Defanging the Ego

The ego of pure 'I amness' experiences existence and knows that it is having that experience. It knows that it lives and functions in the body, yet is free from the need to become anything, to prove itself, to take on territory. As we access that state, it's actually possible to sense the deeper presence that breathes through the body and thinks through the mind. When we're in touch with the pure 'I am' ego, it's not difficult to recognize that this same 'I am' links us to all others, no matter how different they are in personality or politics and culture from ourselves.

The feeling of 'I am' is the most basic you, the you without conditions, the you that doesn't change along with your body, your emotions, and your opinions. If you stay in touch with it, you should find that it naturally stabilizes you. You begin to feel present, clear, and very much at peace.

There's a meditation process that I often practice for touching the 'I am.' You begin by sitting quietly, focusing on the breath, then beginning to think 'I am' to yourself. Focus on the feeling state of 'I am,' the experience of the words striking your consciousness. As your thoughts quiet down, ask yourself, "Who is this I?" Then wait. Answers may come up. ("It's me!" Or "Colin!" or "My ego.") Let the answers go. You're not looking for an answer; you're looking for a feeling state, for an awareness of yourself as a wordless spaciousness, which you are without words, as the Zen teachers say. If your mind starts to provide answers, objections, distractions, come back to the 'I am' process, and to the question.

Cindy, my student with the deflated ego problem, began doing this practice in the summer. As she got more practiced at it, she found that she could touch into the 'I am'space at different times during the day. Recently, her firm took a major beating when some of the executives were accused of insider trading. Cindy says that for the first time in her life, she wasn't fazed by the atmosphere of high-adrenaline panic that ran through the office. Instead, she found herself acting with a calm and clarity that her sharky rivals couldn't muster at all. "There are days when my trades are magic," she says. "I'm in a zone of total clarity. I can't claim that it's an ego-less state; it's more that I've found the off-button for my fear of doing the wrong thing. As 'I'm Cindy,' I can get perfectionist and over-cautious. As 'I am' I feel something bigger that acts through me."

When ego loosens its hold—even a little—the sense of freedom is exponential.