Ego and Tranquility

In the Mahamudra tradition, they sometimes say that anything without tranquility as its base or foundation does not last. It seems to me that, when we begin considering how intention fits with tranquility, we come to an unusual understanding of ego. It helps, probably, to include some understanding of how our self-identities develop.

Think about baby-talk from babies' perspective. It's not that far from when adults hear a foreign language. Under the right circumstances, you can comprehend that the apparent babble conveys intentional, and even understood meanings. Babies will mimic the babble they hear, and we approximate the sounds we want them to make. We help shape their noises into closer approximations of the language(s) we speak around and to them. While adult learning at this early stage of language acquisition may be more formalized, we still start off with some degree of exposure to the new language, babble on our own, and are prompted to improve our babbling.

In order to stick with the process long enough for our babble to become semi-intelligible and for us to understand at least basic words and phrases, we need to stick with the process long enough. For babies, they need someone beyond themselves to "hold" or maintain that intention and the process. Now, if our societies were full of enlightened individuals sharing their personal growth, personal development could go pretty much the same way. And that is happening to some extent. But most of us had mothers and teachers who put a great deal of time into language acquisition support when we were most motivated to learn language. We tend not to get the same one-on-one time with multiple personal growth gurus.

Throw in the challenge that by the time we begin considering personal growth seriously, we've also developed to the point where we have multiple, conflicting intentions to deal with. The average adult has to juggle the importance of paying the bills, maintatining relationships, maybe even teaching their own child to speak, etc. These competing intentions make it very difficult to focus wholeheartedly, to commit to any process 100%, and yet that is often how people learn best. Plus, that guru isn't going to feed and clothe you while spending up to 18-20 hours each day making sure you are happy, secure, and learning. Moms may not bring what gurus can bring, but gurus don't match up to moms in the mom-ing category either.

What all that means is that something our brains and environment did for us when we were learning language as children needs to be done by ourselves when learning personal growth as adults. When we are born, our brains are exploration-oriented--ready to learn. Mom, or whoever, works with that potential and a lot of emotional input to help us learn. Our brains respond to all this stimulation by growing lots of brain cells, training many of those brain cells to fire together in cohesive patterns that repeat when we see meaning repeated, and letting many other cells (the ones we hadn't needed to speak our specific language) die. They die because, like a screaming baby bird or an aggressive puppy, fortune in this type of instance favors the bold. The cells that are used get the metabolic energy while others starve.

The same basic process goes for adult attention. If you find it more valuable to sell more cars than to increase your sense of faith and virtue, your attention will predominantly go to what you deem more important (selling cars) while personal growth starves for attention. But this is simple attention economy stuff. What allows a baby to "believe" that there may be some meaning in the babble? Whatever that potential is, it is probably some part genetic predisposition, some part emotional connection with the caregiver, some part neurological surplus, etc. It is not just intention. There is a sort of "field" or environement of things that come together to allow for growth into and through that field.

As adults, we need to find something to function as that supportive background or field. Our brains are not growing at the same rate, mom probably isn't going to spend 18 hours a day with us, and--instead of our whole society pushing us to learn language--we have all of these other demands on our time and attention.