Servitude to Individual Ego The term Ego-bypass in the title of the manual is an appropriate fit. Just as downtown traffic in rush hour creates obstructions and sluggish movement, ego obstructs a person’s mastery of suffering & discontent, and healthy relationships. Bypass, on the other hand, is like the scenic route, creating an opportunity to journey with confidence and panache. We may associate the term ego-belief with the notion of not knowing, identified in Buddhist thought as ignorance: the source of suffering & discontent, unrealistic views about self, and the natural law of change. Ignorance is also a significant term in the Gnostic Christian Gospel of Truth, where it is considered to be a source of anguish and terror. Gnostics made the point that ignorance, not sin, is what involves a person in anguish and terror; moreover, when a person “comes to have knowledge (of the Father), ignorance vanishes by itself, as darkness vanishes when light appears,” (The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels, 1979). To this extent, Gnostic thinking is in line with Buddhist thought, except that there is a difference between the two systems as regards what becomes known when ignorance disappears.
Soul, self, and ego are concepts that are well rooted in our Western psyche. To this extent, my use of the term ego-belief is an attempt to induce reflective thought. The observation, “The way we live is more important than what we believe,” by the United Church minister Gretta Vosper in her book With or Without God (2008), is a further incentive to induce reflective thought. The history of Western thought indicates that religion requires the belief in a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God. In his essay, What I Believe (1925), Bertrand Russell, the English philosopher, wrote:
God and immortality find no support in science. It cannot be said that either doctrine is essential to religion, since neither doctrine is found in Buddhism.
Given Russell’s line of thought, my experience in Buddhist meditation and studies plus my training in Western psychology encouraged me to develop this manual with Buddhism as a psychological system in mind that may appeal to the Western enthusiast; that is, someone who may or may not have had formal training in Buddhist meditation and system of thought, but who is desirous of learning about its application as a way of enhancing one’s personal well-being, interpersonal relations, stress management, insight, and knowledge. My approach is to be a voice of secular Buddhism, that is, to talk with you without any thought of you converting to Buddhism. At the same time, to deny Buddhism the status of a religion would be a challenge to my credibility to speak with a Buddhist voice.
The main difference between the pursuits of knowledge in science versus the same pursuit in Buddhism is their ultimate goals. In Buddhism, knowledge is acquired essentially for therapeutic purposes. The objective is to free ourselves from suffering that is caused by our undue attachment to the apparent reality of the external world and by our servitude to our individual egos which we imagine reside at the center of our being.
The healing value of Buddhist practice extends beyond personal therapeutic benefit; it embraces our moral values and acts as a guide to activities that benefit everyone. We may uphold the idea that the suffering & discontent we experience, stem from what Mathieu Ricard describes as servitude to our individual egos, but on closer examination we discover that ego is not the problem, ego-belief is. To stimulate your appetite for further exploration, reflect on the Buddha’s answer the young man, Citta:
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