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Clinging ego projections make me tired.
ZendoLord84
Veteran
How you guys deal with ego clinging of non-practicioners? I'm proberly still too attached in my own way but people can get me so TIRED sometimes. Their ego feels like super gravity pulling my soul down.
Compassion helps kinda, but not always. I'm still pretty young (31) but I grow more and more into sollitude by choice like some old crazy monk on a mountain-top.
I allready switched jobs several years ago into a security guard. I can work alone at night most of the time now.
I do have a girlfriend and a son. But sometimes I want to leave them and just meditate and....be (empty). This feels like THE ultimate goal in life. I
love them both very much thats not the Problem.
Western Busy ego life and ego people do not compute with Buddhism it
seems.
Give me Some insight my dear Sangha. The fate of the universe depends on it.
Compassion helps kinda, but not always. I'm still pretty young (31) but I grow more and more into sollitude by choice like some old crazy monk on a mountain-top.
I allready switched jobs several years ago into a security guard. I can work alone at night most of the time now.
I do have a girlfriend and a son. But sometimes I want to leave them and just meditate and....be (empty). This feels like THE ultimate goal in life. I
love them both very much thats not the Problem.
Western Busy ego life and ego people do not compute with Buddhism it
seems.
Give me Some insight my dear Sangha. The fate of the universe depends on it.
0
Comments
It might helpful to consider who is doing what to whom...
The world is not perfect even if you live on a mountain top, you can have some ugly goats there aswell, making much sounds, where do you go then? To the moon?
It depends what you put in the middle of what you see/hear and the object...
is it acceptens or do you "hate" the object?
use your visdom and concentration and dont listen to much to the monkey mind,
mokey mind clings to dislike and likes...so dont follow it.
These people are your masters.
Your tiredness, and your 'compassion' are YOUR projections.
See, if your 'Compassion' is underlined by "Jeesh, I am getting SO pissed off with this!" then, it's not compassion. It's 'Look, I'm trying to be nice and compassionate, see? But really, I'm reaching the end of my tether.'
Compassion has no judgement.
And you MUST be judging, or you wouldn't be growing 'tired' of it all.
I hate to say it, but you're looking at it the wrong way.
It's not Ego projection.
It's 'Suffering'.
Try beginning to understand that all these Egoic manifestations are really Suffering being articulated in a different way.....
Sounds like you need to get into some mischief or trouble - you will appreciate then - what you HAVE NOW. The word grace pops into my head just now.
Drive all blames into one.
Yes... in any case, all roads lead to 'Om'....
I try to deal with them by remembering all the times, and there are plenty, that I cling to my own ego/self/etc. I might think I'd do it better than them in that moment. But no doubt in my own moments they would do better than I.
Everything in your life leads you to every moment you have. It's easy to see the grass greener on the other side and think "I wish I would have found X or Y before I had a family...before I had student loans...,before I had debt and responsibility..." but really, you perhaps wouldn't have found X or Y at all without those other things being present in your life. There are times I wonder what my life would be like without kids, without ties to people and places and things that are mostly unbreakable. I think most people wonder, at least sometimes. But that kind of thinking is just another source of suffering. As was said above, those people are your greatest masters, and that is true.
It's easy to want to escape a full, busy, overwhelming life for what appears to be an easy life focused on yourself. But the demons in your mind will follow you anywhere, and just imagine what demons would be there if you left your family! It's best to water your own grass rather than to covet the neighbor's.
I quit working more than 5 years ago to stay home with the kids. I figured I'd go to work when they were all in school. Except now they are all in school and I want the time to work on my meditation and other things just for myself. Except now I have lots of time, and most of the time I am lonely and wishing I had adult conversation (or any conversation that wasn't the internet or me talking to the dog). When I worked, all i wanted was time for myself to do what mattered to me. Now that I have 8 hours a day of that kind of time, I just want to be around people again. We're never happy
Samsara's a bee-otch.
My Zen teacher, a monk for over 50 years, encouraged my practice and understanding by saying -- not once, but twice -- "TAKE CARE OF YOUR FAMILY!"
How can practice ever amount to anything if you can't take care of the responsibilities you already have? How could anyone in their right mind expect to escape the world and its cares by constantly running away? Turn around!!!!!
Sometimes it's best just to let them have their moment... It isn't going to last forever.
I heard a story about a westerner who went I to meditation as a hermit for 6 months in Thailand.
One day he had to go fill out his visa, he was sent to about 7 different cues and he had to redo his visa.
Well he lost it and went into a rage. At that point he realised he wasn't enlightened.
Nothing outside of you has any power to annoy you or irritate you. It's YOU who gives the power away.
Anybody can feel peaceful in tranquility and quietness. We should be able to feel the same in a crowd. That's our practice!
Keep at it!
@iamthezenmaster
Clinging ego projections simply describes the dream that Buddhist are trying to awaken from.
While yes, that is the ultimate goal, trying to do that anywhere other than where you now are in this moment, is just more daydreaming.
My last job in the hospital (I'm a nurse) ended up being a daily struggle with other people's egos
Even though I 'knew better' I couldn't DO better. It still got to me and drove me batcrap up the wall. Totally exhausting!
Now I work one on one with patients in their homes. No other nurses in sight. The relief is just as wonderful as I was afraid it would be
I still see, and know, that this exhaustion and difficulty lies within ME, and is MY problem as long as it still is a problem. Slowly but surely as my self-centeredness dissolves (molecule by molecule dammit) so does the 'difficulty' with other people's egos
It's a club I wouldn't want to join on principle. But I'm a card carrying member
"How you guys deal with ego clinging of non-practicioners? "
By example.....
What can I say?
I am a snobbish city-slicker stuck in a village full of prejudiced, xenophobic country-bumpkins.
Or that is probably the way we view each other through the lenses of our personal biases and idiosyncracies.
Since I am a firm believer in the "Nirvana in Samsara" deal, I try to remind myself that prejudice and ignorance is a two-way street.
If I am able to get over the projection of my own prejudice that I do on my neighbours, eventually their reading on me will also improve.
These are the people I'm stuck with. This is my home and my universe.
These people are my Dharma practice and my personal koan.
No use changing landscape or environment, because I'll carry my limitations and shortcomings with me wherever I go.
Buddhadharma is not wisdom that can't be taken beyond the walls of a monastery: it is everyday portable pocket knowledge that works anywhere, anytime.
If it doesn't, I am the one to blame, not Buddhadharma.
Tee hee. Great advice but rightly so, no sympathy. Cause of tired response found. Solution found. Universe saved.
LONG LIVE THE HINAYANA!
Time for some cruising . . .
@iamthezenmaster
How you guys deal with ego clinging of non-practicioners?
Don't expect the ego clinging of practitioners to be different from non-practitioners.
Fearlessly explore what there is within you that any Ego can cling to or tire out.
Accept that such a Dharma is custom designed for you to resolve
the very foundations of all your conditioned behaviors.