds.

It is the same Anatta doctrine of the Buddha that was introduced in the Mahayana school of Buddhism as Sunyata or voidness. Although this concept was elaborated by a great Mahayana scholar, Nagarjuna, by giving various interpretations, there is no extraordinary concept in Sunyata far different from the Buddha's original doctrine of Anatta.

The belief in soul or Self and the Creator God, is so strongly rooted in the minds of many people that they cannot imagine why the Buddha did not accept these two issues which are indispensable to many religions. In fact some people got a shock or became nervous and tried to show their emotion when they heard that the Buddha rejected these two concepts. That is the main reason why to many unbiased scholars and psychologists Buddhism stands unique when compared to all the other religions. At the same time, some other scholars who appreciate the various other aspects of Buddhism thought that Buddhism would be enriched by deliberately re-interpreting the Buddha word 'Atta' in order to introduce the concept of Soul and Self into Buddhism. The Buddha was aware of this unsatisfactoriness of man and the conceptual upheaval regarding this belief.

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I posted some articles today on The Five Skandhas, which gives some really good insight to the temporary *I*, and this article seemed to fit over here. Buddha, was very careful of a teacher as you can see, since he took such a hefty responsibility. So say, dealing with the concept of an 'eternal soul' was for the individual to find out for themselves on their quest. To define any God even as a 'creator god' was to also define something undefinable. These he saw were hindrances, because of the five aggregates, nature of the impermanent self, the 'heaps,' which he demonstrated the nature of us with piles of dirt, which is also demonstrated with the tibetan sand mandalas, the temporary nature of man.

When a tibetan monk creates a sand mandala they can be viewed in many ways (youtube in buddhism folder). They show the system of samsara, but also show too, the nature of man. We are like the sand mandala when we come into this life, and eventually leave it. We take on form, then we may become ash. The body is temporary. So to identify it, for 2500 years ago, Buddha gave some really wise teachings for his day. But much of it was where his focus was, not where it wasnt, which is important. He said in last breath, one must save themselves. That is all one can do. Learn from the teachings. And one of the most critical ones, was to recognize the ego for what it was, a temporary dreamer. An architect of a house. One which kept returning, over and over to this world, only to create more suffering for itself.

He didnt promise necessarily a better life, or a rose garden. He also didnt promise being 'one with God' necessarily, or any of that. He kept silent on many things because silence was golden. Because our quest must be our own. But he did create a path which was a deconstructing process of the ego, so one could escape the hell realms and suffering, not necessarily the aggregates themselves, but understand their nature and see them for what they were.

The eternal soul is a good one and some of the articles do address it. If we have one, where is it? Is it a pipe dream or really-real? Buddha was beyond labels however. He was not an atheist, though many do love him cause he doesnt teach an oppressive sky daddy. He was nondual, so he didnt teach there were 'good and evil' forces at work, at least beyond humankind. He also isnt known for being attributed with great powers and flaunting them for his disciples, though he may have possessed them as there are legends of other various lamas in tibet who clearly had them. However, his value and service is providing a clear mirror to how we can use the Buddha to mirror back to us our temporary *I* and see it for what it is not. And thats permanent. If all is subject to change, my body, my consciousness via memories, my thoughts, just like the world is subject to change each and every day, then where is the permanent? It must be somewhere, but it cant be the I because the aggregates and the I go hand in hand.

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The mere belief in an immortal soul, or the conviction that something in us survives death, does not make us immortal unless we know what it is that survives and that we are capable of identifying ourselves with it. Most human beings choose death instead of immortality by identifying themselves with that which is perishable and impermanent by clinging stubbornly to the body or the momentary elements of the present personality, which they mistake for the soul or the essential form of life.

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Through enough meditation and introspection, one will find that Buddhism doctrine of The Five Skandhas rings true, and our illusory *I* is merely piles, 'heaps' of form, perceptions, sensations, consciousness, thoughts, karmas and the like. We are not simply an eternal soul walking around in an impermanent body. The deconstruction process takes time, and over time, even if we go into meditating on our 'thoughts,' seeing they seem to come out of nowhere, that our memory-bank shows up at anytime to reflect old inventory to us, we find we're fleeting in our own nature. The only way out, is Nirvana, which the only way to get free of that, is to be free of our karmas. Which then it takes replacing all of the *I*'s problematic bullshit, with a counter-attack on all of its tyrrany over the mind. Cause *I*, which tries to perpetuate it is the mind, is not the mind per se, but a byproduct of the mind. For example, we can shut off our internal dialogue, shut it up, and still have a mind. We learn to tame the tiger, by shutting the internal dialogue, and then that comes from another aspect of us, what is it then, shutting off the *I*? That is the million dollar question, that Buddha did not answer, just as he didnt answer on an eternal soul. But he did elude to something, by neither saying 'yes' or 'no.' He explained himself (see post.) It was the wrong question to ask.

It was the wrong question to ask because there is something 'other' than soul, that has no definition. That can only be obtained by reaching the state of nirvana, when all of it ceases.

Michael gave a good analogy, of riding in the Tour de France. But another analogy has also surfaced. Buddha, overrides Michael's analogy. 'Stop running in the race.' Park your bike. You are going no-where. If you are riding, the wheel keeps spinning, you are riding the wheel of samsara. Stop spinning. Just when you cross the finish line, a new race of suffering is saught, over and over. Now, if thats fun for you, all the duality, all of the racing, the spinning, going uphill, more power to you, but its not what you really want. Its impermanent, even the joy and satisfaction of achieving a trophy for your efforts. You get a trophy, and then you'll want another, and another. And when you lose the trophy, you'll kick your bike and stub your toe in pain. And scream. And suffer. So, you get off your bike, get under a tree, and aim for the now. Now, you're ready to do what you should've done all along, face the Lord of Death. The one who kept you driving in the race, fooling you with temporary desire over and over, loving those trophies, desiring a trophy you could pour wine and beer in, and drink and get drunk to celebrate, only to be thirsty more and more. And then, you face the Lord of Death and say "No more Mara, Im done racing, Im here now. Ive been doing this millena after millenia, now its time for us to dance, to Tango, I want nothing you have to offer me. Not a damn thing. Nothing you can offer me is permanet. Everything in this world is fleeting. Joy and pain go hand in hand. What I seek now, is to end it all." Then Mara puts you thru the real test and then, you rise up, fully enlightened. Then the race no longer pulls you anymore. And you move on, on another Tour, one which is your own. After a death, right into the heart of the infinite, free of more accumulated karmas. Pure as a Buddha.

And the bike is parked.

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One of the things which Carlos said was to deal with ones inventory, and also to erase personal history, as we know. But even deeper at the heart of the path, is doing away with ones culture, ones place in society, ones 'identification' with everything about it, and in between.

In the US, we had numerous foreclosures. Many folks, said "my home," until the banks took them away. For unemployment, many folks said "my job," until they got laid off. Buddha goes even further than that, showing the *I* owns nothing. Even ones own body isnt really the *I*'s "property." We own nothing. Nothing in this world, is owned. Now, we do have, as the human race, some dominion, but we can see, per the destruction of our resources on earth, how thats going. "Mine mine mine." Or even per history, the bloodbaths over territory. I was talking with ex about that on the porch last night a bit how, per history, its always been about territory. This or that people, conquering a land, taking 'territory,' to make it their own, whether they had some claim over it or not was irrelevant. The truth is, no one really has 'claim,' they just force their ways into territory to claim it. We are by in large, territorial creatures, always looking to inhabit some 'space' and ego declares it is 'mine.' Until it is taken away, then it might realize, as long as it doesnt stew in its juices long enough, it never really owned nothing. Everything is really an illusion. Ownership is included in that. And its the biggest part of folly of all. Until all people (may we hope oneday) learn to 'share' with each other, vs declare 'mine' everywhere, we will continue to destroy the earth and its resources, or take from, weaker folks who are just trying to make it thru life, with a little piece of 'mine.'

But there is no mine, not even the body is a 'mine.' The body itself, is also connected to the world. Its the most difficult to be let go of after death because of the identification with it, and all of its memories, thoughts, attachments to what it 'thought it was.' All of it has to go. And the only way one can even possibly grok what nirvana is, have a prayer, is to pry the cold, clenching fingers of ego, away from its gripping and clinging to any promise of permanence. When it fully accepts its nature as an impermanent creature in the grand scheme of things, like everything else, then there is a chance to understand what nirvana is, and be free of the clinging nature of the ego, to attain bliss and understanding, in an illusory world.

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“The truth is that while men, in our society, are encouraged to have strong egos and to function in competitive, aggressive, intellectualized modes that may indeed cause them pain, for most women the ego is like a fragile African Violet, grown in secret from a seed, carefully nursed and fertilized and sheltered from too much sun.”


~Starhawk