620 Sep. 27 26 Zen approach to deal with our ego

EGO: Part 3  Zen approach to deal with our ego

A common misconception is that Zen requires you to "kill" the ego. Zen masters smile at this, because trying to kill the ego is the ultimate ego trip—it’s just the ego fighting itself. Instead, it invites you not to fight your ego but  to observe it, and  to see how it operates. How?

• Sitting Meditation (Zazen): In Zazen, you sit and watch the stream of mostly ego-driven  thoughts, and emotions  arising and passing  away. As you observe them without clinging or pushing away, you realize this: If I can watch these thoughts, I cannot be the thoughts themselves. This creates a gap between awareness and the egoic mind.
• Practice of koans: Zen uses koans and intense questioning to push the logical, ego-driven mind to its absolute limit.When the ego realizes it cannot conceptualize or solve the paradox, it experiences a moment of great doubt, then exhaustion and breakthrough (Kensho or Satori), temporarily shattering the illusion of the separate self. 

 When the ego steps out, the result is the following:

 The Shift from "Self-ing" to "Just Being"

When the perception of the ego dissolves—even momentarily—the result is not nihilism or a loss of identity, but a profound sense of freedom, equanimity, and serenity.

When the ego steps out of the way, action happens naturally effortlessly ( Mushin ). Without an anxious "I, me,myself, mine" standing in the center monitoring every move, every thought, living becomes fluid, responsive, and fully absorbed in the present moment—whether you are washing dishes, walking, working or sitting quietly.

The Zen Mirror Metaphor:

Another example of this classic Zen metaphor:

Think of your true nature as a mirror, and the ego  as the reflections passing through it. The mistake we make is identifying ourselves with the reflections rather than the mirror.

The Ultimate Realization

When the conceptual grip of the ego loosens, you experience Kensho or Satori (awakening).          This is not  a magical  trance; it is simply waking up to reality as it is, stripped of your ego-driven mental commentary.You realize you are not a separate entity but an interconnected one with everything around you. You  look at the universe; you are an expression of the universe looking at itself. As the Zen philosopher Alan Watts famously put it, "You are something that the whole universe is doing, in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing."