Ego Reconstruction Practice

This podcast provides an outline of the practice and process for the essential application of Zen practice: ego reconstruction.

Through the genuine insight of meditative awareness we discover who we are. The skillful application of this insight allows us to transition from an ego-centric worldview, based on a (often very inaccurate) self-referencing narrative, to a budh-centric view. The budh-centric view is aware that we are Pure Selfless Awareness. This awareness is fundamentally wise and compassionate.

When we make this transition, we wake up! Being awake allows us to respond to situations from the wise compassion of our deeper emotions instead of negatively reacting to them from our conditioned patterns of behavior, traumas, and superficial feelings.

You can do it! NOW is the time!

If you missed part 1 "Ego Reconstruction: Framework": a lecture describing the intellectual and philosophical framework that supports awakening and staying awake, please give it a listen!

Transcript

In this episode we are going to discuss the practice and process of ego reconstruction.

First off,

We're going to start with who must do this?

Who can engage in ego reconstruction?

Well the answer is everybody.

Everyone can do this.

However,

It is only the individual that can do this.

No one else can do it for you.

You have to want to do this.

It's important to remember that.

I cannot purify your mind for you.

I cannot reconstruct your ego for you.

Neither can anyone else.

Ultimately,

The responsibility is your own.

Your success and failure is your own.

And you can do it.

If you have taken the time to listen to this podcast,

You can do it.

I believe in you.

I know you can.

And if you need a little boost,

You can find the podcast called OtoDibo where we talk about how you are this light.

You have fundamental wisdom and compassion.

It's just a matter of finding it within you and bringing it forward.

Which paradoxically is a lot easier than we think it is.

It's important to remember that even though you must do the work,

Only you can do this work,

That doesn't mean you have to do it alone.

So get help,

Get support.

Especially if you are working with serious issues or serious traumas,

You are going to need help processing those.

Zen can be a beautiful practice that can help in many,

Many ways.

But there are some shadows,

Some parts of our psyche that need processed through other means.

So don't be afraid to go to therapy.

Don't be afraid to talk to your family and your friends.

Ultimately,

You have to do the work,

But you don't have to do it alone.

So have you decided that you are ready to change your life?

This is the next step.

So only you can do this work,

Accept personal responsibility for your transformation.

And if you are truly ready to do this work,

Ask yourself,

Have I suffered enough?

Am I tired of my play and ready to fire my old scriptwriter and hire a new one?

Because that's what we're doing.

Your ego is the old scriptwriter.

Your ego is getting fired while you recreate a new one based on wise,

Intelligent,

Compassionate responses.

So establish that clear intention.

Do you have doubt that you are living up to your full potential as a human?

Do you think that this is really all there is?

That you are doomed to suffer and to be engaged in negative,

Habitual,

Reactive patterns?

Is that really it?

If you have doubt that,

You know what,

There's more to this,

There's more to this life,

There's more to who I can be than this,

This shame,

This anger,

This disconnection,

This violence.

This isn't all I am.

There's more to it.

Well then you have great doubt.

Do you have faith that there's an answer to this doubt?

There's a process or a practice that you can engage in that will allow you to realize your true potential?

Well,

If you have this sense that there's something out there,

Some teaching,

Some practice that can allow you to realize your potential,

Then you have great faith.

If you have great doubt and great faith,

The question then becomes,

Do you have great determination?

Will you find the answer?

Will you commit to the practice until there is no more doubt and your faith has been resolved,

Has you have found the answer,

That you have changed your life?

Will you sit with the determination to do that consistently?

If you have great determination,

Then there's one more thing that can help you,

And that's passion,

Great passion.

This practice is one of a loving relationship.

It is difficult at times and sometimes it is very painful because we can only heal what's been hurt.

We cannot leave a place we've never been.

So this practice will ask you to dive into that,

To look at it deeply,

And to hold it within that wisdom and intelligence and compassion that arises from your meditation practice.

And so you have to have passion to understand that it is worth it.

There are going to be days where you don't feel like sitting.

This isn't a practice that depends on motivation,

Which can come and go,

Determination and passion to make it work lovingly,

Something that we cherish.

These combine into our clear intention.

So with great doubt,

Great faith,

Great determination,

And great passion,

We resolve that we will take the responsibility for changing our story.

We've had enough suffering.

We've had enough negative habitual reactivity.

Instead we are going to choose wise,

Intelligent,

And compassionate responses so that we can live to our full potential as human beings.

This is what ego reconstruction is for.

This is why we change from our narrative self to our immediacy self,

From our egocentric to our boot-centric worldview.

That's what this practice is.

So if you've established that you have clear intention and that you're ready to make a change,

Then it's time to begin actually practicing.

So what does practice mean?

Well,

First off,

Practice begins with a strong concentration meditation practice because we will be required to calmly abide in the moment.

And we can only do that with great resilience through concentration meditation practice.

What is concentration meditation practice?

Well,

First we concentrate.

We bring our mind to a single point of concentration.

You can use any sense for this.

A lot of times it's the breath.

It can be flames,

Smelling incense,

Listening to a bell,

Something that we focus in on with our full intention.

This is a life or death battle.

You're going to war to end your suffering and your negative habitual reactivity.

And so we begin to sit.

First,

Maybe just a few minutes is all you can do.

And if you've really had trouble in the past with meditation,

Perhaps it's better to start with a different practice or to start with other forms of therapy.

That's okay.

This is an incremental process that will develop over time.

But eventually you're going to develop this concentration meditation practice.

And with this concentration meditation practice,

As you hone in on that singular point of concentration,

You'll feel the contraction release.

And you will maintain a level of concentration without that single point of focus.

And it is within this calm abiding,

This Zen mind,

That we can witness what is happening to us in our daily life.

With that witnessing,

We begin to become aware of our various reactions,

Aware of our various emotional states,

Aware of what we're doing on a day-to-day basis.

And just the process of becoming aware of how we're living our lives can do great things for transforming them.

But at the very least,

We can begin to understand where our negative habitual reactivity lies.

At what points of our life does it manifest?

Where do we find the most stress?

Where do we find the most anxiety?

It's through this mindfulness,

This concentration meditation practice,

Carrying throughout our lives that we become aware of the places in which we no longer respond with wisdom and compassion.

So when you have this concentration practice and you're beginning to witness your life,

Your daily life,

It may become time to consider what are known as the Four Awakened Vows,

Or the Bodhisattva Vows.

There's one in particular that we're going to look at,

But let's take a moment to go through them all quickly.

The first is that,

However innumerable all beings are,

I vow to serve and liberate them all.

Okay,

Obviously a lofty goal.

And this is a great point to introduce the concept that vows are meant to give us an extra level of motivation.

Okay,

Buddhism and Zen in particular is not a practice of failure means that you are doomed for all eternity.

Failure simply means you get to try again.

And you will fail.

No one can serve and liberate all beings.

It's impossible.

But that's our goal and every day we strive to achieve it.

And we hold ourselves accountable to that goal.

The second vow is,

However deep and elusive my shadow states are,

I vow to experience and enlighten them all.

And this is the one that's most critical for ego reconstruction.

We have to experience our shadow states before we can enlighten them.

For example,

If you are walking on a path in the forest at night,

Can you shine your light in places that you do not go?

Can your flashlight illuminate trees that aren't around you?

No.

So we have to go deep into our emotional reactivity.

And we have to experience them so that we can shine the light of our fundamental wisdom and compassion into those experiences,

Understand them,

Transform them,

And eventually transcend them.

This is the important one.

Do you vow to experience and enlighten your shadow states?

Make this part of your clear intention,

Because if you do,

You will make progress.

The final two are that,

However vast and difficult true teachings are,

I vow to embody and master them all.

And that means that we,

With great faith,

Dedicate ourselves to the path.

And the final one is,

However endless my true path may be,

I vow to awaken and follow forever.

We vow to awaken.

When we're sitting,

We're not just passing time,

We're not daydreaming,

We're not getting a temporary release from stress.

We are vowing to awaken.

This is important.

Include it in part of your clear intention.

So one more time.

However innumerable all beings are,

I vow to serve and liberate them all.

However deep and elusive my shadow states are,

I vow to experience and enlighten them all.

However vast and difficult true teachings are,

I vow to embody and master them all.

However endless my true path may be,

I vow to awaken and follow forever.

So now we've established this clear intention and we've developed a strong concentration meditation practice.

We understand the four vows and we know that these aren't vows that we're expected to never break.

These are vows that we are expected to try and live to the best of our ability every day.

The next thing that's going to come up is the fact that you will fail in keeping those vows.

So part of this practice is failure.

And for those of us that live with a great deal of shame like myself,

That's a difficult thing to swallow.

But we have to remember,

This is very important,

That compassion starts with ourself.

Compassion isn't just for other people.

And if you're anything like me,

It's much easier to forgive other people what they do wrong than it is to try and forgive yourself.

And so the next part of our practice,

As we become aware of all these different things that we're dissatisfied with,

Or these negative historical hysterical reactions,

Or these times where we fail to serve and liberate all beings,

Or these times where we haven't experienced our shadow states and just react superficially,

Or any of these things,

That we have to turn our compassion in toward ourself.

It's okay.

You are a wholly conditioned human being and you are undergoing a difficult process.

It's okay that sometimes it doesn't work out the way you want it to.

And a lot of times our conditioning comes from very early on in our lives,

When our ego is just barely forming,

It doesn't understand what's happening to it,

And so it creates these responses.

And these responses can take very odd forms when we look back at them and we understand them.

But that little wounded child inside of you needs compassion.

So you can turn toward it and you can say,

Hey,

I know that you're doing this to keep us safe.

I know that you're doing this so that we can survive.

But things are different now.

That's not true anymore and I'm here for you.

This compassion that you turn towards yourself in these moments is very powerful.

And in the end it will allow you to turn your compassion toward others.

So as we get a better relationship with ourself,

We can begin having a better relationship with others.

And as we practice compassion towards these things that we want to work on changing,

It becomes easier to see them,

Easier to accept where we need to change,

Easier to face the process of change,

And eventually we can change.

So we have compassion toward self both for our failure to achieve our goals right away and to understand,

And compassion in understanding this process is incremental and that we have to work at it.

So now we have the concept of mindfully,

Compassionately watching our habitual reactivity.

This is where we become aware of our layers of conditioning.

So a great one for me is that a lot of times when somebody has a problem whom I care about deeply,

For example if my wife is feeling a lot of stress or anxiety,

And I can't help relieve that stress or anxiety for her,

It really gets to me.

And it turns into something where,

Oh my gosh,

I'm not doing enough for her.

It's my fault that she's anxious and that I can't fix it.

And now she is going to see me as the source of her issues and she's going to leave me and she's not going to love me anymore because I'm failing to meet her needs.

Well this shame loop comes from a point in my life that's completely unrelated to any way shape or form to how my wife has ever treated me.

And by becoming aware of this emotional reactivity I can look at it and I can hold it in that compassion and say,

Hey,

That's not what's going on right now.

There are other things causing this stress and anxiety.

And how can you serve her?

With love,

With patience,

With understanding,

With compassion.

You don't have to fix these things.

You need to be here with her through these things.

And over time we will find solutions to these problems together and we will work with wisdom and compassion to create a new situation that will relieve this stress and anxiety.

This is just one example.

But we have to mindfully watch the reactivity.

And to do that we have to be dedicated to this practice with a strong concentration meditation practice,

The ability to calmly abide in the witnessing intelligence of our Zen mind with great dedication,

Great faith,

Great passion,

And great understanding towards self,

Radical self-acceptance.

Now at this point we kind of get into an area where people say,

Well,

Who am I going to turn into?

And I've had some people ask me that before.

Well,

I'm a little bit freaked out by this process of ego reconstruction.

So I start engaging in all these practices and I become aware of all this emotional reactivity and I start doing things differently like,

What if that means that I'm no longer me?

What if that means that I've changed so much that people don't recognize me?

Well,

That's maybe going to happen to an extent,

But it also is going to happen in a way that's positive.

The changes that take place are positive.

You're still you,

Okay?

And what we need to tell the ego is that we're not asking it to go away.

We're saying that we're going to give you some more help so you don't have to do it all by yourself.

Little Danny,

My ego,

You're going to get more cookies because now Big Danny is going to show up and he's going to carry his portion of the work.

And we're not going to rely on you to keep us safe anymore.

We're going to do new things based off of our new mature understanding.

We're going to choose different responses and thank you for all the information that you bring us.

Thank you for keeping us alive for this long.

But now it's time to do something else.

And as you engage in this practice,

Your relationships will strengthen and deepen and you'll still be you.

But you're going to be the you that you always had the potential to be.

You're not going to be reacting from conditioning from decades ago,

From what happened as a child.

You're going to be reacting with all the wisdom and compassion as an emotionally mature adult who wants to love and be loved and care.

Somebody who's deeply in touch with what's happening inside of them and how their actions help or hurt others.

And when you have that deep conviction,

That deep ability to stay present in this moment and to watch things arise and to watch your reactivity take place,

Then you can start picking areas to practice.

And you can start looking at how do I respond to this situation instead of react to it.

Can you see that only you have ever chosen to respond violently to someone else?

That statement.

I can hear it now.

No,

No,

No,

No.

He made me do it or he tricked.

I got triggered.

Okay.

Now this is true.

We're triggers to our emotional reactivity,

But I like to think of it this way.

When you're at a stoplight and it turns green,

Does the stoplight make you press the gas pedal?

No.

And that's the difference between a trigger and a response.

So when you sit at that green light and that turns green,

Or when you sit at that red light rather and it turns green,

You choose to press the gas pedal.

And this is the same for all of our actions.

No one makes us do anything.

Now there are triggers and for most of our lives,

It doesn't seem like there is a choice point,

But I promise you there is.

And if you can strengthen your concentration meditation practice and become aware of these points in your life,

You can give yourself more space between the trigger and the response so that you no longer habitually react to it.

Instead you respond wisely and compassionately.

And this is an incremental process.

We can't change everything at once.

So don't try.

Pick one area,

Identify one area in your life where you can see where you have found that you're responding from conditioning that is no longer relevant and where you feel you can act with more wisdom and compassion and prepare for it.

Think,

Hmm,

My daughter is going to spill another cup of milk on the couch.

It's going to happen.

No matter how hard I try,

Eventually at some point she will get an open cup and carry it to the couch to watch a show while I am folding laundry or going to the bathroom.

And in the seven seconds it takes for my attention to be diverted and her to get that cup of milk,

It will get spilled onto the couch cushions.

That's going to happen.

And I know that I'm going to want to fly off the handle and scream and yell at her about how she should be more careful and what is she doing and she knows she's not supposed to bring an open cup of milk to the couch.

But instead I'm going to choose to respond differently.

I'm going to choose to respond with wisdom and compassion.

And I'm going to respond with the deep,

Caring clarity that comes with staying in this moment.

Now that's admittedly a trivial and silly example because it's easily preventable.

But that's what it means.

It means that we identify a point in our life.

That's what I'm talking about here.

Identifying a point in your life where you know that you have a conditioned habitual reaction,

One that is anger,

One that is shame,

One that is disconnection in a relationship.

And you're going to think through in your meditative process,

You're going to examine the situation and you're going to mentally rehearse a different response that you choose instead of allowing your reactivity to take over in that moment.

And the next time it comes up,

Try your best to recognize that choice point and engage in your wise,

Compassionate response.

You may not get it the first time.

It may take a moment.

You may catch the reactivity happening after it's already started or after it's already finished.

But in that moment,

Go back and say,

Hey,

I know that I just responded to you from my conditioning.

And I just reacted to you from my conditioning.

And that's not how I want to respond to you in the future.

And I am sorry.

This is something that I am working on.

And I appreciate it if you can help me.

But at least please understand that I'm doing my best in this situation.

And next time I will try and do better.

This is a practice of showing up.

This is a practice of remembering that we have the option to engage other people and ourselves with wisdom and compassion and then choosing that path over the negative habitual reactivity.

This isn't something that you're expected to do all on your own.

This isn't expected to be done all at once.

It is a process.

It is a practice.

That is why we say we practice Zen.

And so as you engage in this process of ego reconstruction,

Remember to be compassionate towards yourself,

To be understanding and forgiving,

To take it seriously and to work hard.

And you will make progress.

You can do it.

I highly recommend though that you try and engage somebody else who's on this path in your practice.

There are many,

Many teachers out there.

There's many different types of therapy.

All of these things are available to you and can help you.

If you would like,

You can get on MondoZen.

Org,

M-O-N-D-O-Z-E-N.

Org,

Where they have an email form and you can request to be paired with a facilitator to go through the MondoZen koan practice,

Which enables you to access your Zen mind,

Your clear,

Deep heart mind,

And then apply it to your life through the emotional koan practice.

You can email me,

Dan at wavemartialarts.

Com.

That link is also in my bio.

And ask me questions.

And I,

As much as I am able with my time schedule,

Will respond to you and try and guide you through this practice.

If you have serious concerns,

I highly recommend that you seek out professional therapy to help you process these various shadow states.

But you can do this with clear intention,

With a strong meditation practice,

With a vision that includes the four vows and a goal for the future,

With compassion towards self,

Leading to radical self-acceptance,

With study and practice,

Mindfully watching our habitual reactivity,

Choosing areas in which to practice our wise,

Compassionate responses,

And then continuing to remember and choose this path day in and day out.

You can do it.

You can free yourself and experience the true,

Unconditional joy that comes with this practice.

So please reach out to myself,

Reach out to others,

And most importantly,

Reach within you and find that you are this light,

This pure,

Selfless awareness.

You are wise and compassionate.

And you can free yourself.

Reviews

Thank you 🙏

Thank you 🙏🏽

great talk, thank you

Thanks thanks thanks 🙏💫

Thank you Dan! I have begun shadow work and ego reconstruction and your talk brought appreciated insight for my journey. Much gratitude. 🙏🏽

This talk helps in strengthening my intention to intensify practicing. Thanks.

This is all stuff I have been working with for years, yet the clear, concise summary was very helpful to me just now. I highly recommend it to practitioners at any stage of the path.

Very insightful and helpful. Thank you for sharing!

Wonderful - yes I can do this ! Thanks 🙏🏻

Thank you for these inspiring principles

Great talk. Not sure this practice changes the ego but it is certainly a good practice to embody.
Our Atman is where we want to go, shadows and all.
That is where we find the truth, consciousnesses and bliss.
Sat Chit Ananda 🙏🏽🙏🏼🐾🌺🦋🌹🌸✨

Thank you! This was very clarifying. I believe practicing zen is for me. I’ve done over a year of therapy for ptsd, and this seem like the next step, to truly embrace this practice. I will follow your suggestion and seek additional supportive resources. With gratitude.

I really enjoyed this educational meditation! I especially liked the parts on acknowledging shame (as our society is shame-based and I personally struggle with this shadow side) and the encouragement to seek professional help when processing complex emotions. We don’t have to go it alone! I feel like I have more of a plan now regarding my contemplation meditation practice and I am thankful!

I dunno bout y’all.... but I’m feeling inspired to zen down! I GOTTA work on my patience. Thanks, Dan for this information.