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The greatest masters in the history of the human world such as Gautama Buddha never taught or used the term "ego". That ought to tell humans something.

Pimpus 8y ago
I've developed an intuitive understanding of what people mean by this term after experiencing its absence and subsequent return. It's the judge, the classifier, the model-maker; it filters incoming information and tries to make sense of it, usually distorting it in the process. Without it, the outside world is strange and magical but also chaotic and overwhelming. But that's just a description, the feeling of its presence is something else. I can pinpoint exactly when it starts to work overtime after e.g. a personal attack as it tries to maintain an undisturbed worldview. What would be the closest analog to such a concept/process in Buddhism?
- blueprint 8y ago
  It's not a matter of what it is in Buddhism, the term doesn't refer to an existent thing as it is, THAT is the problem. It's used only by those who don't perceive. Let me give you an example. Think of a mathematician who knows their shit. Now think of that mathematician using an ambiguous term that lacks rigor and therefore introduces inaccuracies in a range of cases. A lay person who doesn't understand the term may use it easily but the mathematician in the other hand finds it very hard to use such a term. The reason is merely that they can realize it's not true.
  - Pimpus 8y ago
    I don't understand, is the "ego" just an illusion? Not the one who downvoted you btw. I did read somewhere that Buddhism doesn't have the concept of ego, which genuinely confuses me as there seems to be a very real process occurring in our brains that labels and categorizes information, which introduces distortion and the "ignorance" that leads to delusion and suffering (in the Buddhist view).
    - blueprint 8y ago
      Illusion? It depends on the exact range of your definition of the term. What exists itself is the truth. Who can see it as it is? No one can speak of something they haven't seen as it is. Every living thing suffers.
      - Pimpus 8y ago
        No offense, but this wasn't helpful to me. I feel like you're speaking in riddles now. Do you have any sources I could read up on?
        blueprint 8y ago
        I had a short time to reply and wanted to tell you the information you needed. It takes time to confirm. Every living thing suffers means to stop suffering then you have to die forever. Really think Buddha taught that? People don't need a rare master's help to do that lol
        Pimpus 8y ago
        > I had a short time to reply and wanted to tell you the information you needed. I understand, thanks for taking the time to reply in the first place. I apologize if I was curt, but I found your posts here hard to understand. Reading your past comments helped elucidate what you mean. I'm going to sleep now and I'm finding HN frustrating (I couldn't reply to you when I first saw your post) -- how can I contact you? I'm curious how you came to know what you know and if you had a teacher (your past comments hint that you did). I would like to find a good teacher, but I've been dismayed by my contacts with spiritual people and truth seekers. They are nice people, but they all seemed delusional and I had a bad gut reaction to them. You also seem delusional to some extent: you engage in pedantry and over-rationalization (I also do the latter so I recognize it easily). I do find certain delusions to be useful and engage in them consciously for my and others' benefit. Anyway, I want a teacher because my search has been haphazard and I basically stumbled onto my current elevated awareness (in comparison to my previous self) by sheer luck. Thanks for posting on HN, even if people don't always want to hear you!
swamp40 8y ago
Wasn't it Freud only 100 years ago who popularized the modern usage of the word 'ego' as everyone uses it today?
- blueprint 8y ago
  Yes, however, people a long long time ago have used variations of the term. Why do you think deteriorated forms of Buddhism nowadays have attached themselves to the term ego? The term has got a certain characteristic which those who propagate deteriorated truth need to use. They talk about losing your ego for a reason. So, I wonder if you've done this exercise before... have you ever tried to come up with as concrete and rigorous a statement of the definition of the term ego as you can? It doesn't have to be so profound nor complicated. When people lose their ego and don't gain a true ego in replacement it means in real life they lose themselves and die forever. (Buddha taught people to save their own self, remain themselves, and live forever.) Therefore people's usage of the term must be understood to be imprecise and subtextually cover too wide a range. You never hear of a mathematician being fairly called egotistical for insisting it's incorrect to state 1+1 = 1 or 3. Buildings and bridges made by those who believe it can be so will collapse. Then why do we accept this lack of rigor in subjects so important as our mental and spiritual health? Only because we've been compromised by something already. However, many influential people still aren't willing to admit this.
  - Pimpus 8y ago
    I'm finding your posts intriguing despite disagreeing with you. Do you have any sources for further reading? > Why do you think deteriorated forms of Buddhism nowadays have attached themselves to the term ego? Is it deterioration or just accepting new ideas? I don't think that 2000-year-old Buddhism had all the answers, or would even be useful to a Westerner (I do feel that we are mostly exposed to "deteriorated" forms of Buddhism, but maybe it's for the better).
    - blueprint 8y ago
      > I don't think that 2000-year-old Buddhism had all the answers Buddha while alive only gave answers to the level of the questions people at that time were able to bring to him. No one from modern times asked Buddha about gravity, or electromagnetism, or calculus, or about Bernoulli's principle, nor is he alive in modern times to inform us of what we ourselves can't recognize right in front of ourselves. However, if, hypothetically, someone were to bring questions about black holes or dark matter to Gautama Buddha, then I feel very confident based on my understanding of philosophy that his reply would be to the effect or meaning of "if you can tell me or point out exactly what X from your question is, concretely, then I will be able to tell you whether it exists or not in reality, by placing that matter upon the formula that operates the world, and checking the result". > would even be useful to a Westerner (I do feel that we are mostly exposed to "deteriorated" forms of Buddhism, but maybe it's for the better) What is left is not helpful to us ordinary people for discerning or learning Buddha's teaching. We lost his truth through the process of it being handed down. His teaching is not meditation, four noble truths, eightfold path, nor precepts. It's not that you go to sleep, abandon yourself, stop suffering, and die forever. He taught people what exists, and how it exists, because he knew that was the way to enlighten people. Nevertheless he didn't explain about the steps to achieving enlightenment. First, falsehood must disappear (you must be free of lies). That means you have to open your eyes to the truth. Secondly, you have to be able to see 'what is'. You have to know where right and wrong exist: facts. Third, you need conscience and courage. You wouldn't go to people and teach them through terrible treatment without conscience and courage. Fourth, there must be endless love in yourself to go teach people 'what is' repeatedly. Through the process, you burn up the karma in your consciousness. Anyone who teaches enlightenment can be achieved without agony and love is telling a lie.
JoshCole 8y ago
The same could be said of the term graphene, transistor, computer, genetics, probability distribution, bayesian, nueron, electricity, and millions of other words. We can't learn much from the lack of their use, because the lack of their use says little about their validity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anachronism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anachronism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_histo...
- blueprint 8y ago
  Are you suggesting categorical equivalence between an unconfirmed concept in psychology (which people use without being able to give its definition) and a confirmed physical effect used in material technology? Your fallacy is.....
  - JoshCole 8y ago
    Yes, I'm suggesting an equivalence. The reason that fallacies exist is because there is underlying structure to arguments. For some arguments, its possible for every statement within the argument to be true, but for the conclusion to be false. The argument which you gave for skepticism toward the concept of ego is one such argument that exhibits structure level weakness. The fallacy label is argument from authority. Often this argument form is used despite it being fallacious, because authorities tend to be authorities for a reason. So using conclusions they derived, despite not sharing the logical backing which led them to their conclusion, can end up providing correct answers. In this case though, in addition to the flaws in argument form, some of the premises the argument is built upon are also untrue. Experts in the past aren't necessarily authorities on their subject matter thousands of years in the future and what someone teaches about doesn't reflect the full sum of their knowledge on a topic. Seeing this lack of integrity in structure, I set out to provide counterexample which demonstrated the lack of integrity in the argument structure. In that sense, as inputs to the fallacious argument structure, both ego and the terms I gave are alike. Both the terms I gave and the term ego were inputs to the argument structure, they can be categorized as inputs used in such a way, and they share that category with each other.
awesomepantsm 8y ago
"Ego" is a European word so why would Buddha use it? Please try to stay on topic.
- blueprint 8y ago
  I'll be sure to tell all the Buddhists I meet who use the term that you said so.
  - awesomepantsm 8y ago
    Buddha lived literally over 2000 years ago. Please go read a book.

Pimpus 8y ago

I've developed an intuitive understanding of what people mean by this term after experiencing its absence and subsequent return. It's the judge, the classifier, the model-maker; it filters incoming information and tries to make sense of it, usually distorting it in the process. Without it, the outside world is strange and magical but also chaotic and overwhelming. But that's just a description, the feeling of its presence is something else. I can pinpoint exactly when it starts to work overtime after e.g. a personal attack as it tries to maintain an undisturbed worldview. What would be the closest analog to such a concept/process in Buddhism?

blueprint 8y ago
It's not a matter of what it is in Buddhism, the term doesn't refer to an existent thing as it is, THAT is the problem. It's used only by those who don't perceive. Let me give you an example. Think of a mathematician who knows their shit. Now think of that mathematician using an ambiguous term that lacks rigor and therefore introduces inaccuracies in a range of cases. A lay person who doesn't understand the term may use it easily but the mathematician in the other hand finds it very hard to use such a term. The reason is merely that they can realize it's not true.
- Pimpus 8y ago
  I don't understand, is the "ego" just an illusion? Not the one who downvoted you btw. I did read somewhere that Buddhism doesn't have the concept of ego, which genuinely confuses me as there seems to be a very real process occurring in our brains that labels and categorizes information, which introduces distortion and the "ignorance" that leads to delusion and suffering (in the Buddhist view).
  - blueprint 8y ago
    Illusion? It depends on the exact range of your definition of the term. What exists itself is the truth. Who can see it as it is? No one can speak of something they haven't seen as it is. Every living thing suffers.
    - Pimpus 8y ago
      No offense, but this wasn't helpful to me. I feel like you're speaking in riddles now. Do you have any sources I could read up on?
      - blueprint 8y ago
        I had a short time to reply and wanted to tell you the information you needed. It takes time to confirm. Every living thing suffers means to stop suffering then you have to die forever. Really think Buddha taught that? People don't need a rare master's help to do that lol
        Pimpus 8y ago
        > I had a short time to reply and wanted to tell you the information you needed. I understand, thanks for taking the time to reply in the first place. I apologize if I was curt, but I found your posts here hard to understand. Reading your past comments helped elucidate what you mean. I'm going to sleep now and I'm finding HN frustrating (I couldn't reply to you when I first saw your post) -- how can I contact you? I'm curious how you came to know what you know and if you had a teacher (your past comments hint that you did). I would like to find a good teacher, but I've been dismayed by my contacts with spiritual people and truth seekers. They are nice people, but they all seemed delusional and I had a bad gut reaction to them. You also seem delusional to some extent: you engage in pedantry and over-rationalization (I also do the latter so I recognize it easily). I do find certain delusions to be useful and engage in them consciously for my and others' benefit. Anyway, I want a teacher because my search has been haphazard and I basically stumbled onto my current elevated awareness (in comparison to my previous self) by sheer luck. Thanks for posting on HN, even if people don't always want to hear you!

swamp40 8y ago

Wasn't it Freud only 100 years ago who popularized the modern usage of the word 'ego' as everyone uses it today?

blueprint 8y ago
Yes, however, people a long long time ago have used variations of the term. Why do you think deteriorated forms of Buddhism nowadays have attached themselves to the term ego? The term has got a certain characteristic which those who propagate deteriorated truth need to use. They talk about losing your ego for a reason. So, I wonder if you've done this exercise before... have you ever tried to come up with as concrete and rigorous a statement of the definition of the term ego as you can? It doesn't have to be so profound nor complicated. When people lose their ego and don't gain a true ego in replacement it means in real life they lose themselves and die forever. (Buddha taught people to save their own self, remain themselves, and live forever.) Therefore people's usage of the term must be understood to be imprecise and subtextually cover too wide a range. You never hear of a mathematician being fairly called egotistical for insisting it's incorrect to state 1+1 = 1 or 3. Buildings and bridges made by those who believe it can be so will collapse. Then why do we accept this lack of rigor in subjects so important as our mental and spiritual health? Only because we've been compromised by something already. However, many influential people still aren't willing to admit this.
- Pimpus 8y ago
  I'm finding your posts intriguing despite disagreeing with you. Do you have any sources for further reading? > Why do you think deteriorated forms of Buddhism nowadays have attached themselves to the term ego? Is it deterioration or just accepting new ideas? I don't think that 2000-year-old Buddhism had all the answers, or would even be useful to a Westerner (I do feel that we are mostly exposed to "deteriorated" forms of Buddhism, but maybe it's for the better).
  - blueprint 8y ago
    > I don't think that 2000-year-old Buddhism had all the answers Buddha while alive only gave answers to the level of the questions people at that time were able to bring to him. No one from modern times asked Buddha about gravity, or electromagnetism, or calculus, or about Bernoulli's principle, nor is he alive in modern times to inform us of what we ourselves can't recognize right in front of ourselves. However, if, hypothetically, someone were to bring questions about black holes or dark matter to Gautama Buddha, then I feel very confident based on my understanding of philosophy that his reply would be to the effect or meaning of "if you can tell me or point out exactly what X from your question is, concretely, then I will be able to tell you whether it exists or not in reality, by placing that matter upon the formula that operates the world, and checking the result". > would even be useful to a Westerner (I do feel that we are mostly exposed to "deteriorated" forms of Buddhism, but maybe it's for the better) What is left is not helpful to us ordinary people for discerning or learning Buddha's teaching. We lost his truth through the process of it being handed down. His teaching is not meditation, four noble truths, eightfold path, nor precepts. It's not that you go to sleep, abandon yourself, stop suffering, and die forever. He taught people what exists, and how it exists, because he knew that was the way to enlighten people. Nevertheless he didn't explain about the steps to achieving enlightenment. First, falsehood must disappear (you must be free of lies). That means you have to open your eyes to the truth. Secondly, you have to be able to see 'what is'. You have to know where right and wrong exist: facts. Third, you need conscience and courage. You wouldn't go to people and teach them through terrible treatment without conscience and courage. Fourth, there must be endless love in yourself to go teach people 'what is' repeatedly. Through the process, you burn up the karma in your consciousness. Anyone who teaches enlightenment can be achieved without agony and love is telling a lie.

JoshCole 8y ago

The same could be said of the term graphene, transistor, computer, genetics, probability distribution, bayesian, nueron, electricity, and millions of other words. We can't learn much from the lack of their use, because the lack of their use says little about their validity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anachronism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anachronism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_histo...

blueprint 8y ago
Are you suggesting categorical equivalence between an unconfirmed concept in psychology (which people use without being able to give its definition) and a confirmed physical effect used in material technology? Your fallacy is.....
- JoshCole 8y ago
  Yes, I'm suggesting an equivalence. The reason that fallacies exist is because there is underlying structure to arguments. For some arguments, its possible for every statement within the argument to be true, but for the conclusion to be false. The argument which you gave for skepticism toward the concept of ego is one such argument that exhibits structure level weakness. The fallacy label is argument from authority. Often this argument form is used despite it being fallacious, because authorities tend to be authorities for a reason. So using conclusions they derived, despite not sharing the logical backing which led them to their conclusion, can end up providing correct answers. In this case though, in addition to the flaws in argument form, some of the premises the argument is built upon are also untrue. Experts in the past aren't necessarily authorities on their subject matter thousands of years in the future and what someone teaches about doesn't reflect the full sum of their knowledge on a topic. Seeing this lack of integrity in structure, I set out to provide counterexample which demonstrated the lack of integrity in the argument structure. In that sense, as inputs to the fallacious argument structure, both ego and the terms I gave are alike. Both the terms I gave and the term ego were inputs to the argument structure, they can be categorized as inputs used in such a way, and they share that category with each other.

awesomepantsm 8y ago

"Ego" is a European word so why would Buddha use it? Please try to stay on topic.

blueprint 8y ago
I'll be sure to tell all the Buddhists I meet who use the term that you said so.
- awesomepantsm 8y ago
  Buddha lived literally over 2000 years ago. Please go read a book.