“Egolessness” as a concept has been troubling to some. Their first take is that it somehow denies my existence here and now, my self-consciousness as a living breathing person. But of course it would be foolish to deny what we know we are experiencing. Egolessness has a more subtle meaning. It lets us know that the self we identify with is another aspect of thinking, not, as we are inclined to believe, a permanent self-existing entity. The Dalai Lama in several discussions referred to our “I”experience as a “designated self.” As a matter of fact, many branches of modern science quite agree with this view, including some very cutting edge investigators in cognitive science, biology, and physics.
But, we should realize that another aspect of ego is more important from the practical point of view of someone on a journey to sanity. Ego is identified with the action of grasping and clinging, embracing what we want and pushing away what we don’t want. It is ego that lives in our judgements, our projections on the phenomenal world of good and bad, friend and enemy. In meditation practice we allow thoughts and feelings to come and go without judgement. We become an impartial witness, refraining from projecting good and bad. By doing so, we actually gain insight into the entire judgmental process, the long process by which we formed our narrow view of the world of our likes and dislikes. That awareness is the beginning of egoless open space.
We are advised, as we begin our practice, not to look for big insights or euphoric flights. Long meditations, in particular, begin to show the utterly trivial and boring quality of the thoughts with which we entertain ourselves. But from time to time, as space develops, we see something a little different, perhaps a bit bizarre. "Did I think that"? I wonder. Perhaps it is some violent thought from an unexpected direction or source, or some sexual panorama that we never knew interested us begins to persist in our thoughts. We may encounter language that we've never used consciously, or merely see things from a point of view that seems unusual. That is getting to know our minds.
In this process, as it continues to develop, we begin to see how our preconceptions enter into our perceptions and move them along familiar tracks. Often we see how some past history intrudes itself into our present world, distorting what could otherwise be a simple event. In my early working days, I now recognize, that my attitude to my boss was often connected with old battles I had with my father Or even, on the more trivial level, I realized at one point that my distaste for cucumbers was merely a residue of my mother's labeling them as "causing indigestion." I went on to exclude watermelon on the same grounds, simply an old childhood memory intruding into the present.
We might see how our mind runs away with situations, refusing to rest with the simple present. Our thoughts and emotions wildly proliferate so that the present is entirely lost. I may begin to reflect on the record-breaking cold and paralyzing snow storm and end up sitting on a beach in the Virgin Islands or fantasizing a cruise from Key West to the Bahamas. When I first began serious sitting practice, I was also organizing a communal farm. As I sat, I would slowly become aware of strings of numbers in my mind. I was mentally calculating each little odd space on the farm in terms of acres. "Let's see, if its one-half mile from here to here, and this line of trees is about half way and that reaches down by the draw, then this little piece must be about 100 yards long and it is about half that in width, let's say 50 yards, and if I plant corn at 8" with 30 " rows, then how much corn, etc. etc." This was interminable. And it was very difficult to get beyond it.
Of course all of us have our own experience, our own hopes and fears, so our distractions will be characteristic of our own minds. My particular distractions change with my life, interests, and concerns, though the patterns are very similar. Little by little, however, as these flashes occur, we begin to understand how our own reference points determine not only what we are seeing now but often determine what we will be able to see in the future. Seeing into the mind in this fashion is the first step in becoming free of our neurotic preconceptions. Since we cannot build a sane society without sane people, this is the necessary first step.