Ego Tripping

The journey of self-discovery

The difference between who you think you are and your ego is not much at all. Ego in the Buddhist sense of the word is a false idea of self. The reason it is a false idea and not an accurate idea, is that there is no such thing as a self. We have all kinds of ideas about things that aren’t real. Wonder Woman and Superman are not real, but there are lots of ideas about them floating around in movies and comic books. The idea that the self is fictional was the Buddha’s big insight. However, we all still have strong senses of self, so that sense of self is called ego. Believing that the ego is real, like believing that Wonder Woman and Superman are real is called ignorance. However, a Buddhist who believes in superheroes, but not in a separate self, would not be considered ignorant.

That particular form of ignorance is special to Buddhists because it is the source of suffering. It doesn’t hurt us to believe in people made of steel, or invisible jets, but to believe that we are something separate from the rest of everything, causes us a lot of heartache. Ignorance, greed and anger, are considered the three poisons, the major causes of suffering, but of the three poisons, ignorance is the main one.

What do we do with the idea that our idea about who we are is wrong and causing us to suffer? We do what we do with any idea that seems farfetched, we either reject it outright, or consider it. Most people reject this idea outright. We have way too much invested in the ideas of ourselves to just get rid of them. Our lives, careers, families, friends, are all based on us being who we are. Yet all these people and things who make us who we are, are a big part of who we are. They are not something apart from us, they are a part of us. That is how it starts to get tricky pinpointing exactly what we are.

Fortunately and unfortunately, we all have egos to stand in for who we think we are. It is fortunate, because egos help us get along in a world full of people with egos. The game of pretending to be separate from each other makes for a lot of fascinating drama. It is unfortunate, because so much of that drama is actual suffering. That’s the catch of ego, the drama is all fabricated in our heads, but the suffering is absolutely real. It doesn't seem fair.

The part that does seem fair is that we can examine and alter our beliefs. For those who don’t outright reject the idea of maybe not existing separately from everything else, the other option is to consider the idea. To consider the idea, we pay attention to our suffering. Whenever we feel sad, scared, bored, angry, we stop and feel what the suffering feels like and remember that it could be connected to our sense of self. Then we consider what is this self that is suffering. This is better suited to minor suffering when you have the wherewithal to engage in it patiently. When enraged, or despondent, it is much harder to consider the ego’s role in the problem.

The other way to observe how suffering is attached to the sense of self is to notice how you feel when you think about yourself. Although some do, most people don’t suffer from high self-esteem. They suffer just the same for other reasons, but most of the suffering comes from low self-esteem. Lots of us feel insecure, and inferior, not only to fictional superheroes, but to all kinds of other people in our lives. When we think a whole lot about ourselves, we end up suffering a whole lot.

The basic cure for suffering is compassion. Considering the feeling and cause of suffering is a compassionate response to the suffering. Whenever we can engage directly with our suffering or other people’s suffering and think of things that could help, that helps. On our own personal journeys, if we learn to see the difference between our egos, and our True Selves, the interconnected essence of who we all are, then we may find our suffering diminish a lot.

The journey of self-discovery is a lifelong endeavor. Our egos are always going to play a big role in our lives, but we can limit the damage by being kind and compassionate with ourselves and each other as we go. It can be liberating to realize the self is not real, it’s just like putting down all your problems at once. Then we can pick up again were we left off.