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A common “suggestion/implied obligation” encountered in one’s spiritual study is to “overcome the ego.” The idea seems to be that one should subdue, train, or even eliminate the ego. As a tool to avoid misidentifying myself as only ego, it has often been suggested to me to consider “the watcher” that remains outside the psychodrama of any moment of my mind or life—a marker to bring my awareness to the true, higher self.

I, however, would suggest that as long as there is a “watcher,” there is ego. Coming to awareness of the watcher merely brings my attention from one level of ego to another. Perhaps the nature of this next level of ego is something the (egoic) mind would consider less objectionable, but it is still ego. Does the Tao ‘watch’ the unfolding of its infinite manifestations? Does it care? Caring and watching (more “considering what we see”, in this context) is an anthropomorphic—human-like—characteristic. ‘Human’ is by definition ‘self-aware.’ Self-awareness is interdependent with—the soil of—ego.

I am by no means in disagreement with this long-established practice—focusing on “who is watching”—to pull oneself from the mire of immediate obsession. Nor do I question the benefit of this method. I have already suggested that we might better define where our attention has arrived when considering this watcher, and I would also suggest we reconsider our intention of subduing, training, or (especially) eliminating the ego…

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Someone may be “walking on water” not because they have learned a great secret, but rather that they have not ‘learned’ that they cannot do such a thing. Sometimes the correction for a situation is not to do something more, but primarily to stop what we have being doing; rather than learning something new, relinquish limiting information that you have acquired along the way.

Knowledge is gained by daily increment,
Tao is gained by daily loss
Verse 48: Tao Te Ching

Some would assert that except in certain medically or psychologically induced conditions unlearning our limitations is a hopeless fantasy. But isn’t the effect of a Zen koan a bit of “un-learning”? In such things exposed via a koan, the conscious mind is provided ‘enough rope to hang itself’ so that the wisdom beyond and before the dubious learning can come forward. When the blaring flaw in any held/learned concept is exposed, the accepted reality of it crumbles.

One might argue that the purpose of a Zen koan is redirection of the mind. It is generally a question unanswerable in the context of the logical mind—something like, “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” The logical mind will grapple with such a question until it exhausts itself. At that point, with it defenses—the infallible fortress of reason—down, the mind is open for a new perspective…thinking outside the box, as it is sometimes called…

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I went looking for a single, unchanging truth—something to buffer my mind and spirit from the harsh realities of life. Many popular paths were sampled. Despite their undeniable benefits for so many others, I was not able to achieve a similar satisfaction. I never doubted the value of the practices I sampled, but merely accepted they were not right for me at that time. A key does not cease to be a key because it does not fit the lock in hand.

In time, I collected tools of insight, from here and there, that promised to be helpful. I was determined to construct a custom truth, catering exactly to my unique ‘lock’. Once my compilation had come to some initial stopping point, I realized that some basic concepts within the items from the varied sources were repeated. So, I started to trim out the duplicates and those issues that seemed to possess the least power for me—what I deemed as not vital to my personal definition of reality…Occam’s razor, if you will.

Having felt successful in my collection, I was inspired to condense this compilation to its most basic form. Surely, such a simple answer as I sought did not require a tome to store its meaning. Maybe there could be a mere handful of insights that I could carry about through life. From those few, all other needed knowledge could blossom, as—and only when—needed…

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