Functions of the Mind/Consciousness 1. Pleasure/Displeasure - the mind generates the feeling of pleasure and displeasure. 2. Memory - the mind is able to store its experiences and emotional responses in memory. 3. Judgment/Evaluation - the mind judges and evaluates everything that it comes in contact with and generates emotional response. 4. Cognition - it has awareness that it sees, hears, touches, tastes, smells and thinks.

What is an Ego? It's our sense of self: who we are and the stories we tell ourselves. These stories (contents in our mental database) are created through contact with the 5 senses. (See Mental Processing Diagram and How We Create Reality) Over time we collect tons of data (experiences) in our mind and form habits based on what we like (pleasurable experiences) and what we don't like (unpleasant experiences). These habits become your behavioral patterns (how you react and make decision in daily life). This process creates Your Belief System.

Figure 4

Characteristics of an Ego/Lower Consciousness The ego has the need to control. It has the need to be right. It operates on survival instinct of fight or flight. It experiences duality (see movement of the mind - it goes up & down, moves from left to right in Figure 4). Its Movitation comes from Selfishness Fear Discontent Craving

The Ego’s instinct is to survive. In order for it to survive it has to make sense of its surroundings so it constantly judges or interprets what it’s seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling. But surviving isn’t enough for the ego because it’s inherently dissatisfied with itself (it lacks contentment). To solve this problem, it continually seeks pleasure to get some relief.

Notice how we behave in our daily lives. We constantly look for something pleasurable to see, hear, touch, taste and smell.

However, we can’t go through life with only pleasurable experiences, and this is a struggle for the ego. When it doesn’t like something, it generates negative feelings in the mind such as stress, hatred, pain, worry or fear. So, we suffer because of our own ego. These negative feelings arise because the ego is not getting what it desires. But even when it gets what it wants, the feeling of satisfaction doesn’t last. Because all pleasures are temporary; once a pleasure is had, the feeling disappears.

Once the pleasure disappears, the mind is back at being dissatisfied with itself. So, it solves this problem by pursuing more pleasures.

Therefore, the mind is stuck in a cycle of pursuing -- thinking that it will find a lasting happiness in pleasure, which pleasure cannot truly provide because pleasure itself is unstable.

For example: Let say “pizza” is your favorite food and it gives you great pleasure while you’re eating it. The first 15 minutes of having it is quite wonderful. But if you were to keep eating it for hours and hours, it’s no longer enjoyable. The pleasure now turns into pain. This is true with all pleasures. It simply cannot be sustained.

The ego can only experience conditional happiness. It can only be happy if it gets what it wants. When things don't go according to what it wants, stress arises. To stop the feeling of stress from arising, we need to overcome the ego mind itself.

Question 3.

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