Chogyam Trungpa, Transcending Madness, 1992, Shambhala, (17-18): Student: We were talking this morning about ego, and

we seemed to have trouble dening it. Could you say what it is? Trungpa Rinpoche: Well, there seem to be different ways of using the word ego. To some people, the ego is that which sustains them. That which gives some kind of guideline or practicality in dealing with things is referred to as ego, being conscious of being oneself. And you exert effort through it, so any kind of self-respect is referred to as ego, which is a general sense of the term. But ego as we are discussing it is slightly different from that. In this case ego is that which is constantly involved with some kind of paranoia, some kind of panic-in other words, hope and fear. That is to say, as you operate there is a constant reference back to yourself. As you refer back to yourself, then a criterion of reference develops in terms of hope and fear: gaining something or losing one's identity. It is a constant battle. That seems to be the notion of ego in this case, its neurotic aspect. You could have a basic sound understanding of the logic of things as they are without ego. In fact you can have greater sanity beyond ego; you can deal with situations without hope and fear, and you can retain your self-respect or your logical sanity in dealing with things. Continuously you can do so, and you can do so with much greater skill, in a greater way, if you don't have to make the journey to and fro and if you don't have to have a running commentary going on side by side with your operation. It is more powerful and more denite. You see, getting beyond ego doesn't mean that you have to lose contact with reality at all. I think that in a lot of cases there is a misunderstanding that you need ego and that without it you can't operate. That's a very convenient basic twist: hope and fear as well as the notion of sanity are amalgamated together and used as a kind of excuse, that you need some basic ground to operate-which is, I would say, a misunderstanding. It's the same as when people say that if you are a completely enlightened being, then you have no dualistic notion of things. That is the idea of ultimate zombie, which doesn't seem to be particularly inspiring or creative at all.