Ego And Non-Ego

What is Non-ego?

Non-ego is what when a practitioner totally ends his ego, then he becomes the Absolute Universe. Because of Non-ego, His compassion and love for human beings is infinite.

We still keep ego in our minds, so we can never love people infinitely; while the Buddha and Arahats have no ego, their love for beings is countless.

Thus, Non-ego is the great compassion. Non-ego is also the pinnacle of absolute wisdom. When They have Non-ego, They know everything in the whole universe, because the mind of Non-ego is the top of wisdom.

The fourth Right View is to practice the principle of Impermanence.

This Right View can be called the perfect of wisdom in a basic level. The principle of Impermanence is an argument talking about everything being changed. This changing can be slow or fast, from good to bad, or from bad to good.

For example, we sow seeds into muddy land and when the seeds are sprouted up, they become green trees. This is from bad to good. Later, the trees bear fruits, and then they get old and old until dying. Thus, this is from good to bad. Another example, a new-born is very weak, but eventually, he grows up and becomes a strong young man. This is from bad to good. This young man is older and older, then become a weak and sick old man. This is from good to bad. Life just changes around in a circle like this. The bad becomes the good which makes people happy. The good become the bad which makes people disheartened and pessimistic.

We practice the principle of Impermanence and we know well the changing of life; so, we can easily overcome a feeling of disheartenment or pessimism, and also a feeling of happiness. We only direct our minds to attaining Enlightenment. This is the principle of Impermanence in Right View.

When we are aware of the changing of life, our minds won’t be stuck in worldly matters of life. The mind without being stuck is an efficient support of practicing meditation. We are not too happy when the good comes to us. We are not too sad when the bad happens in our life. The changing is a kind of samsara going round in a circle as the samsara does. If we don’t strive to practice attaining Enlightenment every day, we will be continuously changed by the strength of the principle of Impermanence, going around the Cycle of Death and Rebirth.

However, when practicing we should pay attention to an issue that if we see everything being impermanent, then we might fall down into an unfeeling attitude. Therefore, we always remember that although life is changing and impermanent, we still love people. Everyone is worthy of our love. We have compassion with people, because we’re aware that all people are in the same boat of the samsara in this suffered world. In our seeing and understanding of Impermanence, we still have the compassion and love for human beings, the gratitude to goodness, and the disavowal of evils.

The fifth Right View is to practice meditation to get a peaceful mind.

The peaceful mind is Right View, a method, an important way for our life of practice. It means that when we practice Buddha’s teachings, we need to keep our mind serene. This is Right View that helps us never get lost.

We know well that Right Thought is a kind of movement, because we have to think. Right Action is also a movement, because we should do charity. Right Livelihood is a real movement, because it’s a job for living. Finally, all of those come to Right Concentration, because it’s the goal of our practice. Thus, if our thinking is right, our doing charity is right, our job is right, then we can go to right practice meditation-concentration. If those practices of thinking, doing charity and job are wrong, we can’t get Right Concentration. For this reason, no matter how many virtues we are practicing, our final goal of practice is to come to Right Concentration, to obtain the serene mind.

EGO

The first Right View is practice of understanding of the Law of causality.

The second Right View is to practice the Four Noble Truths that is what we have been talking .

The third Right View is to practice the principle of Non-ego. 

This is very important. We must absolutely grasp it so that we will not get lost. Usually, people have ego and will cling to their ego. Due to clinging to egos, we have greed, anger, and ignorance. We are easily angry, jealous, selfish and annoyed. 

Our minds contain so much evil thoughts. Ego is only a kind of illusion which is too strong that we wrongly believe it exists. For example, when a person holds a torch and spins it too fast, people see a ring of fire. 

Actually, it’s not a ring of fire, it’s only a torch. Like that, we have no ego, but only our series of thinkings go very fast, just in a second, we have so much thinking going around in our heads. This happening is so fast that we feel our egos exist. We suppose our egos to be different from that of others and we create distance from people. We need to practice meditation to release ourselves from the illusion of the existing ego. 

Meditation can help us be aware that we have no ego.It’s necessary that our Buddhists should know about Indian hermits who also practice meditation and get very deep concentration. After their minds get completely peaceful and brightly flared, then they call that state true ego, deity ego or sainted ego. And their practice is stop right in that state. They don’t need to practice further. 

As are sult their egoes are still in their minds. Whereas, our Buddha overcome all those egoes to become the Samyaksam Buddha, The Perfect Universal Wisdom.

When the Buddha came to practice with three heterodox masters, He got Relization very quick, since He had accumulated his merits for countless lives, and His wisdom and karma was to be the Buddha. One day, He asked His masters, “Dear Master,if one person gets Enlightenment, then he still has his ego or not? If he still keeps his ego,then he is not completely enlightened. If he has no longer ego, then how can he be assured by himself?”

His difficult question never had an answer from the three masters. So, He left. Our Buddha went to find a way to end existing ego and get Enlightenment. He had practiced an austere way for six years and got nothing to destroy existing ego. He turned back to practice meditation and went into deep concetration in 49 days and got Buddha-hood. To become the Buddha, He overcame the true ego of heterodox masters.There are three periods of practice. 

*First, vulgar ego still exists. 

*Second, we get thehigh level of practice, our minds get more peaceful, and “true” ego is risen. At that time,ego still exists. 

*Third, we are assured to be Arahant, our egoes can be destoyed entirely,then we attain absolute Non-ego.

When practicing, we need to follow the Buddha’s way that is to attain Non-ego.

The pinnacle of practice of Non-ego is Right View. This is the important aim to which our practice must be determinedly directed. No matter how much peaceful our minds get and how much our practices are assured, we always caution that our egoes still exist deep in our minds. For instance, hermits practice meditation and get deep concentration, their minds completely get peaceful, but their egoes still exist in their mind because they only keep practicing right in their peaceful minds. On the contrary, our practitioners must practice meditation until our egoes are completely defeated, and we attain Non-ego.

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