Psychodelirium
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2010
- Messages
- 148
I just stumbled onto this old post a couple of days ago and thought it would be relevant to this discussion:
http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?p=1224882
"It is not ego, in the Freudian sense, that is the actual target of the Buddhist insight. It is, rather, the self-concept, the representational component of the ego, the actual internal experience of one's self that is targeted."
This is basically the crux of the issue. A lot of people have the misconception that the ego is some set of behaviors or some part of themselves that they view negatively and want to "transcend". That is, if anything, the Jungian shadow.
The point of ego death is not to overcome or to get rid of some aspect of yourself but to see that your idea of yourself, the way you think of yourself and represent yourself to yourself is a mental construction.
If you get attached to your idea and start saying seriously "I am this" and "I am that" you are really putting on a kind of mental straight-jacket. Instead of expanding your self-concept as you discover more of yourself, you contract yourself in order to fit your self-concept.
It is as if the ego is your "theory" of yourself, and your thoughts, feelings, perceptions and behaviors are the "data" that the theory is meant to explain. But if you identify with the theory, you will falsify the data to hold on to it.
http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?p=1224882
"It is not ego, in the Freudian sense, that is the actual target of the Buddhist insight. It is, rather, the self-concept, the representational component of the ego, the actual internal experience of one's self that is targeted."
This is basically the crux of the issue. A lot of people have the misconception that the ego is some set of behaviors or some part of themselves that they view negatively and want to "transcend". That is, if anything, the Jungian shadow.
The point of ego death is not to overcome or to get rid of some aspect of yourself but to see that your idea of yourself, the way you think of yourself and represent yourself to yourself is a mental construction.
If you get attached to your idea and start saying seriously "I am this" and "I am that" you are really putting on a kind of mental straight-jacket. Instead of expanding your self-concept as you discover more of yourself, you contract yourself in order to fit your self-concept.
It is as if the ego is your "theory" of yourself, and your thoughts, feelings, perceptions and behaviors are the "data" that the theory is meant to explain. But if you identify with the theory, you will falsify the data to hold on to it.