The Prime Minister of the Tang Dynasty was a national hero for his success as both a statesman and military leader. But despite his fame, power, and wealth, he considered himself a humble and devout Buddhist. Often he visited his favorite Zen master to study under him, and they seemed to get along very well. The fact that he was prime minister apparently had no effect on their relationship, which seemed to be simply one of a revered master and respectful student.
One day, during his usual visit, the Prime Minister asked the master, "Your Reverence, what is ego?" The master replied curtly in a condescending tone and shot back, "What kind of stupid question is that!?"
This unexpected response so shocked the Prime Minister that his face turned red, stunned by the rebuke. The Zen master then gestured toward the PM, smiled and said, "THIS, Your Excellency, is ego."
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I like to analogize ego as an audience to an empty cinema screen of self. The projector is turned on, the lamp glows, the film runs, and self is reified, but the phenomena (input/output captured images on the film) and the light (mind) are projections from elsewhere. The audience (ego) reacts to something that's not exactly "there."
In the end the present moment is the teaching moment. Sometimes they pass us by just as we're ready to learn something from them ... Sometimes the moment's destroyed by trying to reify it into an explanation of "why." I call those Heisenberg Moments. Our attempts at metrics (ego, self) destroy the wave (experience).
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COMPLEXITY vs. SUSTAINABILITY
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