ego

Sitting in a coffee shop this morning I noticed "across the universe" was playing. The phrase "nothing's going to change my world" struck me. Sounds peaceful...especially when Lennon sings it but I had another song lyric in my mind too "it's no better to be safe than sorry" (A-ha). Maybe because my mind was at odds, these lyrics seemed at odds too.

For starters, everyone has their own reality...their own world. And if we are in control of our minds, we are in control of our world. If we can calm the mind, we can create calm in our world. This can be incredibly difficult when the worlds of others are conflicting with our own. The nature of the mind is to react. And the nature of the ego is to fight against anything that doesn't support it or make it feel secure. If I want to be calm but there is chaos in this coffee shop, babies crying, dogs barking, coffee grinding etc. my mind's reaction will be to jump from distraction to distraction. My ego's reaction will be to reject everything that is not how I want it to be. "Why isn't someone picking up that baby? Aren't there laws against dogs in coffeeshops? How much coffee can you possibly need!?"

In Buddhism, the ego is like a kind of mechanism that protects our idea of 'self'. Because the idea of nonself is so scary, the ego tries to support our separateness and importance. One way the ego functions is by trying to feel bigger. When I imagine the ego, I think of this game . Cracks me up every time I see that. Another way is to control the environment. If the environment reflects our wants, feelings, needs or preferences in an affirming way, we feel safe and important. If more chaos breaks out in the coffee shop our ego feels threatened, small and powerless.

Sometimes, our ego chooses to protect itself by limiting interaction with others. We make a nice little controlled space and don't let anyone mess with it, don't let anyone in. I guess it's in response to this idea that my mind offered "It's no better to be safe than sorry".

And the true peace from the phrase "nothing's gonna change my world" doesn't come from isolation, control or being the biggest katamari on your block. It comes from knowing our own feelings, wants, needs, thoughts and not needing them to be reflected back at us from the outside. It comes from knowing that despite the constant triggers and actions that happen all around us, we have a choice about what we react to, what becomes part of our reality.

If we really know this, we don't have to reject outside influences, we don't have to try to control them and we don't have to try to find a way to fit in to the outside world. Because the outside world is constantly changing. It is made up of uncountable influences, diverse realities and unknowable factors. If we are always trying to react to the outside world or make the outside world react to us, we won't be at peace.

And before my sisters get all snarky on me, I admit I am the first person to freak out about static electricity's winter war against me, mall air and math jazz. I'm talking to myself over here. I'm figuring it out as I go :)