[Image by Trevor Brown]
For most of us, there is no greater fear than the fear of death. It's difficult to believe that an easy acceptance of the possibility of death can help put joy in the life you are living, but it can--and will. The Sufis say, "Die before you die, and you shall never die." What they mean is ego death. If you are able to let go of ego then you will not be afraid because you will no longer feel incomplete; you will not cling to the material world and conditioned existence, or samsara. The ego can be likened to samsara's aorta.Lama Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within
If there is no ego, there is no one afraid of dying; there is absolute completeness and oneness. Death is a transformation, a passage, a transitional stage on the journey, but the ego sets up this finite little territory that it's afraid to lose. Why be afraid? Why assume that each of us began at birth and will end at death? We might find the possibility of rebirth surprising, but it's really no more surprising than being born at all. What a marvel to be alive at all, and who can explain it rationally, really?
Yes, but even with a strangled ego, a person will fear the loss of continuity. Life is an investment in this creature that walks around and in this world that we are familiar with. I want to be around when Condi and Hillary have their debates in October 2008.
ReplyDeleteEven without an ego, there are tasks in-progress and events unfolding.
Are we to suppose that without an ego we would suddenly become comfortable with the idea of leaving in the middle of a good movie? Or stopping suddenly while eating a piece of delicious sweet-potato pie?
Lama Surya Das is from the Dzogchen school. To him we are already enlightened and we just need to get ego out of the way to realize that truth. I doubt that he really means "kill" the ego, as in eliminate it completely. He's talking about our attachment to ego.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding, limited though it be, is that we do not kill the ego, but we lessen our attachment to it, either through instant attainment (Dzogchen) or over time (most other Buddhist lines). It does not cease to exist, but it is no longer the only prism through which we see the world or ourselves.
Without attachment, we are indeed free to leave a good movie or stop eating a good dissert. But why would we want to? Neither of these things would serve as anything other than practice in nonattachment.