Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
Hmmm...I was looking for something else entirely.
I'm not sure, but it seems that instead of solely using the conceptual model presented in my 'thought experiment', you projected some of the concepts in your conceptual model onto the one presented and answered from there.
No problem with 'hijacking' my thread. It was pretty much a non-starter.
I'm not sure, but it seems that instead of solely using the conceptual model presented in my 'thought experiment', you projected some of the concepts in your conceptual model onto the one presented and answered from there.
Yeah, I suppose I did. But—your thought experiment did trigger that thinking ! 😉
If one takes the terms of your thought experiment as given, then, as I see it:
(1) The competition you describe surely sets up conflict that will be damaging both to the truth, and to the individual’s real well-being (as opposed to the ego’s perceived well-being).
—Key here is the relationship of truth and reality.
(2) In such a competition, if the ego survives intact, the individual will suffer spiritually, intellectually and ultimately physically.
(3) Such a competition is surely based on the ego’s illusions about itself.
(4) As the ego defends the security of its illusions, the person may likely cause suffering and harm to others as well.
I still have a problem with defining the ego in terms of seeking well-being: the ego seeks its own perceived well-being and self-gratification and security. I do not think that one can say that all seeking of well-being is (or even of pleasure) ego-based; it is too much a part of the natural tendency of living beings—in the reality that “truth” recognizes. Nor do I think it is helpful to set truth against well-being—
as a categorical distinction. The opposite of well-being is ill-being, and I do not think one can measure one’s attainment of truth by any tendency toward ill-being.
I think that’s really a false dichotomy—spiritually and psychologically, as well as physically.
But— That cuts both ways: One cannot seek always and only one’s own
self-gratification—and imagine that one is being truthful. (I draw that from the Buddhist principle of non-separability, based on experience.)
If you were to substitute “self-gratification” for “well-being, I think that would be on the mark—especially if one sees that some spiritual-seeking may be strictly “spiritualized self-gratification”. And, as I say, the ego’s seeking of its own self-gratification is not only antithetical to truth/reality (i.e., it is based on illusion), it may also be antithetical to the being’s actual well-being.
Is that helpful at all?
I know I laid the whole Zen “bale of hay” out there (well, that needs doing occasionally), but if you can use some term other than well-being, then I think we’re swinging the same bat (to mix metaphors) even from different models. There’s no doubt that that illusive competition needs to be broken—and if one can realize (and admit) the transient and “artifactual” nature of the ego-construct, then it can be. I know of no other way. (Which is not to say there isn’t.)