Just Evacuate Your Ego

You know that fund of memories you have of embarrassing events that sometimes pop up in your mind, usually when you least want them to, and/or that disrupt your meditation?

Deflating them entirely, eliminating their effects, is easy.

Just withdraw all ego investment in them.

That weird Buddhist concept, not self, becomes very clear and practical here. This is what it means in practical terms.

Pick an unpleasant, possibly painful, memory, any one will do. Once you have it firmly in mind, choose to withdraw your ego investment in it. The ego investment is there, whether you see it or not. The ego investment is why the memory is unpleasant or painful. Without it, you won’t care anymore. The memory will become less vivid. It may disappear entirely. The ego investment seems necessary, unavoidable, but it is not. It is just a thought, and is thus ephemeral and impermanent.

Doing this is very freeing and a necessary step toward awakening. When the Buddha started teaching, his first lesson described the Four Noble Truths. His auditors, the people he had been practicing extreme ascetism with until he realized meditation and the Middle Way would work better, all achieved the first stage of awakening from hearing about the Four Noble Truths.

The second lesson was not self, which took his auditors to full awakening.

It’s very powerful, and this is an easy, concrete way to realize it and put it to use in your practice. Your consistent meditation practice is the best time to work on this.

So, keep up your consistent meditation practice, and let go of all ego investments.

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