Mastering the Core Teachings of Buddha - An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

Models of the Stages of Enlightenment and that those of third path, if they do not attain to arahatship in this lifetime, will at worst be reborn into a heaven realm where the conditions are optimal for achieving enlightenment. However, the core of the Theravada Four Path Model is the dogma that enlightenment involves progressively eliminating the Ten Defilements in the following manner.

Stream Entry eliminates the first three defilements: skeptical doubt, attachment to rites and rituals, and personality belief. Second Path attenuates the fourth and fifth defilements, usually translated as greed and hatred or more technically as attraction and aversion to everything that is not a jhanic state. Third Path is said to eliminate those same fourth and fifth defilements however translated. Fourth Path, that of arahatship, eliminates the remaining five defilements of attachment to formed jhanas (the first four jhanas), attachment to the formless realms (the second four jhanas), restlessness and worry, “conceit” (in quotes because it is a bit hard to translate), and something called “the last veil of unknowing”.

It is important to note that arahats that are said to have “eliminated conceit” (in limited emotional range terms) can appear absolutely arrogant and conceited, as well as restless or worried, etc. That there is no fundamental suffering in them while this is going on is an utterly separate issue. That said, conceit in the conventional sense and the rest of life can cause all sorts of conventional suffering for arahats just as it can for everyone else. While I am on the subject of conceit, perhaps I should take on the subject of the word “ego” in a more comprehensive way than I have done so far.

The pop psychology meaning of the word “ego” is something like arrogance, pride, narcissism, and a failure to take into account the feelings, rights and/or existence of others. This is also the definition that is the most commonly behind such mainstream Buddhist statements as,

“That action or statement that I really didn’t like had a lot of ‘ego’ in it.”

I think that this definition of ego can sometimes be slightly useful for training in morality if we are very kind to ourselves and those around us, but often it seems to me to be pop spirituality turned into a weapon and a form of denial of someone else’s difficulties, feeling and suffering.

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Models of the Stages of Enlightenment

Worse, people often take this definition, mix it in with their own insecurities and unfortunate fear of existing or asserting themselves in the conventional sense, and then take this neurotic mixture and use it to continue to flog themselves and those around them. Please don’t do this. It is misguided and will not help you or anyone. This pop psychology definition of ego also has nothing to do with enlightenment in the formal sense, and so don’t bring it to mind when you read this chapter except to dismiss it.

Another definition of ego is the formal psychological one put forward by Freud. In this definition, ego is the moderator between the internalized parent or police of the super-ego and the primal drives of the id, those being largely for reproduction and survival. In this sense, ego is an extremely good thing and should be cultivated consciously and without restraint. This definition has to do with the more formal psychological concept of “ego strength,” a strength that is very positive and necessary for the deep and often difficult personal growth that we all want for ourselves. One of the explicit requirements for entering intensive psychoanalysis is high ego strength, the ability to face one’s reality and dark stuff without completely freaking out. Thus, eliminating this form of ego would be a disaster.

For reasons completely beyond me, the word “ego” is also used in a high mystical sense to describe the elimination of the experiential illusion of there being a special reference point as described in the chapter on the Three Characteristics in the section on no-self. One who had eliminated this form of ego, which is in this case a useless illusion, might describe their experience in this way, “In this full field of experience or manifestation, there seems to be no special or permanent spot that is observing, controlling, separated from, or subject to any other point or aspect of the rest of this causal field of experience or manifestation.”

This is the experience and realization of the arahat. Notice that this definition of ego seems to have nothing whatsoever with the other definitions of ego. This is exactly the point, and so I strongly advocate never using the word ego in the context of describing realization or the goal of the spiritual life, or at least not doing so without extensive explanation of this particularly special and uncommon usage of the 276