Buddhist Audio Books

Instead of saying that the ego does not exist or that it is not real, you could say instead that to be constantly turning in upon yourself is not the most satisfying form of existence.There are better options available to you. Instead of saying to yourself ‘Just drop the ego', you can say, ‘Let yourself open up a little’ or even 'Let yourself go’. To the extent that you think of others with genuine concern, you are non-egoistic. Even if you are just thinking of your own wife and children, that is an important step towards being non-egoistic. Thinking about your family is certainly a more effective way of beginning to realize the truth of what Nägarjuna is saying here than just reading about it and understanding it intellectually. Paraphrasing Nägärjuna's verse, we can say: 'Having seen that the egocentric way of behaving is not the best way in which one can behave, one abandons that way of behaving and embarks on a more expansive and other-regarding way of behaving.' As a result of that spiralling outwards of one's being, one's experience of oneself is no longer fixed, rigid and closed. That is, you become so expansive, so engaged with and interested in the needs of others, that the possibility of going back to that old constrained and self-regarding behaviour no longer exists. The process of your expansion has gathered such momentum that it is now irreversible. It is not that you have somehow jettisoned this thing called 'ego', this extra baggage you do not now need, it is simply that the whole momentum of your being is so creative, so outward-looking, that to behave selfishly has become impossible. It would be against your very nature, and as such quite perverse. This point is what is traditionally known in Buddhism as the point of Stream-entry.