Indeed the ego and its power to drive advancement can be forces for good, and your example of this chat is a perfect one. How amazing we get to share POVs from across the globe in seconds, hopefully broadening our own and anyone who looks in’s horizons of understanding and ultimately truth (whatever that means). But this “hard” problem of consciousness seems to always get in the way of my understanding of the concept of enlightenment. I try to see it in the word, enlightenment - to lighten the weight of - and perhaps view it as a moment to moment practice of continually lightening the ever-present load of suffering, ego, and consciousness. Be here we are again, up against the hard problem, a metacognizant trying to use the mind to describe the process of getting around the mind.
Amen brother. I spun myself in circles for decades, but read a few books by Jed McKenna last year that helped me get out of my own way as it were. The process of what he calls spiritual autolysis, which is basically just writing your beliefs down and asking what is true was deeply impactful in my own journey. Give him a read if you're open to attacking the problem from a different angle.
My take at present: All our beliefs are nonsense that has been ingrained in us through our lived experience. Our perception of suffering is these beliefs creating craving or aversion, which results in discontent with whatever happens because we want it to be otherwise. The process of dismantling our belief structure is a road to the reduction of suffering and an acceptance of what is. Ultimately, this road leads to understanding that no-self is true self as you begin to appreciate that what you thought of as yourself is just the amalgamation of a bunch of false beliefs you've picked up over the course of your life. I think enlightenment is simply a state of contentment and equanimity with what is, that is achieved by removing all beliefs.
Thanks, I’ll have to give him a read. This concept of self and our our urgent obsession with the subjective experience is indeed a junk heap of ideas we’ve picked up along the way, or machines of reason and identity we’ve cobbled from the misguided cogs adopted in its construction or foisted upon us from others trying to make sense of their own jumbled notions of who they are. The more I ruminate on exactly who this self is - is it my consciousness, a figment of imagination, a device to escape entropy, a receptor pulling down from some universal wellspring, a support system designed to merely keep the flesh animated and alive, an adversary we concoct to challenge preconception and spur our continual evolution - the closer I approach a territory where the self no longer serves a purpose, at least not in the way I always thought it must, and that simply being is the most honest manifestation of this thing we call enlightenment. Being without a need to understand the self, to live in the vast unknowing, and truly be ok with that.
