Buddhism and Ego

 

Among people interested in Eastern philosophy or religion, ego is often portrayed as a thing that we need to get rid of.  “I keep trying destroy my ego, but it’s so strong it’s an ongoing battle.”  In the West, we say things like “He has such a big ego; he can never admit it when he is wrong.”  The ego is often seen as some sort of entity that causes trouble and fights for its own survival, sort of like a tape worm that you might have lodged in your digestive tract.

In reality, the ego is not a thing at all but rather a way of seeing things and a way of engaging life.  It involves seeing myself as separate from everyone and everything.   Ego-centered perception and behavior manifests in many ways: comparing myself with others, being competitive, craving personal victory, standing out, getting the credit, and operating on the basis of “What’s in it for me?” 

To act without ego is to see things from the perspective of the universe.  The focus is on “What is needed to produce the most good when everyone effected is taken into account?”  A nonego mind-state seeks to create a world that works for everyone. This is central to acting without ego. 

In the example of land use, dropping the ego perspective enables me to see that cutting down trees on my land impacts others because the increased water that now runs off my land runs onto the land of neighbors.  Likewise, pumping huge amounts of water from the well where I live impacts others because it depletes the underground aquifer that we all share and rely on for water. 

In the larger sense, we see that we all live on the same spaceship—planet Earth.  When we see this, we realize that we can’t really throw anything away—trash, toxic chemicals—because there is no such place as “away” on a space ship.  All I can do is shift my garbage to someone else’s quarters on the ship.  We all breathe the same air, use the same water, mine the same resources, and our spaceship has limited resources that have to take care of everyone.  Our spaceship cannot make a pitstop along the way and pick up more fossil fuels, trees, clean air or water.  And if we have too many babies, our finite spaceship Earth becomes overcrowded and stressed and it impacts everyone.  

The nonegoic mind sees what exists as a oneness and views having title to land as being much like having checked a book out of the library.  You don’t own the book, or the land, in any sort of permanent way, but it is entrusted to you to use, take care of, and then give it back in good condition so that someone else can make use of it.

When we drop the egoic perspective, we become concerned with “what is right” rather than “who is right.”   If there is disagreement between you and me, my focus is on collaborating with you in an effort to discover the truth, rather than defeating you in some sort of personal contest—attempting to prove that I am right and you are wrong.  In a similar way when many people work on a project, the nonegoic mind is not concerned with “who will get the credit?”  And the focus is not on imposing our personal will.  Instead, the question becomes “What does the situation in front of us actually need from me to be the best solution for all parties?”   Taoism is useful here.  In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu speaks of something similar in regard to proper leadership. 

A leader is best, when people barely know that he exists.  Of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, “We did this ourselves.” (Chapter 17, Witter Bynner translation)

When egoic thinking is not present, it is the end of all arguments and power struggles because there is no personal need to be right.  I no longer view particular perceptions and beliefs as defining who I am as a person, or as something that I “own,” or need to defend as a matter of personal “honor.”  There is no need to defend the honor of “my” beliefs when they are questioned because I don’t see any particular beliefs as part of my personal identity or as an extension of self. 

Instead, beliefs are seen as being like maps in my car—if they are accurate they help me find my way around.  But these maps are certainly not who I am.  If you point out an error in one of the maps I am using, I can simply make the necessary correction and thank you for helping me improve the accuracy of the map. It’s all so very simple! Maps and beliefs are just tools that we use. Eckhart Tolle calls this mental shift “disidentifying with mind and with mental content.” (See Chapter 15 “Ending Arguments and Power Struggles in Your Life,” from The Wisdom of the Buddha; excerpt available via email in electronic form by request at ahimsaacres@gmail.com.) 

Reframing things in this and other ways is the first step toward creating a powerful transformation within us.  What else can we do to promote this change?

To further help us in shifting to a nonegoic perspective, we can make it into a practice to consciously choose to shift our perspective at random moments throughout the day, every day.  We can practice looking for and seeing the interconnections, interdependencies, and the lack of separation in the world around us.  We can, for example, look at a river and ask ourselves “Is the river in front of me really a separate thing?  Where does it start and end?  What are its boundaries?” The water in the river is part of the river.  What about the bank that contains the river?  Without it, the river cannot exist. What about all the tributaries that feed the river, the melting snow that feeds the tributaries, the sun that melts the snow, the mist hovering over the river, the pull of the earth’s gravity that makes the water flow downhill, the plants and animals that live in the river?  When we shift our perspective, we see that the river has no separate existence.

You and I are not separate from the river.  The same water that flows in the river circulates throughout the world, nourishes the crops we grow and the food we eat, and makes up a very large percentage of our bodies.  If the water is polluted, we will become polluted.  Cultivating seeing the world as one of nonseparation can become our daily practice and eventually our “default mind state.”

My interactions with other people are a great place to cultivate the nonegoic outlook.  What do I do when someone disagrees with what I have said or written?   My longstanding habit was to argue and try to convince them that they were wrong. This just created an adversarial, competitive, and even combative situation in which both parties simply became more entrenched in their existing views and were bent on winning.  We’ve all experienced this and know how rarely anything positive comes out of it.  But we can change this.

I started asking myself, “Does it really matter if this person is mistaken?”  If there are no important consequences of being mistaken, then it really doesn’t matter. If someone says “I’ve always loved big fish like whales,” what difference does it make that whales are not really fish?  The important thing to hear is that this person loves whales!  In many situations, someone being mistaken makes no difference and yet I often found myself expending a good deal of energy, and creating conflict, attempting to get them to see their error.  When I finally saw the pointlessness of what I was doing, my feelings and behavior changed.

With practice, a new default setting can be created.  Slowing things down and practicing delaying my response to a statement helps enormously.  In a five or ten second gap between someone’s false statement and my response, I can ask myself “Does it really matter?” and then consciously choose whether to mention it or not. 

And what about areas where someone’s mistaken belief does matter?  Again, if we are mindful and slow our response time down, we can choose to make our first response one of looking for what is right in what was said instead of instantly looking to expose errors.  Suppose someone is talking with you and expresses five different ideas:  two of them you disagree with, two you agree with, and one you have no opinion about.  You can begin by agreeing with and elaborating on the two ideas you agree with and ignoring the rest, at least in the short term.  The practice here is to find things that enable you to connect with the other person.  After a connection is formed, it becomes more possible to try to talk about some of the areas of genuine disagreement that really do matter.

I found the best practice for me was to focus on understanding the other person’s point of view.  People always have reasons for what they think and feel. I can practice asking questions that draw them out and then listen mindfully to what they say and how they feel. When I can do this without arguing with it, I always find some deeper perception or feeling that we both share.  So perhaps I don’t agree with their ideas about gun control, but it turns out that we do have a shared desire to feel safe and protect our families.  This is an area where we can connect.  In practicing this way, I started to notice a substantial decrease in my desire to convince people.  And I liked how it felt doing this!    

Personal criticism can be particularly difficult.  A good practice here is graciously acknowledging that you are or may be mistaken each time you catch yourself trying to prove you are right about something.  “I hadn’t thought about it that way.  I’ll look into further,” or “I understand what you are saying about what I have done.  From where we are now, can you tell me what it would take to make this ok?” I found this to be very simple and easy once I got the hang of it.  It’s such a relief to just acknowledge error and say “I think you’re probably right about that” rather than think I have to defend something. (For a very good analysis of our cultural addiction to arguing and the toll it takes, see Deborah Tannen’s book The Argument Culture.) 

Playing competitive games can be a problem or… it can be wonderful arena for retraining myself to respond to life differently.  This helped me a lot.  The practice here is to focus on feeling joy for the success of others --“Good play!”-- and not just my own successes.  There will always be someone who is having success and I can cheer them on and make their success my success.  If the person who was experiencing success was your child, it would be easy to do this. Why not do it for others, too?  I can focus on enjoying the social interaction of the game, being with friends, and taking joy in good plays that are made regardless of which person makes them.  In Buddhism, this is called sympathetic joy.    

What we call “the ego” is really just a habit of seeing the world a certain way, but it is a very deeply ingrained habit and so pervasive in our culture that it seems absolutely normal to most people. Once we become aware of this habit, and see the suffering that it causes, we can take steps to create a new habit.  With consistency of practice, it is actually not that hard to make a radical and hugely beneficial change in ourselves.

________________________________

Note:  It is worth mentioning that in contemporary Western psychology, ego has a very different meaning and having ego strength is seen as a good thing.  In this context, ego strength refers to an individual's ability to cope with stress, set personal boundaries, deal with adversity, recover from setbacks, and know what’s important to them. This is very different from what ego means in a spiritual setting, but it is quite possible and even desirable to be both egoless (spiritual sense) and also have good ego strength (western psychology sense).

 

 Note:   My intention is to add new posts to the blog approximately every 2 to 3 weeks. If you would like to receive an e-mail notification each time a new blog post is made, please let me know and I will add you to the list of recipients. This notification will also include the title of the new post.  Some of the material that appears in this blog is copyrighted, but in keeping with the Buddha’s teaching that the dharma is not to be sold, the contents of this blog may be freely copied and given away, but not sold. 

            If you have questions, comments, or ideas for new Blog topics please contact Dale at ahimsaacres@gmail.com.