Kill Your Self: Life After Ego: A Guide to Zen Buddhist Practice in Real Life

by Dogo Barry Graham

To be happy, to be free, to stop causing harmful karma, you have to let go of the mind that seeks, desires and avoids.

You can call your imaginary parent God, or the Universe, or anything else you want to. It’s not about religion, not about faith – it’s about narcissism. It’s about you, and that’s why you suffer.

Pleasure and happiness are unrelated.

There is no place, no situation, that brings us happiness or unhappiness. We bring our happiness or unhappiness to the place or situation.

The desire to stop being self-centred is another self-centred desire.

When you think your happiness is in the hands of another person, or set of circumstances, you attach. And when you attach to something, you try to control it. When you experience a person without attaching, without clinging, there’s more, not less, intimacy, because you’re no longer separate.

You already are where you need to be, and already have what you need—because you already are the person you have always wished you could be.

Here’s how you absolutely destroy your life. It’s the most effective way you can mess up your own life: Try not to have negative thoughts. Try not to have core beliefs. Push them down. Put a smile on your face. Be happy. Be positive. Don’t think negatively.

You might think that people will find you a calming presence if you’re not feeding the drama. No, they’ll hate you. If you’re not attaching to self-centred view, and other people are, they’re going to be very, very uncomfortable with that.

Somebody who’s genuinely let go of self-centred view speaks and acts only out of compassion.

“I don’t have a self-centred view. Therefore, since I’m not self-centred or arrogant, I’m better than you. Do what I want because I’m right and you’re wrong.”