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Just say no to ego?
I'm having a bit of trouble.
Honestly, I feel a little embarrassed making all these threads. I know you're all nice people, but I can't help feeling that I might piss you off talking about things that come off sounding pretentious. I really don't know anywhere else that I can ask for help, so thanks for putting up with me pretentious or not.
I'm able to put my ego aside for about as along as I want. When I've really let go, I realize that I should always leave it aside, that everything is/will be just fine whether I participate in ego or not. It's the most peaceful thing ever, but slowly, fear starts bubbling up and I start reaching and grabbing onto the reality that I've always known, suddenly there's someone there (me) who doesn't want to leave this world, and I come back. After being back for a while, I realize that it's silly to choose to believe that I am my thoughts, and that life's better when i'm watching, not participating. So I let go again, come back again, etc...
I feel like I'm being lured back by sweet promises, and my ego plays dirty: "Yes!, You've done it, you've killed your ego! You're enlightened, just come back to me and you can be a buddha, you can be a god. All you have to do is create someone to feel all these wonderful things!" Then I realize that by hearing this, I've created someone to hear it, so I've already fallen back.
I keep going back and forth, but I just can't seem to fully understand. I see this existence, and I see the peace/rest that's beyond it. but I just can't look away It's like a moth and a flame. I'm only seeing part of the picture.
The worst part is that I realize that only the ego wants to awaken.
Honestly, I feel a little embarrassed making all these threads. I know you're all nice people, but I can't help feeling that I might piss you off talking about things that come off sounding pretentious. I really don't know anywhere else that I can ask for help, so thanks for putting up with me pretentious or not.
I'm able to put my ego aside for about as along as I want. When I've really let go, I realize that I should always leave it aside, that everything is/will be just fine whether I participate in ego or not. It's the most peaceful thing ever, but slowly, fear starts bubbling up and I start reaching and grabbing onto the reality that I've always known, suddenly there's someone there (me) who doesn't want to leave this world, and I come back. After being back for a while, I realize that it's silly to choose to believe that I am my thoughts, and that life's better when i'm watching, not participating. So I let go again, come back again, etc...
I feel like I'm being lured back by sweet promises, and my ego plays dirty: "Yes!, You've done it, you've killed your ego! You're enlightened, just come back to me and you can be a buddha, you can be a god. All you have to do is create someone to feel all these wonderful things!" Then I realize that by hearing this, I've created someone to hear it, so I've already fallen back.
I keep going back and forth, but I just can't seem to fully understand. I see this existence, and I see the peace/rest that's beyond it. but I just can't look away It's like a moth and a flame. I'm only seeing part of the picture.
The worst part is that I realize that only the ego wants to awaken.
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Comments
The actual realization of this state of selflessness will go beyond the fear you feel and you will understand that there really is nothing to fear after all.
To attain the state of stream-entry you should study the Buddhist teachings and follow the Noble Eightfold Path. Meditate upon the concepts of Impermanence, Selflessness, Dependent Arising, Kamma and Dukkha.
The intention of my post is not to make you more driven.
But ego is like a sick person that goes to hospital wishing to be well.
Thus it is natural 'ego' wants to awaken.
Apart from that, realising anatta takes some work.
It was not meant to be easy.
I could say more but do not have the time now.
Our heart has the function to pump blood. Stomach has the function to digest food. Eye has the function to see. Leg has the function to walk. Mind has the function to think. Consciousness has the function to be aware.
Apart from it being linked to suffering & delusion, ego has a positive natural function also.
Who are you? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdgputyRCNI
Don't know.
You don't have anywhere to go. Anything to achieve. These are just concepts running through your mind. Concepts used as signs to direct the body to experience this world -- (Go to work, drive, learn math at school).. Like Dhamma said, this 'ego' has a "positive" natural function.. It just picks up words and adapts them to help the body live. Why? Don't know. Everything don't know. Things may be like this, things may be like that. But once one realizes that complete 'don't-know' mind, he or she is free .. bathed in emptiness.. blah blah lol..
Exactly!
I just want to see that the thoughts are not mine and be done with them. I see that they're not mine, but then I go right back.
I have an insatiable fascination with my thoughts.
Wow. I'm very impressed! From what I've read and understood (at least I think I have), that statement comes from the ego.
Hey, leggo my ego!
Mtns
I don't really know. No one can put that in words, because finding out who I am means there has to be someone who is 'finding something out'. If finding out who I am, than I'm not the original "me", am I? It's like trying to look at your own eyeball.
I'm constantly changing, I'm not the same person as I was when I first made this thread. I guess that leaves the experience itself, the participation in the belief that I am something.
I look inside myself, and I see thoughts, coming and going, like birds in the sky. One moment there, gone the next. So I guess I'm the sky?
I want to look at the sky, not the birds. I want the container to be the point of interest, but I keep having to remind myself.
Mountains: Hahahha, it totally does!
My teacher she seems to be saying the same thing you intuited. That we are the space. Our feelings and perceptions are coming and going out of space and then back into it.
Sometimes I look out a window at the sky and I imagine going into that space as if it were me. There is a warm feeling I think a wonder. At the same time some disbelief.
Thats what my teacher says a realization of emptiness is (along those lines). Aligning with that space rather than what arises in it. She says that realization of emptiness is not an intellectual idea that we align with but a direct experience. I think your questions show that you are becoming open enough to question things which is quite wonderful.
It just hit me that the sky/space/whatever, it just as ever-changing as the birds/thoughts/whatever occurring in it.
So if I am constantly changing, then there's no permanent thinker, or there is only as long as that thought lasts. If my environment is in a similar state of flux, then there's no permanent space/sky for things to occur in.
But if there is no subject and there is no object, what does that leave us?
Or, subject and object exist only in the moment in which they are defined, but then who is defining it?
You can't have music without silence. I dont understand
What happened to the witness that messaged me a few months ago. Was that a trick of the ego? Or the intuitive alignment with observing spaciousness. This space is sanity. There is no way to get a definite answer for any question, let alone try to define the environment we inhabit by using words which have no definite definitions. Align with the spaciousness, directly. I know you have felt it. You just need a reminder man.
Ego will take its natural function as long as delusion is there. Delusion cannot be shattered by mere reasoning. It has to be "experienced" in meditation. So the best thing you can do is, practice non-clinging as much as possible in day to day life and meditate as much as possible. The day to day life preparation is only a prepatory stage for the meditation.
Ditto :thumbsup:
And that direct experience comes with a samadhi empowered mindfulness when all your five sensory indulgences are abandoned aka during deep meditation :om:
Just take in the whole and let it be. Don't cut off the world.
“The wise do not take
anything in the world as belonging to them, nor do they take
anything in the world as not belonging to them either.” (sn 858)
Pegembara, thank you for your post. I love the quote
Through that process we begin to let go of some of pre-conceived ideas. We don't need to figure out how reality is! We just need to let go of pre-conceived ideas. They will be replaced by new inventions but we will no longer grasp to our inventions in the future. Since mind is so shifty and has no reference point. Our words which describe or point to mind must also be written in sand (or water). And no longer grasp to them just let them go and dissolve. Thats what I meant by 'lightly'.
There are basicly two mandalas. Ego mandala and the mandala of clarity openness and sensitivity. There are guardians and messengers of both mandalas. You just choose which to give your allegiance to. You don't need to figure out openness (clarity and sensitivity). In fact since they are unconditional they cannot be pinned down conceptually. They can just be pointed to. You might be interested in my teacher; she teaches long distance. I ask not to be 'proselytize' but just because I think you are thinking along the same lines as her teachings and I think you would enjoy her teachings. PM me if you wish to enquire further.
Well said. Almost every posted question I've made on here, has been due to the insufferable drive of the ego (conceptual) driven mindset. For me it was due to inquiring, that now I was able to feel this spaciousness within and without conditioned thoughts.. Two mandalas.. Then when you give your "allegiance" to the other mandala.. both crash.. and one is at peace. Doesn't mean that feelings won't come, doesn't mean thoughts won't come. You just realize yourself as the awareness, and let it all come up. But enough describing what cannot be described. I wish you well on your journey, you have a curious mindset my friend. The thing is once you've awakened, it's just the foot in the door.. stabilizing within this space comes with time.