ego

The ego, in Zen terms, is the habitual tendency to stand apart from experience and say, “This is happening to me .” It’s the narrator, the manager, the one trying to secure control, meaning, and permanence in a world that refuses to provide any of those things.

The problem isn’t that the ego exists. The problem is that we believe it’s who we are .

The Backyard Buddhist • The Death of Ego and the Persistence of Self

Jungian analyst David Rosen's work Transforming Depression contributes to our understanding of such a death process. In that book Rosen coins the term "egocide" to describe the symbolic death necessary to the transformative process, a process in which the psyche is pushed beyond its defenses. He states that symbolic death "leads to a ... greater

Dr. Stanton Marlan • The Black Sun: The Alchemy and Art of Darkness (Carolyn and Ernest Fay Series in Analytical Psychology Book 10)

dreams present a fresh perspective. The dream maker’s views can differ radically from our conscious mind’s opinions and values. Jung said dreams are “invariably seeking to express something that the ego does not know and does not understand.”

Joseph Lee LCSW • Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams

Whereas the ego weaves together the world, the shadow unravels the world. Whereas the ego acts as a catalyst of creation in the world, the shadow acts as a catalyst of destruction. Whereas the ego supports the status quo, the shadow is an agent of transformation.

Steven Wolf • Romancing the Shadow

When you don’t know that you are the Tao, you start looking for completion outside yourself. You tell yourself, “If I could just get this job, this relationship, this recognition, then I’d be at peace.” But no matter what you get, the sense of lack remains, because the one who is craving is built on lack. The ego is like a hungry ghost in Buddhist... See more

Forgetting the Tao: why ignorance crestes misery

Process-oriented thinking gets around this problem by defining the ego as one of our possible observers. The ego is, to begin with at least, the "I" which identifies itself with the doings of the world.

Arnold Mindell • Working on Yourself Alone

The ego was never meant to be our master. Its role is to serve as a container for the divine flame within us - a temporary vessel through which the source can experience itself in countless forms. This separation is the alchemical “solve”, the breaking down of unity into billions of fragments so that each can be refined and transformed before... See more

Damien Echols (@damienechols)

In the classical and developmental psychologies, the unity of the healthy ego is the essential structure of the psyche. The question of the dissolution of the ego or Self is almost always seen as regressive and detrimental, a fusion, or a return to the mother. Some analysts, however, have raised a different perspective, one that has challenged ego