How to Disengage your Ego to Ease Suffering

(The goal for the system of meditation and mindfulness I recommend is to ease suffering. It is not to find one's true self, or to have a non-dual experience, or to have an experience of oneness. I am not discussing those phenomena in this post. And readers should also understand the subjects of identity-view, stream-entry, and awakening have many different definitions and are outside the scope of this post.)

The feeling of being/having a self is normal and you live with it all your life so most people don't notice it most of the time, and if they do notice it, it is usually somewhat vague.

Shinzen Young explains that all people also have no-self experiences many times a day where the feeling of self is absent but they don't realize it.

The only difference between an enlightened person and a non-enlightened person is that when the feel-image-talk self doesn’t arise during the day, the enlightened person notices that and knows that to be a clear experience of no-self. The non-enlightened person actually has that experience hundreds of times a day, when they’re briefly pulled to a physical-type touch or an external sight or sound. For just a moment there is just the world of touch-sight-sound. For just a moment there is no self inside that person but they don’t notice it! But just because they don’t notice it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.

People can learn to notice when the feeling of self is absent. Some people call it a no-self experience. I call it "the feeling of no-self" because the self doesn't really go away. (The feeling occurs when the ego is disengaged as I will explain below.) The self, is in a sense, the aggregates of clinging:

https://www.hillsidehermitage.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/70hh-The-Stream-Entry-of-Ajahn-Chah-1.pdf

That’s another thing people say: ‘There Is No Self’. That which was taken as ‘self’ is there; it’s simply these five aggregates, (which should be seen as not-self). That is what the Buddha said, but people never arrive at it because their whole practice is based on a denial: ‘There is No Self’.

I think of the aggregates as the unconscious processes that produce thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences and senses of self and senses of no-self.  That self doesn't go away. The feeling of self is, just like everything we experience, produced by the aggregates. A no-self experience occurs when the aggregates are not producing a feeling of self. (This is not a question of materialism vs spirituality.)

Disengaging the ego is similar to what Shodo Harada Roshi calls seeing without the ego filter.

And since we are all walking around seeing things through our ego filter almost all the time, to suddenly be able to see without that filter is a surprise. But it is nothing that we have ever not had.

I have had a number of different types of no-self experiences and they never made a big impression on me, I never understood why anyone would consider them awakening. I started meditating when I was 11 or 12 years old so I never really developed a mature sense of what is normal, and throughout my life I have had many different types of unusual spiritual and paranormal experiences - my amazement threshold is very high. So while I would expect most people to react to this method (below) of producing a feeling of no-self the same way I do (it's pleasant, mildly amusing, and helps keep the ego disengaged), I can't guarantee it won't turn your world view upside down and shake you up. You should proceed at our own risk.

The easiest way I know to produce a feeling of no-self (of disengaging the ego) is as follows:

1. Prepare by quieting the mind with meditation.

2. Try to bring your mind into the present moment by observing your environment, look and listen to what is going on around you.

3. As you do that, watch your mind for mental chatter. Usually, when you give your mind a task to do, it requires attention and other conscious mental activity stops. So watching your mind for mental chatter will actually stop the mental chatter. As you watch the mind, notice the absence of mental chatter. If your mind won't be quiet, try meditating on the breath, and digging through layers of any emotions that might be distracting you to reveal their root cause.

4. Awareness of the absence of mental chatter may produce a feeling that something is missing. That chatter normally creates the sense of a person, yourself, that you talk to in your mind. The absence of that aspect of mental activity may create the feeling that something is missing, an emptiness, a feeling of not having a self. It may seem like if someone said something nasty, there would be no one to get offended.

It might take some practice to experience a feeling of no-self, initially awareness of it might be faint, but when it is happening, it is quite distinct. In order to have a strong clear experience, what Shinzen Young describes as a complete experience, you need, he says, to have sufficient concentration, clarity, and equanimity. Step 1 should provide equanimity (the absence of distracting emotions). Step 2 should provide concentration (the absence of distracting thoughts). Steps 3 and 4 should provide clarity. If you lack any of those three ingredients, spend more time on the step or steps that will provide what is lacking. The three qualities support each other, equanimity helps with concentration, concentration helps with clarity, and clarity helps with equanimity.

Be aware that there are other different phenomenon that can also give you a feeling like you don't have a self, and some interpretations of realizing anatta / losing identity-view don't involve a feeling of no-self at all. So I am not making any implications about the meaning of this experience.

Why is this particular type of experience useful?

At first it may seem to be just something interesting to do with the mind, somewhat fun, better than recreational drugs because it's legal and doesn't cause vomiting the way some entheogens do. But it also keeps your mind quiet in the present moment, and a quiet mind does not produce suffering.

Most suffering is caused by the ego. When the mind is quiet and in the present moment, and you are feeling like you don't have a self, you are not thinking in ways that will produce suffering. You are not thinking a normal stream of consciousness in which most thoughts are about how things relate to you or how things affect you. Your ego is not involved, it is disengaged.

• The feeling of no-self is useful because it is a biofeedback signal telling you that you are not engaging your ego.

  When you are more accomplished at noticing the feeling of no-self, you may recognize that mindfulness itself is a no-self experience. Being in the present moment, interrupts dependent origination and prevents suffering from arising by keeping the ego disengaged. You can pay attention to either aspect, the aspect of ending suffering, or the feeling of no-self, or both. But the effect is the same.

• If you can produce the feeling of no-self, then you will probably feel pretty good since your ego won't be making you suffer during that time.

• And because it is somewhat amusing and fun, it provides positive reinforcement that will encourage you to practice mindfulness during daily life.

• And during daily life if you find something upsets you, you can use this skill to disengage your ego and that should cause the upset to fade. It feels like you are dissolving your self, but you are only disengaging your ego.

Just keeping the mind quiet, focused on a feeling of no-self, is not a complete solution to suffering. There will likely be some emotional attachments that will be so strong you can't easily disengage your ego. You will get additional relief from suffering if you learn to observe how emotions arise, and to work through layers of emotions, and to let go of them by relaxing. But feeling like you don't have a self can be part of the solution.

Other things you can do to help reinforce or produce a feeling of no-self:

• Notice "automaticity" as you go about tasks in daily life. Notice that you do things automatically without being consciously in control. For example, when you walk you don't think about how to move, you just walk. Sometimes if your mind is distracted you walk without paying any attention to it at all.

• Notice that the stream of consciousness is a sequence of cause and effect without anyone controlling it. 

• Observe the observer, the experiencer, the sufferer. Try to see how  your sense of self is just another projection into consciousness from the aggregates. Notice how the sense of self is constantly changing.

• Practice disengaging your ego. Look at your cell phone. First think, "my cell phone", then think, "the cell phone". Notice the difference? Do this a few times. Find various ways to practice this in daily life. For example, think:

  • My phone / The phone
  • My car / The car
  • My house / The house
  • My hand / The hand
  • My body / The body
  • My seeing / The seeing
  • My hearing / The hearing
  • My feeling / The feeling
  • My emotion / The Emotion
  • My fear / The fear (anger, guilt, regret, etc. etc.)
  • My thought / The thought
  • My opinion / The opinion
  • My (favorite sports) team / The team
  • My (favorite) music group / The music group
  • My Country / The Country (or name the country ie "The US")

  After practicing this for a while you will get a sense of the feeling of when your ego is disengaged and you can skip the "My" part and just do the "The" part. But try out the "My" part once in a while to refresh your experience of the contrast.

  This is especially good to do when something is upsetting you. You can use this to disengage your ego to lessen the suffering you experience. For example, if you hear a sound you don't like, think "My hearing / The hearing", or just "The sound". If you are sensitive to the feeling of no-self, it can feel like your self is dissolving, but it is only your ego disengaging. Your self, the aggregates, is still there.

More Info

More here.

And here: https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/meditation.html

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How I Would Define of Buddhist Awakening

In this article I will discuss how I think Buddhist awakening should be defined.

Buddhism is explained at its most basic level by the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path which explain the cause of suffering and the end of suffering. So in Buddhism, awakening has to be about easing suffering. Most suffering is caused by attachment to the self-image and to diminish suffering those attachments have to be diminished. The fetter model of awakening in the Pali canon says that at stream-entry (the first stage of awakening) one loses identity-view. Exactly what losing identity-view means is subject to different interpretations. In my opinion, losing identity view should be understood to mean losing attachments to the self-image to the extent that there is a substantial reduction of suffering. I don't know if it is possible to lose those attachments 100% and I don't know that it is impossible either. But in my opinion:

Awakening should be measured by the loss of attachments to the self-image that result in lessened suffering.

Some people define awakening based on experiences that happen during meditation or by some type of non-dual or spiritual experience. There is no Pope in Buddhism and different people have different opinions. I can only say in my opinion:

Experiences only cause awakening if they also cause the loss of attachment to the self-image.

Just the experience by itself, without the loss of attachment to self-image, does not constitute awakening. The experiences by themselves are not necessary or in every case sufficient to cause awakening. 

Since I would measure awakening by loss of attachment to the self-image and not by any particular experience, there is not a good way to identify a moment to call stream-entry. Actually, I would define stream entry as when you understand from examining your own mind that the self-image is just an image and not a thing. But that can happen without causing loss of attachments to the self image. So for these two reasons I would not encourage people to seek or view stream-entry as the first stage of awakening.

(The reason I use the term self-image instead of self is because all of our thoughts arise into consciousness from unconscious processes, we never see how thoughts are constructed they just pop into awareness, and any thought of self that rises from unconscious process is not the self it is the self-image, it is an image projected by unconscious processes into consciousness. We are not able to conceive of the self we only know the self image.)

I also hold the opinion that:

Enlightenment, for most people, is a gradual process independent of exceptional experiences.

Not every one has exceptional experiences and some people who have an exceptional experience don't lose attachment to self-image from it. Awakening is said to be gradual in the Pali canon. Shinzen Young says most of his students awaken gradually and I think that is true for the general population.

I also believe everyone, even non-meditators, have some level of insight into anatta and therefore some level of awakening.

• Most people understand when they get distracted by stray thoughts that they don't control their thoughts.

• Most people understand they don't control their emotions and they sometimes have impulses that are not helpful.

• Most people realize that their egotistical tendencies can cause problems (suffering) for themselves and they would be better off if they were less egocentric.

• People know that when they walk or do other tasks, they don't pay attention to every movement, our bodies operate by themselves to a large extent.

Some people understand this better than others but I think everyone has some glimmer of some part of the fact that our mental and physical life is largely controlled by unconscious processes, which in Buddhist terminology are called the Five Aggregates of Clinging. And whatever amount of enlightenment a person has, they can gradually increase it by practicing meditation and mindfulness and work through the mula kleshas and develop insight into the cause of suffering in their own mind and begin to lose their attachments to the self image. 

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Gradual Awakening Part III

This is my third article on gradual awakening. The first is here, the second here. In this article I am going to propose a theory to explain why some people have gradual awakenings.

Different people, for whatever reason, brain wiring, brain chemistry, etc, experience certain mental phenomena at different levels of intensity.

For example, some people have the empty house experience (see below) and think, "This is enlightenment, now I know what it is". And other people have the same experience but it is not very intense and they don't think it is really important, it is kind of fun, but they might never think it was awakening unless they read that web article.

And the same thing is true of cessation/fruition. Some people like Ron Crouch (see below) have an intense experience and recognize it as awakening. Other people have fruition and enjoy the afterglow but don't see anything about anatta in it. Other people don't even notice fruition, they just notice an afterglow sometimes after a particularly good meditation session. When it is not intense, people wonder why anyone would think that was awakening.

The people who don't experience these things intensely,  keep meditating and over time they as Shinzen says (below) work through the mula kleshas and lose their attachment to their self-image gradually. This process also can happen for people who had an intense awakening experience as they deepen their enlightenment. 

Here is the empty house experience:
https://theconversation.org/what-is-enlightenment-no-i-mean-really-like-what-is-it/

Imagine as clearly as you can that you enter a large house that you have never been in before. You feel strange and kind of scared, there is furniture and drapes but no people. You wander around feeling the creepiness of being alone in this big house. You go from room to room not knowing what you will find. You start to get nervous and a little fearful being alone in this big house. You wonder how long it has been empty like this. In time the sense of the bigness and emptiness of the house starts to weigh heavily o­n your nerves. Finally, when you can not stand it any longer a shocking realization occurs to you: you're not there either! o­nly the experience exists.

Here is Ron Crouch's experience of fruition:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150315043206/http://alohadharma.com/2011/06/29/cessation/

Practitioners who have experienced the moment of Nirvana struggle to put it into words, because describing it can make it seem anticlimactic even though it is truly extraordinary. What it feels like is that there is “click”, “blip”, or “pop” that occurs for an instant. When it first happens it is so quick that the meditator could even miss it. However most people do stop and ask themselves “what was that?” It can be a bit baffling because it seems like nothing happened, and that is exactly right. For an instant absolutely nothing happened. There were no shining lights or angels, no pearly gates or choruses of joy, no transcendent experiences of unity with the cosmos or the divine. It is nothing like that at all. It may not be until you really think about it that you realize what an extraordinary thing that instant of absolute nothing really is.

As you reflect on it you see that there was something truly amazing about that moment. In that instant everything disappeared, including you. It was a moment of complete non-occurrence, the absolute opposite of everything that has ever happened in your life up to this moment, because it could not really be said to have happened to you. No doubt, it is a weird realization, but there it is. Following the experience of this absolute nothing is what my teacher aptly calls a “bliss wave.” For some time following this moment of alighting upon Nirvana you feel really relaxed and fresh. These two experiences, seeing that you disappeared and that you also feel great because of it, lead to a very important discovery that will shape how you view yourself from this point forward. You begin to understand in a very deep way that there really is something to this whole idea that the cravings of a “self” are the root of suffering. When it was gone, even for an instant, life suddenly got much better.

Here is how Shinzen Young describes gradual awakening:
https://www.lionsroar.com/on-enlightenment-an-interview-with-shinzen-young/

The sudden epiphany that’s described in many books about enlightenment, that has definitely happened to some of my students. And when it happens, it’s similar to what is described in those books. I don’t keep statistics, but maybe it happens a couple times a year. When someone comes to me after that’s happened I can smell it. They walk into the room and before they’ve even finished their first sentence I know what they’re going to say. You remember, right…? Your own case.

When it happens suddenly and dramatically you’re in seventh heaven. It’s like after the first experience of love, you’ll never be the same. However, for most people who’ve studied with me it doesn’t happen that way. What does happen is that the person gradually works through the things that get in the way of enlightenment, but so gradually that they might not notice. What typically happens is that over a period of years, and indeed decades, within that person the craving, aversion, and unconsciousness—the mula kleshas (the fundamental “impurities”), get worked through. But because all this is happening gradually they’re acclimatizing as it’s occurring and they may not realize how far they’ve come. That’s why I like telling the story about the samurai.

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Nirvana - How To

On another forum someone asked for opinions on the best way to experience nirvana. This (with a few modifications) is how I replied:

...

One thing I have found that is not commonly acknowledged in Buddhist practices is that physical relaxation - muscular relaxation - is necessary to fully let go of unpleasant emotions (suffering). The mind and body are interconnected. I understand "letting go" to mean relaxing mentally and physically. The relaxing meditation technique I use is described here:
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html
When I am fully relaxed nothing bothers me. This is also how I prepare for vipassana.

I do vipassana by watching the activity of my mind (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and sense of self) in meditation and daily life and notice when dukkha arises. I try to see how the ego is involved dukkha arising. I try to be relaxed and let go of dukkha (without suppressing anything). That simple practice covers observing the three characteristics and dependent origination.

To experience nirvana I would say the key is to learn to notice dukkha/suffering/clinging/unpleasant emotions as soon as they arise, and to recognize that you should not get carried away - not become immersed in them but remain a mindful observer and try to stay relaxed or get back to a relaxed state. When you observe the mind, you see thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory, experiences and sense of self are coming into the mind from unconscious processes that you really have little influence over and are sometimes contradictory and not necessarily trying to make you happy. You learn that you are happier if you don't take them too seriously. This explains more about how I practice vipassana:
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/05/observing-mind.html

The relaxing meditation teaches you how to be relaxed. The vipassana shows you why it it right to be relaxed instead of letting your mind make you suffer, and trains you to notice the instant dukkha begins to arise so you can let go before you get carried away by thoughts, emotions, impulses etc. (observing the physical sensations in your body that accompany emotions can help you learn to notice emotions as soon as they arise). Then when things go crazy and your mind/body is trying to make you suffer, you have the habit of rejecting that tendency and relaxing instead. It can be extremely hard to relax when you mind/body is trying to make you upset, you have to have conviction from direct observation that the upset perspective is not "truth", and you have to have very high level of skill in relaxation from repeated practice so that you can do it easily and automatically in adverse situations. When we are stressed we get focused on what is causing the stress (like if the brakes on you car fail) and we forget everything else (like the emergency brake will work if the brake pedal doesn't). So you have to train for emergencies and understand what to do when they happen (don't get carried away by the mind and be relaxed).

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Copyright © 2024 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.