Trying Too Hard

I have recently started Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist by Stephen Batchelor. I love this man's works, and although I am only on chapter 4, his words have already inspired me.

It is an account of his time as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and so far has introduced his entry into the tradition and the struggles that he faced over the first few years.

Within these pages he introduces the reader to the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness. This doctrine promotes the idea that the self does not exist as an object that can be defined and isolated. That you can search for it, but in the end, you will not find any 'thing' that corresponds to it.

A further comment that brings this idea home is that the person is nothing but a fleeting configuration of the fugitive elements of the body and mind; that there is nothing substantial to it, nothing enduring, nothing constant.

But the wisest words were within Batchelor's admission; that this doctrine of emptiness had no impact upon his experience of being himself.

Personal experience cannot occur without the contribution of the ego. The ego has been portrayed in many different ways by various spiritual paths, often with negative connotations. The ego is the sense of 'I'. It is that which interacts with the conscious world, and its creation begins from the moment of birth. Our egos are how we define ourselves; it is a culmination of labels, personality traits, appealing ideas, concepts and memories that jumble together to form who we 'think' we are and who we want to be. The ego is our identity. It is the mask that we portray to the outside world, and it is what we use to interact with that world.

I think all too often, those of us who follow a path become trapped in the idea of extricating ourselves from our ego, as the ego is often portrayed by spiritual teachings as being a bad thing, something negative that needs to be risen above. It is described as a wily, tricksy part of ourselves. It is the part that prevents us from bettering ourselves and acquiring a true understanding of the world.

Now, it is true, that there are a lot of stupid and nasty people out there who are total slaves to their egos. Today's society which promotes very rigid and narrow ideas of what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' has resulted in a lot of 'keeping up with the Jones' type behaviour and a real deep seated fear of being viewed as 'not fitting in'. This is the negative side of the ego.

Conscious experience, which creates the ego, teaches us that by following the rules of society we get a more positive response from others, which in turn placates the ego and fuels this fear and materialistic viewpoint. I see it as a kind of positive feedback loop. Have blond hair and big tits = lots of nice attention = feel good = want blonder hair and bigger tits. Very simple I know, but, you get the idea. It can also go the other way. Have a shaven head and tattoos = everybody stares and points = feel terrible but defiant, and so rebel = get more tattoos. This loop fixes the ego. We create our identity that generates a response from others and view it as permanent, non changing, the 'core' of what we are. We therefore disable our ability to adapt and respond to our every changing environment and relationships. Out of this handicapped view of life, neurosis develops, and we get into a whole lot of trouble.

The ego is supposedly self serving. It is 'me' and 'I' focused. But, without the ego, I personally feel that we bury a significant part of what makes us alive, the ability to feel emotion. Emotions add substance, they make experiences tangible and give them meaning rather than just being a collection of sensory inputs. The contribute hugely to all facets of life, from what restaurant we choose to eat at to whether or not we get married and have children. We are nothing, without our emotions.

The ability to feel empathy is a great thing, and Buddhism decrees that genuine empathy can only be felt once the Buddhist sees how inextricably enmeshed within the fabric of the world they really are. This involves dissociation from the ego, that which is self preserving and views itself as separate from others. Only through realising that the self is 'empty', can we achieve empathy.

Now, maybe I am going down roads that I totally lack the understanding for here, but, feeling empathy involves the ability to understand another's pain and relate to it. Pain involves emotions such as anger, despair, sadness, heartache. Those times when you kick and scream and swear and the sheer unfairness of it all. 'WHY ME!' kinda stuff. These are selfish thoughts, and such thoughts come from the ego. If you remove yourself from suffering and pain, I cannot see how you in a position to genuinely empathise with another's beyond a level of intellectual understanding boosted by good people skills. You will empathise simply to prove to yourself (and ironically it will be the ego part that will be consoled by doing this) that you are capable of empathy.

We expend so much energy trying to get away from our egos that we forget the joy they can bring us. I can;t imagine ever denying myself the guilty pleasure of pinching one more chocolate from the box than I am allowed, or ignoring the phone because I've had a hard day and you know what you can wait half an hour while I have a cuppa. And what about sex! Sex is purely ego based, and I am sure that many of you will agree that a good orgasm is the cure for a whole multitude of ills. Yes, these are all primal, physical, even simple needs that great spiritual masters would most likely dismiss as 'lower, insignificant thoughts' or some such. But they give us a break. They allow us to just 'be' for a moment. Just to exist as an ordinary, run of the mill human being on occasion. And for most of us, that is what life is about - being a human being.

I fear that, whilst with the best of intentions, texts that promote spirituality alienate ourselves from the 'dirty' parts. No body is perfect, but we seem to spend a lot of energy trying to be so. We hide from our darker, more primal selves, rather than embracing these aspects of our psyche and incorporating them compassionately into our outlook on life. We therefore fail to fully realise all that we are and all that we are capable of. We also run the risk of turning ourselves into ticking time bombs. To deny the ego is, in my opinion, a form of potentially dangerous repressive behaviour. We all know what happened when priests couldn't quite live up to their vows. And how about the housewife whom everybody thought was so sweet and nice, till she went pop one day and decapitated her husband and 2.4 children.

But then, maybe I'm missing the point. If I am, then I'm quite happy to never be 'enlightened.' Yes I know that our egos cause us a lot of problems, and a lot of evil is committed in this world in the name of self preservation. But, we who call ourselves spiritual, are also simply adding another label to our egos. Its no different to company director, martyr, 'rich' or hooker. And we 'boost' our ego because we convince ourselves that we are different, maybe even better, because we are spiritual. I don't really think you can live life without involving your ego at some level, and anyone who says you can is just trying to hide from the shame that we all feel because we can't be perfect.

We have evolved over millions of years to have this wonderfully complex psyche. To deny part of it is to deny who we REALLY are. I believe true enlightenment comes with total understanding our ourselves, warts and all, and the ability to enjoy and work with all those wonderful aspects of ourselves to enrich and full-fill our lives and the lives of others.

The ego can be very dangerous, and yes it can be all consuming, but we can go too far the other way also. If we increase our understanding of ourselves, we can keep the negative aspects of our ego in check, and enjoy rather than fear what it has to offer.

NB I know this is a little confused, and does by no means cover all aspects of ego, identity, and its roles in both secular and spiritual mindsets. But, this is a blog, I'm trying to be succinct, and I didn't even manage that :-)