Ego, Human, Moment of Connection

We humans are an interesting lot, there is a raw and knowing inside that is guided, ruled, and directed by that all interesting ego. We repel feelings of connection as much as we repel that moment of nothing in our meditation. Fears of letting go, fears of feeling that nothing, all fueled by the ego and it’s desire to control and grasp. That which the ego hates most are the moments we should relish.

Reading Epstein’s Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart has given me some new insight, which is comforting. With desire or any other clinging aspect, this story struck a chord in me.

That would be the story of a woman who’s child had just died and she relentlessly held the child in her arms, crying to the villager’s to heal the dead child. She clung to him as she went from house to house until she encountered a person who said the Buddha was in town and to go to him for healing. She found the Buddha and asked him to heal her child. Buddha told the woman to find a handful of mustard seeds from a house that had not been touched by death and he would heal her child.

The woman clung to her child and went from house to house looking for mustard seeds from a house that death had not touched. After a long search in not being able to find such a house the woman laid her child to rest in the woods and went to the Buddha to tell him she could not find such a house. She learned the impermanence of life and that all beings experienced the same thing, clinging to say she was the only one became a non-issue.

Reminds me of what my Dharma teacher would say about desire, “Oh, I’m sure you are the only one troubled by this concept”. Or something like that. I will have to post the whole story, it’s great.

A monk named Ma-tsu sat diligently in meditation when his master came to him and asked; “Virtuous one, for what purpose are you sitting in meditation?”. Ma-tsu replied, “I wish to become a Buddha”. The Master picked up a rock and began rubbing it, the monk ask “what are you doing?”. “I am polishing this stone to make a mirror” said the Master but Ma-tsu asked, “How can you make a mirror by polishing a stone?” And the Master replied; “How can you make a Buddha by practicing meditation?”

Taking the obsessive mind and replacing it with a subtle version that must surrender, releasing into terror and fear as well as delight.

This is what I feel, this is a good thing.

One more concept struck me today as I’ve always pondered love and relationships. According to Epstein, “The major obstacle to love, I have found is a premature walling off of the personality that results in a falseness or in-authenticity that other people can feel. Love after all, requires a person to be open and vulnerable, able to tolerate and enjoy the crossing ego boundaries that occurs naturally under the spell of passion.”

Oh the ego is a crazy little bugger.

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