Buddhism - Eliminating the ego.

It's all just the same old spiritual nonsense in a different wrapper. That there is "something" "bigger" than "you" and your life should be devoted to "obtaining" it. Whether that's dissolution of the ego in Buddhism or getting a place in heaven with Jesus, Mary & Joseph.

I'm not going to say people shouldn't do it - if it works for you, knock yourself out. But it's still a load of nonsense.

According to Robert Pirzig, when the practitioner achieves complete enlightenment, to wit "one-ness" with the Void a.k.a. Tao, he/she is at that point a catatonic schizophrenic. Put another way, to be outside the mythos is to become insane.

Lest we be rendered completely insensate by this revelation, let us now relax by reciting the ancient Gayatri Mantra in the original Sanskrit:

Om,
Bhur bhuvah svaha
Tat savitur varenyam
Bhargo devasya dhimahi
Dhiyo yo nah prachodayat.

I tend to agree that "mindfulness" in and of itself is probably about the most honest of the new-age woo stuff, in that it doesn't really make any specific claims to draw on mystical energies or to be a path to ultimate enlightenment or anything.

It's one of those things like going for a run or lying back on a sun lounger with cucumbers on your eyes that some people find is a good way to get some stress relief in their life. About the only claims that "mindfulness" tends to make is that you'll be more relaxed and less stressed.

Which isn't exactly a hangable offence, especially if it does work for some people.

Of course, there is also an industry for it, with people claiming to be "gurus" and using this to hand out certificates and run masterclasses so as to extract money from people who want "mindfulness" to be about more than just closing your eyes and zoning out for half an hour. But of itself I think it's pretty inoffensive and pretty far from magic crystals or astrology.

It is sort of frustrating take part in discussions like this on boards because most of the disagreements boil down to differing definitions over words like ego and misunderstanding and misrepresentations of what mindfulness is and isn't.

take everything wrote: »

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Let me put it another way for you. With the uptake in mindfulness has there been an increase in shizophrenia? Of course not. The health practitioner knew well what the OP meant they were just trying to be "clever clever".

seamus wrote: »

It's all just the same old spiritual nonsense in a different wrapper. That there is "something" "bigger" than "you" and your life should be devoted to "obtaining" it. Whether that's dissolution of the ego in Buddhism or getting a place in heaven with Jesus, Mary & Joseph.

I'm not going to say people shouldn't do it - if it works for you, knock
yourself out. But it's still a load of nonsense.

Something that works for you is hardly "a load of nonsense". If jogging or lifting weights or playing your guitar helps you out is it "a load of nonsense". Mindfulness would be better described the opposite of how you have in that some practitioners would argue there is nothing bigger than you.

Permabear wrote: »

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Many of them had fragile egos too. Spike Milligan always maintained that he was creative in spite of his bipolar disorder not because of it. Yet you can be sure that biographer after biographer will line up to tell us the opposite because it's a very easy story to pitch. People are always at pains to tell us there is a connection between mental illness, hardship, ego, drugs and creativity but what about all the people who experience those things and aren't creative?

The truth is you can "eliminate" the ego and still be creative and driven. These different characteristics are more independent than people make out.

Moreover, most of us are not leaders in our given fields. Perhaps ego helped them (I have no doubt it may have helped some) but is it helping us? If people are worried that the world will come to a standstill were everyone to successfully practising mindfulness I think that goes back to the root of people completely misunderstanding what it is. If anything the opposite will happen.

Wibbs wrote: »

Plus who the hell isn't aware of how they're feeling emotionally at any one time?

I would say almost everyone is but enough people aren't aware of why they're feeling the way they are. This is usually due to a lack of clarity in their thinking or to denial (they fundamentally know why they feel that way but it's painful to admit). Mindfulness can help with that.

seamus wrote: »

About the only claims that "mindfulness" tends to make is that you'll be more relaxed and less stressed.

Well precisely. It is like people get what mindfulness is and then criticise it for being something else.

Of course, there is also an industry for it, with people claiming to be "gurus" and using this to hand out certificates and run masterclasses so as to extract money from people who want "mindfulness" to be about more than just closing your eyes and zoning out for half an hour. But of itself I think it's pretty inoffensive and pretty far from magic crystals or astrology.

In a capitalist world there's an industry for everything. If I want to attend a drumming workship with the drummer from the RHCP I'll probably pay a premium. He may not be the best teacher or the best drummer in the world but if I enjoy the experience what of it? You would swear mindfulness was bankrupting the nation or something.

Wibbs wrote: »

Eh yeah, yeah you are. Emotions are "thoughts' as well. "You" are the swirling collection of thoughts conscious or not rising up to the surface(and "surface" itself is a fudge).The "you" looking at your "thoughts" is still thinking Ted. I really don't buy this id/ego/superego labelling guff at all and IMHO the popularity of these all too pat makey uppy definitions has stagnated further progress. That it became mainstream by various quacks selling their various brands of snake oil especially in the online world has done no favours at all. At best it works by placebo(which is fine), at worst it makes obsessive bores of all too many acolytes.

No, you are not your thoughts and no emotions aren't thoughts either. If you are your thoughts then that is essentially a meaningless statement because in the space of any given day you will likely have completely contradictory thoughts. You can't be two opposite things; that's impossible. Or if you are one thing one moment and another the next then labelling that "you" has no helpful meaning.

Emotions can be influenced by thoughts but aren't the same thing. Pretty sure that's the basis for CBT.

I agree with you about id, ego, superego labelling. Ironically again this is quite close to what mindfulness talks about. When they use words like ego or identity that often say not to regards these as things in themselves (in other words not to get pedantic about them) but rather that they are using these words as pointers to phenomena that are difficult to describe.

Candie wrote: »

There's a lot of bullsh!t surrounding meditation. If we don't define ourselves by our thoughts and opinions then we're not defining ourselves at all, and meaningless semantics that try to ascribe spiritual or sublime significance to a slightly altered neurological state are lost on me.

Mindfulness doesn't do that though in my experience. Quite the opposite.

Candie wrote: »

I knew I'd acquired the 'knack' properly when I felt like I'd slept for two hours after 20 minutes meditation. It cleans out your head for a while, gives you a bit of space.

It doesn't bring you face to face with god.

Again, this is 90% of what mindfulness practitioners talk about. It seems to me people in this thread are criticising some other forms of meditation or else some fringe practitioners and claims of mindfulness. Or else they are complaining about semantics and then engaging in semantic debates themselves.

Candie wrote: »

Fair enough, though I'm only talking about traditional meditation.

I wasn't talking about mindfulness since I don't know anything about it.

Also fair enough. A lot of traditional meditation is about bringing the mind to a place of stillness, I would have thought, and mindfulness is based on that.

It's a bit like saying if you exercise you'll lose weight, but obviously that doesn't keep you at the same weight forever. So I feel peoplewho are saying you meditate to "eliminate the ego" are saying the same thing; you get rid of a lot of useless, critical, "egotistical" thinking by meditating but no one, or very few people, ever actually "eliminate their ego" on a full time basis.

Dali should bring in a rule where western convert Buddhists wouldn't be allowed teach, or even speak of, Buddhism until they are reincarnated in the next life.