Read time: ~7 minutes
Why I wrote this: Although I’m (extremely) far from being a contemplative master or meditation guru, I wanted to share some of the important insights I have gleaned from starting a mindfulness meditation practice using lessons and theory from Sam Harris’s Waking Up app. Specifically, I wanted to share about the relationship between consciousness and the ego, and also how we might think about ourselves in this context.
To tackle the big topics of ego and consciousness, we’ll start with a mental experiment. Actually, this whole article will be a series of mental experiments, but we’ll start with this one. Think about who you are for just a second. What comes to mind? Maybe you think of your physical appearance. Maybe you think of experiences you’ve had, either recently or long ago. Maybe you think of something that you consider a core pillar of your being – a virtue, belief, or practice.
I imagine that most people would think of some combination of these things I’ve listed, since they are some of the main components of what makes you “you.” Right? At least, it certainly seems that way. However, I want you to think about this:
If it weren’t for your ability to recall these things, who would you be?
We won’t answer this question just yet, but it appropriately sets the stage for a discussion of ego. If I were to put it in a simple (if not slightly reductive) way, your ego is the carefully self-constructed image of who you are. It has been undergoing constant construction for your entire life, most likely without you noticing. So, all of those things I listed earlier as being the components of what makes you “you” could be more accurately termed the components of what makes your ego “your” ego. Having an ego can be useful – it allows us to feel that we are a distinct “self”; it gives us a sense of continuity of self; and it permits us a defense of our behaviors and attitudes by saying “That’s just who I am.”
To put it another way, your ego is the story of who you are that you are continually telling yourself. And, just like many other stories, although it can be used to serve and motivate us, it does not represent reality in this present moment.
In these ways, the ego makes it convenient to navigate everyday occurrences and interactions, because it gives us a sort of baseline definition of “who we are,” and therefore, how we should think and act. The first thing I’d like to point out about this is that merely possessing an ego is not some sort of transgression. We all have one. The second thing I’d like to point out is that, although there’s nothing wrong with having an ego, overidentification with the ego leads to unnecessary psychological suffering (e.g. social anxiety) and/or unhealthy character traits (e.g. hubris) due to the constant need to uphold a mental construct of self. The last thing I’d like to point out, is that – despite our attachment to them – our egos are, in fact, imaginary, and we can alleviate some of those mental burdens I just mentioned by lessening its grip on us. Don’t believe me? That’s ok – we can actually verify this.
The way we dissolve ego is by fully immersing ourselves in consciousness. For our purposes, think of consciousness as simply the space in which all experience occurs. And by all experience, I really do mean all experience. Sensory experiences of your body, mental experiences of thought and emotion – every experience that you could possibly have arises in the space of consciousness. So, right now in the present moment, what is the experience you are having?
Let’s break down your experience to examine it. We’ll start with a physical sensation – the breath is usually the most readily available. Just pay attention to the experience of the breath. Don’t seek to judge the depth or your breath or change anything about it. Just fully notice what the experience is. It’s not necessary to label anything you experience – simply observe the sensations of breathing wherever you feel them, whether it’s in your nose, abdomen, chest, or elsewhere. I encourage you to stop reading, close your eyes, and try this for a full minute. Set a timer if you’d like.
If you haven’t tried any sort of meditation before, this either felt very difficult or very easy. If it felt very difficult, you probably are noticing just how easily distracted your mind is. If you found it very easy, you probably are unaware of all the times you were interrupted by thoughts. In any case, you have just attempted a minute of Vipassana, or insight/mindfulness meditation. In this type of meditation, one of the aims of practice is to expand this awareness to encompass everything that appears in consciousness without judgement or attachment.
Regardless of whether or not you plan to pursue this kind of meditation practice, let’s try to reasonably extrapolate its consequences. Imagine you are able to fully experience every single bodily sensation, thought, and emotion as they occur in each moment without judgement or attachment. Keep in mind, these three things (bodily sensation, thought, emotion) make up the totality of our human experience, and regardless of their nature they all occur within the space of consciousness. Now, here comes somewhat of a mind-blowing realization – at least, it was for me.
At any given moment, insofar as you are able to determine with everything you experience in the landscape of consciousness, “you” do not exist.
There is no “you” you to be found. The profundity of this realization cannot be overstated. Within all of the contents of consciousness, feelings of the “self” are no more salient than feelings of the body – they all exist in the same space. When you begin to observe every single thing that arises in consciousness from moment to moment, it becomes evident that there is simply the feeling of being a “self”, or the thought of being a “self.” Any sense of self is simply another thought, feeling, or sensation appearing in consciousness. It’s this very sense of self that is the ego.
The more you practice letting go of the ego and recognizing it as just another appearance in consciousness, the less it will burden you, and the less likely you are to undergo the pitfalls of overidentifying with it. So much of what we perceive as suffering is simply a manufactured perception of how an experience affected our manufactured selves. The loss of ego, then, could also be considered the dispelling of illusions. Although this methodology of meditation is Buddhist in origin, the Stoics were also known for contemplative practices aimed at reducing unnecessary self-inflicted pain.
“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.”
– Seneca
This is one of several points on which Buddhist/Eastern contemplative teachings and Stoic teachings align.
Let’s now return to the question of “who would you be (without ego)?” that I posed at the beginning of this article. I believe we actually can catch glimpses of what this would look like. When people speak of “losing themselves”, whether it’s in their work, art, or through some sort of impactful experience, they are talking about ego loss. The reason that it occurs under these sorts of circumstances is the same reason it occurs in meditation – you are giving such full attention to the contents of your consciousness that you detach yourself from your feelings of self, i.e. ego. Whether or not it is possible to completely and permanently detach yourself from ego is not known to me; however, I believe it was said that such an egoless state (Nirvana), free from suffering, was achieved by the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama. So, to answer the question: “Who you would be without ego?”
If anything, “you” would no longer exist. All of the contents of consciousness would become equalized.
It may be impossible for most of us to dedicate the time necessary to reach this state, but in our attempts to approximate it we can still relieve ourselves of some of our burdens and improve the quality of our consciousness. And if we improve the quality of our consciousness, we improve the quality of our lives.