From: "Shengnan Liu" 

Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:25:09 +1000

To: Nina

Subject: Ego talks

Dear Nina,

 Got your message, thank you for the lovely thought about my words, gladly being helpful. I am giving my ego a diet at the moment, before my practice let me reach certain stability in my mind, I doubt will be really useful to more people. If I want to write some ‘wise’ words and believe they are useful, that only feed my ego.

 Speaking being helpful, we don’t need ego to help others, without ego, one can see situation clearly and know directly what is needed and then take right action towards it.  (There is no “self” in it)In Western Psychology concept, some of them split ego into “bad ego” which make people feel anxiety, fear and angry, and “healthy/good ego” which make people motivated and happy, it is still very typical duality habitual thinking. Ego is ego, no good or bad, it is artificial, it connects to our biological system, it is for body surviving.

Many cased proved ego can be killed, most through meditation, few through accident or mysterious experiences. And when your ego die, the new world will unfold in front of you, no fear or disappointment, everything is shining through the new lights and nothing is dull, might take decades of meditation to get there though :-)

 My Practice is my self discovery journey, a long and interesting journey. Thanks for walking along with me in life.

 With Love, Shengnan

Hi, Dear,

we all love our ego, because it keep the false self identity alive, because we think from this egoistic mind most of the time. because it makes us feel good, feel important, feel better than someone else...we believe we are the person in our imagination such as: I am a inpatient person, I am a loving person, I am sensitive or I m beautiful....doesn't matter if you do or do not agree with me, because even you do, that is still on conceptual level, doesn't change how we encounter the external world.

Just try to imagine when you are in an emergency situation, your action is so direct and quick, was there a 'self' thinking in it or it is more spontaneously reaction. People do amazing things in emergency situation, because our brain automatically shut down the egoic chatting and direct co-operate the situation, just like juice and water blended in. That is one of many small examples how much potential and better off we can have without Ego.

Botox can slow down the beauty fading, that is why so many woman love it, and it does make them feel good for the short time, that is like "good ego" does to us, the pain has always lying underneath. Giving another example, a friend I know is doing volunteering teaching program in Sichuan at the moment, if people don’t appreciate her effort, what will she feel? If she trys her best but cannot see any result, what will she feel? If other people misuse the opportunity for personal interest, what will she feel? the egoic or non-egoic motivation will result totally different feeling arising in her. If she is there to do what is needed with her compassion, then it doesn’t matter if her effort is recognized or not. She will be happy eitherway. Not sure how Good ego can fill in this case because Ego always want to see the result and feel the importance, a good cause is just its disguise.

One of my spiritual friends used to say: masters are on an impossible mission here because they have to explain enlightment by words, but words are secondary not primary, created from duality thinking. (That is also why we see different teachers by symbols, by sound etc, they do find skillful ways to get around our ego to show us the truth.) Just like try to use the mud to demo the crystal, but interesting thing is Mud can be converted into crystal with right temp and pressure, what does that say? I think that means by using skillful means, it is possible to reach undual mind and see true self, which is always perfect. Before we get over conceptual level of understanding, words is till useful tool, "compassion", "kindness" are the words with concept, but they are more like signpost, to show us the direction, they are practical and we can experience it without pain. If people can be on ego motivation without pain, then good luck with it, personally don’t see how.

It is interesting debate what I believe with you, at end of the day, doesn’t matter if we can get onto same page, the thinking process can deeper understanding on both side in its own way, it is also painful to look at self closely because we are so used to project our problems externally, but all these effort is worthwhile, in Buddhist teaching, the moment you start to live consciously with very pure perception, your fate changes ever since, how rewarding!

Take care
with Love, Shengnan