This is cool, but I've always felt buddhists make this too big of an issue. Yeah, the ego is just a process, like any other, but it was probably created as a result of some selection mechanism.

I'm pretty sure in a situation of conflict, it's beneficial to kick the ego in higher gear. Sure, when things calm down, relax that thing. I feel pretty strongly that's the evolutionary reason for having an ego to begin with.

The evolutionary reason is survival. When you were ostracized from your group, or attacked by others in the group, for tens of thousands of years, that meant certain death.

Now it doesn't, and our emotional evolution hasn't caught up to our society or our intellectual sophistication. You don't have to respond to conflict at all, in 99% of cases. There is no benefit to winning. If someone cuts you off in traffic, getting mad and honking causes more pain for you AND for the other person. The most beneficial thing is to not even react other than to prevent a crash.

There’s not much personal direct benefit, but if someone cuts you off, honking has the benefit of letting that person know they were being antisocial. Without feedback, it’s easy for people to start to think that selfish behavior is ok.

Done out of anger, it rarely works. When someone honks at you in anger when in traffic, you might take time to self-reflect on what you've done wrong, if you've committed any antisocial behavior, and what you might do differently in the future, but most people don't. Because of their ego, they feel the need to defend themselves from attack.

Better yet, ram into the back of them so they really get the message.

I think the point is that you will do less to reinforce positive behaviour in others, than you will to amplify your own negative response conditioning.

Though I would add that if you sent your message across in a state of absolute zen then perhaps the reaction would be beneficial all round.

I'm no expert on this, but here's an essay from an American Buddhist monk that might explain the context a little better. In short, Buddhism is meant to be practiced and the idea of "no self" isn't supposed to be an answer to a philosophical question, it's supposed to be a guideline for how to relate to your experience. (Emphasis mine)

> A case in point is the teaching on not-self. Many students interpret this as the Buddha's answer to two of the most frequently-asked questions in the history of serious thought: "Who am I?" and "Do I have a true self?" In the light of these questions, the teaching seems to be a no-self teaching, saying either an unqualified No: There is no self; or a qualified No: no separate self. But the one time the Buddha was asked point-blank if there is a self, he refused to answer, on the grounds that either a Yes or a No to the question would lead to extreme forms of wrong view that block the path to awakening. A Yes or a qualified No would lead to attachment: you'd keep clinging to a sense of self however you defined it. An unqualified No would lead to bewilderment and alienation, for you'd feel that your innermost sense of intrinsic worth had been denied.

> As for the question, "Who am I?" the Buddha included it in a list of dead-end questions that lead to "a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion, a writhing, a fetter of views. Bound by a fetter of views, [you] don't gain freedom from birth, aging, and death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, or despair." In other words, any attempt to answer either of these questions is unskillful karma, blocking the path to true freedom.

> So if the not-self teaching isn't meant to answer these questions, what question does it answer? A basic one: "What is skillful?" In fact, all of the Buddha's teachings are direct or indirect answers to this question. His great insight was that all our knowledge and ignorance, all our pleasure and pain, come from our actions, our karma, so the quest for true knowledge and true happiness comes down to a question of skill. In this case, the precise question is: "Is self-identification skillful?" And the answer is: "Only up to a point." In the areas where you need a healthy sense of self to act skillfully, it's wise to maintain that sense of self. But eventually, as skillful behavior becomes second nature and you develop more sensitivity, you see that self-identification, even of the most refined sort, is harmful and stressful. You have to let it go.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/quest...

It doesn't matter how it was created, it's still poison. Practicing Buddhists don't "make a big deal" of the ego out of some neurotic compulsion taken too far: the ego is seen clearly as an essential link in the chain of suffering and is dropped, breaking the chain.

I invite you to directly experience it for yourself; come and see.

I don't think we would have survived as a species in an "egoless" state. It's very nice while you have it, but it lacks all strength and drive that are necessary for great achievements or for putting up a good fight when necessary.

For full perspective: I've practiced various meditation techniques my whole life - Orthodox Christian, various flavor of yoga (mostly Raja and Kundalini related stuff), even some Buddhist techniques (mostly Zen). I'm fairly familiar with the Buddhist doctrine, and Christian, and the Hindu Dharma. I've had my share of experiences, including some that looked quite ego-free - and yeah, it's awesome.

I'm just saying, we shouldn't draw absolute lines here, or anywhere. The danger of narrow dogmatism is always present. And there's room for, and value in, the inner fire, the energy that builds things up and pushes things forward. That, too, is what we are.

You live in a wonderful, immense house; don't confine yourself to a couple rooms only.

Absolutely. Imho, there are a couple of different directions we can take in exploring reality via contemplation. The direction of (for lack of a better term) purification/egolessness is emphasized by Buddhist schools. An orthogonal direction might be the age-old practice of shamanism, in which engagement with wild realms of the spiritual Outback is sought, for the purposes of healing and exploration.

Sorry to keep shilling for Shinzen Young, but he is one of the few authors who has legitimacy in traditional Buddhist lineages, but seems interested in exploring and systematizing alternate traditions.

You might find his thoughts on shamanism interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33u14OjeHpE

It doesn't matter if we would have survived as a species or not. Our great achievements can be summarized as a continuum of suffering done in the name of I. Even now a billion people live in the most abject daily torment of survival while the richest of us pack our noses with a stimulant that destroys whole swaths of the natural world.

You're confusing the relative world with awakening and then making it out for wisdom. All of man's great achievements can be summarized in a few passages from "Ozymandias": gone tomorrow.

'Even if a whole mountain were made of gold, not double that would be enough to satisfy one person. Know this and live accordingly'

We should absolutely make out for wisdom what is wise and point out unskillful pursuits where we see them. Buddhist teachings aren't a postmodernist mash-up of whatever you like. It can sound rude, even condescending but it's not what you make it out to be. The suttas are there to offer wisdom, Right Understanding.

Practicing various meditation techniques your whole life sounds like you haven't made up your mind yet or haven't seen one through to the end. I know exactly how that feels and I'd trade the decade I spent sampling for depth in any one.

> It doesn't matter if we would have survived as a species or not.

That is a point of view completely detached from reality. Have a nice day.

Are you saying you do not have an ego?

"You must give up your ego!"

"Who said that?"

_I yam what I yam!_

--Popeye

I'm not an authority on this stuff, but the rationale that resonates with me is: 1) gaining awareness of & context for the ego-narrative can HUGELY reduce psychological suffering, and 2) the ego doesn't go away for the vast majority of practitioners - it is put into perspective within a larger awareness

I agree, and I find the buddhist method very useful.

But it seems that ambitious people usually have strong attachment to the ego and that what drives them.

And that's useful in a highly competitive society, where apartments are expensive, for example.

And once you out that into a larger perspective, some of that drive gets lost.

I came across a concept of “direct experience” with out going through normal meaning-making structures. Anyone have more details on this?

An emphasis on direct experience can be found throughout Buddhism, usually in the context of emphasizing its utility, while downplaying the usefulness of intellectual elaborations on Buddhist ideas. I.e., it's much better to have a single, concrete, personal experience of emptiness/non-self in meditation, than to read several volumes of Buddhist logic.

If you want to trot out the doctrinal stuff, Dharmadhātu probably what you're looking for - it's the label given to purified mind in its natural state, free of obscurations. It is the essence-quality or nature of mind,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmadhatu

For hallucinations there's been some research on the brain that found that what we see is more imagined than actually there. Our brains kind of fill in the gaps by hallucinating images.

The easiest way to point to the distinction is to ask the question: in your direct experience, who came first, you or your parents?

If you'd like a secular guide to experiencing this yourself, for my money, Sam Harris's Waking Up app is the best way to do it. It takes quite awhile to build up the mental toolset to get there, but it's very much worth it.

https://www.wakingup.com