Where does the idea that we have to eliminate ego come from?

Recently, I read an in-depth interview with the Zen teacher, Norman Fischer, in an old issue of THE SUN (August 2018). Most of what he said felt deeply wise to me. But what caught my eye was the title of the article: "Our Grand Delusion: Norman Fischer on the Tyranny of the Self." 

I realize that, in the case of most publications, the person who writes the article doesn't necessarily write the headline, and that is probably the case here, because the title didn't seem to represent the content very well. This disparity, however, only helps makes my point: for those involved in Eastern spirituality, the "ego" or "self" is seen as the bad guy. Norman Fischer may not see it that way, but whoever wrote the title assumed it to be true.

Recently I came across an on-line article that discusses this issue in depth:

tenayaasan.com/myths-pitfalls-egoless-nature-reflections-19-years-spiritual-master/  (May 14, 2017).

As the title implies, the author discusses the problems with trying to get rid of the ego. Can we ever really do this? Or is it more realistic, and likely to produce a better outcome, to face the ego and all that it contains -- all that we think of as the "me"? 

 

Clearly, the author thinks the latter approach is better, and I agree.  But I do wonder about the author's idea -- a generally held one -- that we are taught that ego is bad. I'm not sure it's that simple. Surely, there is an element of that not only in Eastern spirituality but also in the teachings of Western religion and culture: "Remember: be good and share with your sister."  But  I wonder if there is not already an innate conflict that grows out of being born human. Maybe there is an innate knowledge, or at least suspicion, that we are not really separate, that separation is an illusion. The ego comes to represent that illusion because it is seen as the emblem of the separate self.

 

Indeed, the job of the ego is to protect the separate self. But the resolution to the dilemma is not to get rid of ego (if that is even possible) but to realize that the self is not really separate. The ego can go ahead and do its job on one level, but on the deeper, truer level, there is no separate self. 

 

Can Enlightened Beings Have Faults?

There is a certain assumption -- one which I myself carried for a long time -- that somehow awakened people have ideal personalities. They only get angry when it is justified and useful. They know exactly when and how to say "yes" and "no." They are always happy, if not blissful. They are never judgemental. And they never show any indication of ego, or of wanting to be liked, noticed, or admired. They don't judge, and when they are judged by others, they never get upset.

Does this sound like your ideal enlightened being? I know it long sounded like mine. If any of my teachers displayed any "faults," I was quite upset. Is s/he really completely enlightened? Why is s/he showing signs of ego? Could I really believe in someone who was, in effect, still human?

Sometimes students are encouraged to believe that all their faults will be eliminated when they step into the Truth of their Being. But often, the idealism doesn't come from the teachers but from aspirants themselves. In fact, the word "aspirant" says it all: I will become something better -- oh, much, much better! -- than I am now! Everyone will love me, and most important, I will love myself.

Maybe for some people, it works that way. If so, I'd love to hear from them. For me the process has been quite different, and not something that I could have anticipated:

What changed, basically, was my belief in what we call the "world." This "world" is really composed of and created by thought. That world includes, especially, one's ego. And as that ego and its world become more and more transparent or unreal -- there is less and less reason to argue with it or want to change it.

Why would I expend energy to change something that is not real in the first place?

Now, it may well turn out that not believing anymore in the entity called "me," causes a diminution of what are seen by most as the faults of the ego. When we know we are not our ego, we don't need to defend it as much. But if that doesn't happen -- if, that is, an awake human being still displays the personality traits -- including the negative ones -- that s/he has always displayed, it really doesn't mean anything. The important thing is knowing what Truth really is. Becoming a better or more admirable person, if it happens, is only a by-product.

Ego's Bad Rep

In spiritual circles, ego has a bad rep. It's something one is supposed to get rid of. "If I could only control my ego, I'd be enlightened," people often think. And so there are numerous strategies to do this.

This seems to me to put the cart before the horse. Ego, after all, is trying to make us bigger -- trying to make us as big as we really are, that is to say. And how big is that? Infinite!. But it doesn't know how to go about its project. It's looking at you from the outside and imagining if others admire you, that will mean you've  made it.

People struggle and struggle to deny the ego's ingenious strategies to make us bigger. But what really solves the problem is discovering how big we already are -- how big our true selves are, not just the image the ego is concerned with. When we discover this, the goals of ego seem shallow and not that interesting. It doesn't mean that ego goes away necessarily; it just doesn't matter that much anymore.

Is Honesty Always the Best Policy?

In the centerfold of the Summer 2017 catalogue of the Buddhist publisher, Wisdom, there is a whimsical drawing of a bear and raven in dialogue. Their interaction is reported as follows:

"Black Bear came to a meeting late and said, 'I'm feeling frazzled after dealing with my cubs. What if I don't feel compassionate?'

"Raven said, 'Fake it.'

"'That doesn't seem honest,' said Black Bear.

"'It doesn't begin with honesty,' said Raven."

There is no attribution, so I suspect that this is a traditional Buddhist teaching story.

But whether this particular story is traditional or not, in my experience it does represent an important attitude in Asian Buddhism: behave not based on what you are but on what you aspire to be. Or, in other words, fake it 'til you make it.

When I was twenty-two, I lived in a Buddhist temple in Japan and this attitude came up again and again. Once, I was told to write a letter to my mother telling her how grateful I was for everything she had done for me. Like most 22-year-olds, I had my share of resentments toward my parents. Giving thanks to them for what they had done for me while omitting what they had done to hurt me seemed dishonest.  Black-bear like, I complained, "But I don't feel grateful." "That doesn't matter. Do it anyway," my teachers replied.

It actually caused me pain to be false to myself in this way. I don't know whether Asians experience this or not. But I think most Westerners, contrary to Raven, would say that it does begin with honesty. My main teacher was Adyashanti, a third-generation American Buddhist -- that is, his teachers were all American-born. And he definitely stressed honesty -- to the extent that it may have been his most important teaching. 

Why is honesty important? Well, for one thing, it takes a lot of energy to lie and keep track of your lies and make sure that they have had the intended effect -- which is usually to either enhance your ego's standing among other egos or to make sure, at least, that it isn't diminished. If you are using your energy in this way, you are wasting it, and it's running counter to the realization of oneness that a glimpse of egolessness will give you.

So I'm with Adya on this one. That said, I do still tell social lies. If someone invites me to dinner whose company I don't enjoy, I don't tell them that. I usually, like most people, find an acceptable excuse for bowing out. Perhaps this is a cop-out, but I can't see a reason to hurt someone unnecessarily.

With intimate relationships, though, and, most especially with oneself, honesty is essential. Lying in those circumstances will bring one further and further away from the Truth one is seeking.When I find myself lying in those situations, I try to remember to ask myself, Why did I do that? What was I hoping to gain?  And, most importantly, Why am I so lacking in trust -- in myself, in the universe, or in a loved one -- that I felt the need to try to manipulate through lying?

Ego just wants to realize its own nature

In, I believe, 2006, I attended a retreat co-led by one of my teachers at the time, Dorothy Hunt. Dorothy said something that I wanted to have been the one to have said. What did it matter who said it, as long as the wisdom was imparted? Nonetheless, I wanted to be the one who got credit – because I'd been thinking it as well but no one called on me.

After the retreat was over, we were all enjoying lunch, and I was telling someone sitting across from me about how I wanted to get credit for being wise and enlightened – how my ego craved that. Dorothy, to my surprise, responded from the other end of the long table, “You did say it.” I looked over at her, puzzled. “You did say it,” she repeated.

And suddenly, I was bowled over with the truth of what she said. It took a year or so before I understood in words what I had realized in my body: I am everything, so of course I am also what comes out of Dorothy's mouth.

I was recently re-telling this story to someone who hadn't heard it, and this caused me to consider it from another vantage point. For one thing, it was a miracle that Dorothy was so attuned to me that she knew exactly what was the right thing to say to me at that moment. But I also see now that her statement undercut my assumptions about ego. I've always thought ego – the wanting to make the personal self bigger and more important – was to be admonished and kept under control, if not eliminated. But now I see that ego is a pointer: we really are bigger than our apparent separate selves make us think we are. The ego is striving to realize that largeness. So Dorothy, rather than cut down the poor ego that was only trying to help, said, essentially, “Dear ego, you don't have to try so hard because what you want to make happen already is true. The apparent separate self is already as big as it can possibly get. It is infinite.”

Is It Ego to Acknowledge One's Awakeness?

Recently, a friend told me that she wondered if she only wanted to go to see a certain teacher because that teacher recognized that she was awake. Was it only her ego that wanted that acknowledgement, she wondered.

I said that since ego doesn't exist, how could that be? Maybe it was just that that which is awake in her wanted t be seen, I suggested.

As I ponder this answer, I don't think it was complete enough.

I always go back to Adyashanti's saying to me, years ago, “Only ego wants to get rid of ego.” This turns the whole question on its head.

I define ego as the thought of separate-hood. We come to think we are separate – perhaps mainly because we see “me” over here and everything/one else “over there.” (This explanation doesn't completely satisfy me, however, because after awakening it doesn't quite look like this anymore. So it seems that this way of seeing is also just conditioned by thought.) Anyway, whatever the reason, there is a “me-thought” and that me-thought is threatened when it realizes it isn't absolutely solid – that it is just one aspect of the emptiness that is everything. So it starts to tell stories that the awakened person, now seeing things from a different perspective, will buy. One of those stories is, “It's egotistic to let on how awake you actually are.” You have to hide your Light under a bush, in other words. So the awakeness gets to peek out once in a while when it is summoned, but it doesn't get to show itself on its own.

The me-thought can't just deny the awake-ness entirely because that won't be believed anymore, so it makes up the story of how owning the awake-ness smacks of ego. Very clever of it.

"Only ego wants to get rid of ego." -- Adyashanti

I can't begin to describe how frightening I'm finding this book I'm reading -- Enlightenment Blues (see previous post).
As I said before, I don't have any personal experience with Andrew Cohen. I'm taking as true what is in this book, and I'm sure some out there will see it differently. But it doesn't really matter because I am not so interested in Andrew Cohen as in what caused so many to follow him for years, putting aside their own doubts while the demands on them became more and more absurd. There will always be megalomaniacs, and some of them will be gurus. The more important question is not what to do about them, but why so many follow them.

Author Van der Braak, with his penetrating analysis of his own process, puts his finger on so much of what happens psychologically when one joins the kind of spiritual community that demands absolute obedience and also, especially, on why it is so hard to separate from such a community. Anyone who reads this regularly knows that I have a special interest in cults because I lived in a cultish spiritual community for a short time when I was young. I completely relate to all of the rationalizations Van der Braak told himself.

First, you have an awakening experience with a certain person. Or maybe (as was my case in my youth) you just see the divine in the other, and you want that for yourself. The guru becomes the means to access the divine, or enlightenment, or whatever label works for you. You convince yourself that the guru is the only possible access to the divine for you. Maybe the guru believes this himself, as Cohen apparently did, or maybe, as in my case, the guru doesn't. But the follower believes it -- that's what matters. Once one believes that, it becomes almost impossible to leave. You imagine yourself damned forever if you do, and there will be plenty of people in the community who will try be only too anxious to convince you of that outcome. You probably have no friends who are not part of the community, so there is no alternative viewpoint to hear.

This book is scary because the amount of psychological abuse (and one example of physical abuse is also cited) is so profound, and yet everyone in the community buys into the argument that the reason Cohen derides them, punishes them repeatedly by banishing them to invisibility in his sangha, etc., is so that they will stop coddling their ego. Everyone in the community believes this. If only I were better: I just have to try harder and then I will live up to the standards of the Master.  The amazing thing is that not one person noticed the contradiction in Cohen's teaching: if everything is impersonal, if "I" don't really exist, then who is it that is having to try harder to banish the ego?

As Adyashanti once said to me, "Only ego wants to get rid of ego." 

Ego and Kensho

Last night I was reading an interview with an author who had lived in several Zen temples in Japan. At the first temple, the Zen Master told this American student that he had experienced kensho, or a glimpse of enlightenment. This author did not believe the Zen master was correct. He felt nothing different, he reported. He left that temple and went to a temple of a different branch of Zen, where the priest told him that kensho was just sort of a game, confirming in this student's mind that he had, in fact, not experienced anything significant.

Well, there is that aspect of that type of Zen (Rinzai) that does seem like a game: all of the students vying to see who will get enlightened first as they go from koan to koan. And the fact that this author did not believe his teacher probably means that it was just as well he went somewhere else. But – this is why we have teachers – to tell us what we may not ourselves realize, to reflect back the deeper truth that our egos cover over. My guess – and not having been there, it is only a guess, of course – is that in fact this author did experience kensho but that discursive thought quickly came back in and said he'd experienced nothing at all. And, of course, this is true, too – and is exactly why ego misses it. When we experience nothingness, how can we tell about it? We were, after all, absent that moment.

It's quite a paradox that the ego so wants, on the one hand, to take credit for an insight it has nothing whatsoever to do with, and on the other, to pretend that it never happened. Often, after an initial awakening, both of these delusions alternate with each other. I know that for me, when my first teacher told me, upon my initial awakening, that I had “entered nirvana,” I hadn't a clue what he was talking about. It is only in retrospect that I see that he had the larger picture.