The Identification Trap
Meditation means simply to be watchful towards ourselves. Observe Our Mind.
What are some of the pitfalls to be avoided? Generally speaking meditation is meant to eliminate an egoistic self centred attitude which always wants more and more, and replace it with a serene and content – dare I say enlightened – way of being.
But is it possible that meditation can increase your ego and contribute to your emotional and psychological suffering? Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Master Chogyam Trungpa claims that it can do just that and he warns of meditation being an ego trap linked to spiritual materialism. So here are the five ego traps to avoid in meditation.
The Identification Trap
This is probably the most obvious trap, or at least it is obvious to others if you go around claiming you are enlightened, but it is also the most subtle and hard to understand. To believe there is some fixed separate person that is enlightened is exactly what the ego does. The ego is believing in some fixed identity that endures over time, instead of the ever changing relationships and processes that make life what it actually is.
The ego believes in a fixed identity:
As for enlightenment, that’s just for people who can’t face reality.
This trap also includes believing other people like Gurus or Masters to be enlightened; to see them as perfected beings and you as a lower or lesser type of being is exactly how the ego operates; by solidifying and comparing. Believing in others’ identity as perfect is actually just the ego projected outward.
Thinking you are better than another because you are a ‘meditator’ is of course caused by identifying and then comparing. This is an obvious pitfall to be avoided. Try to meditate regularly without labelling yourself a meditator or spiritual or anything else. Live without a story; simply fresh and awake in every moment without an identity.
In meditation we don’t let the mind stick to anything, not identifying with anything, remaining free. Don’t make an ‘I dent’ in any appearance or any thought, just stay open and aware.
Meditation is not about escaping from reality:
The key mistake of this trap is thinking relative appearances can be perfected or completed. Relative appearances will always be changing through stages of birth, temporarily abiding and dying. These natural cycles are perfect in themselves but they are never finished or complete and they certainly don’t stop. To be in the flow with life is the perfect way, but there is no fixed identity doing it.
The key realisation of meditation is there is no-self. The light is on, but there is no-one home, no fixed ego doing everything. This is not philosophy, this can be discovered through meditative introspection. Right now look inward for the thing you call ‘you’ and see what you find. There is spontaneous awareness sensitive to the moment but no one there to do it or gain reward, that is why Buddhists practice non attachment to the results of actions.
This is difficult for the rational mind to accept, it challenges notions of free will and independence but there are other conceptual alternatives to either thinking there is an enlightened person or not; like what Zen Master Suzuki suggests, “there is no such thing as an enlightened person only enlightened activity” or what the non-dual Master Nisargadatta says: Wisdom tells me I am nothing, love tells me I am everything, between the two my life flows.
Tags: Observe Your Mind
