One of the more interesting problems in Zen is what to do with that pesky ego.
Okay, it’s kind of the perennial problem of the human condition.
What to do about our egos? And all the ill that follows our egos…
Over the millennia much of Zen training, following classical Vinaya monasticism, has been simply to step on it.
One Zen line, a classic, is: “Just put it down.” Not exactly the same as stepping on or crushing, although in practice not a lot different.
The problem with this is that putting down, stepping on, crushing, pushing down, often assumes the ego to be somehow false, an unnecessary burden to be abandoned, or cut out of an otherwise healthy being…
When the fact is we need our egos. The ego is the central organizing mechanism that keeps the ship afloat and going in a direction. The only thing false about the ego is its delusions of grandeur. We tend to see ourselves or sense of self as special, endowed with amazing powers, such as separate from and therefore able to disentangle from the fleshy morass and to fly off to some better place. The problem is this is bogus. But we don’t want to hear that. In fact we defend against any assertion the ego isn’t the center of things. And in that defense we’ll do all sorts of damage to ourselves as a part of the world, and to our friends and families, and to the world itself.
It has been my observation that those who are concerned with all the ills that follow the projection of human personality onto the universe and calling it God, busying themselves challenging that big human in the sky deity, would be better helping the world by putting some of that energy into challenging the delusion of a permanent, abiding self, and the many, many ills, small and great, which follow that little exercise in inflation…
But, my real concern is actually for those who have already noted there’s a problem in ego, our sense of self, of identity, and looking to what to do about it.
One of the more interesting things related to classical Buddhist psychology as well as contemporary and more scientific attempts at examining the mind is how we are able in some very real way to “look” at ourselves.
We can see through ourselves.
It is some kind of miracle.
And, that, kids, is where the secret can be found.
The problem with the ego is that it thinks it is something permanent and special when it is simply contingent. Ego, the thing we call me, arises out of some specific circumstances, and when those circumstances change (classically through illness, old age, and death), well, the ego is going to go away…
The real project of Zen is not to crush the ego, but to see through it. Let it do its functions, but not to cling to that sense of self, and the devastating defenses that accompany this delusion…
And, this reflection is about how we accomplish this.
The classical monastic training practices of always being wrong can be useful. That is when ego pops up, knock it down. Much of the monastic enterprise, at least in Zen, is often about this.
And often it is taking a chain saw to a problem that could better be served with a scalpel.
My preferred method for seeing through has been Hakuin’s reformation of koan introspection practice as it has been further refined in the early twentieth century and on through what is now called the Harada-Yasutani curriculum. Nothing like a koan to help us see through…
(And not a complete practice! But, that’s for another reflection…)
And I’m nearly as entranced with the form of Zen inquiry championed by Joko Beck and further refined by her dharma heirs. It is a modern variation on the Zen way, very Western, and it looks to be very good (if not a complete practice, either. But that’s for another reflection…)
Here’s a partial bibliography of books that have been written from the perspective of Zen inquiry:
Joko’s books are Everyday Zen and Nothing Special.
Her heirs who have published books include:
Ezra Bayda Being Zen and At Home in Muddy Waters
Elizabeth Hamilton Untrain Your Parrot
Diane Rizzetto Waking Up to What You Do
And my current favorite
Barry Magid Ordinary Mind and Ending the Pursuit of Happiness
They’re doing some amazing work.
Here the ego is still dealt with roughly. It is given no quarter.
But rather than pretending it can be cut off or squashed without serious consequence, its temporality, its contingency is noted, and when appropriate, which it usually, is challenged.
This has a quality of acknowledging the usefulness of ego in its place. At least as I understand the project.
And shows a way through…
Again, not the universal solvent. The Ordinary Mind school has had some rough patches. Zen in the west is very much a work in process…
And ego doesn’t go away. Well, until one dies…
This discipline is a very, very good thing, one of the most exciting things to arise out of Zen coming West and the necessary dialog with what it has encountered that has followed.
Through this process, both that dialog, and the disciplines that are arising out of it, particularly that gift of the Ordinary Mind school, we have opportunities to grow larger, to see wider, to be better.
And, friends, worth checking out.
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