The Construct That Isn't You
El Constructo Que No Eres Tú
A student reflects on the most fundamental misinterpretation, the sense of a central self, and asks whether it is what other traditions call ego.
The Construct That Isn't You
A student reflects on the most fundamental misinterpretation, the sense of a central self, and asks whether it is what other traditions call ego.
When we were doing the talk, you spoke about misinterpretation. It seems to me, at least where I am now, that the most fundamental misinterpretation is the one you described: the mapping of the "me." That is the spine, the column of all the other misinterpretations, because that self is not actually there. I feel the importance of looking at that specific thing. It is so strange, because so many assumptions are made out of that one. I have seen them, and it is amazing. In another tradition, or in other circles, you could refer to that as ego.
I don't use that word, because it brings up a lot of connotation. There is a lot of theory and mental material around what ego is. I am simply describing the experience of it, so that it is known as it actually appears in experience, in reality, rather than pointing to something that could invoke more thoughts about it.
Ego as construct, not "I"
What I am talking about is to see that ego is a construct. It is not "I." It is also not "not I." The problem arises when we fall into one interpretation or the other. One can fall, for example, into "ego is not I, and only not I." Someone I know would talk a lot this way: "ego made me do this." That is another trap, another misinterpretation. If ego is not I, then ego made me do something; it wasn't I, it forced me, ego forced me to say something mean to you. A good excuse, but that is exactly what we are pointing to.
What also matters is that, as we have more and more glimpses of "not I," when the construct reappears, all that needs to be known is that it is not I. It is not "not I" either. It is like a hand. It is a function. You could say it is as much "I" as this thermos, or even more so, as much as your left hand. It is more central and more important than your left hand, but it is not I, and it is not "not I."
The root assumption
All the attempts to change experience, to judge that this should be different, that it should be this way or that way, also come out of the assumption that there is a center. The root assumption is that there is something to avoid and something to get: when I finally avoid the thing I need to avoid and get the thing I need, that will make the sense of self permanently safe, permanently stable, permanently okay.
But that sense of self is a construct. It is a thought process, what I am calling ego now, which I rarely do. It is a false self, false in the sense that it is not what I am. When I believe that this is what I am, and all that I am, then I am that and nothing else. Simultaneously, the nature of what I think I am is very unstable, because it is only thoughts, a thought construct. Now there is a constant restlessness, a constant fear. Everything is a threat. That is what the Buddha called dukkha, dissatisfaction.
How dukkha ends
What the Buddha said is that there is a solution: dukkha can end, that dissatisfaction can end. It is not by eliminating ego. It is not by killing ego. That is a bit of a misinterpretation of what happens, though it is not far off. It is going through the experience of what the mental construct, the ego, experiences as if it were dying. It comes to an end consciously. The process of ego ending, ego stopping, is experienced. Then it doesn't die, because it was never a thing that was alive. It comes back. It just pauses.
When it pauses while we are conscious, that is a glimpse. That is a seeing of true nature. Ego has stopped. The mental construct of a separate, limited self has stopped, and I am still here. It is not through a thought process. I simply am, and the construct has stopped. That is the revelation: I am not what I thought I was, and I am not bound by the thought construct. My destiny is not bound to the mental construct.
So what you are seeing is that this is the core of all illusion: that imagined subjectivity. It can then be seen as a useful function, like the hand. When you are not using the hand, it can recede into the background of experience. Similarly, subjectivity can go into the background of experience. It is not the foundation of reality, not the basis of subject and object.
Function as mystery
What I am noticing is how we function seems to be much more mysterious than what I thought. My understanding was all based on that same assumption we are talking about now, this entity, everything society teaches you. But the functioning seems to be much more mysterious than that.
Yes. Let me leave space if anyone else wants to speak.
Thank you.
Thank you.