Hello, you are listening to the secular Buddhism podcast. This is episode number four. I am your host Noah Rosheta

And today I'm talking about the illusion of the ego. So let's get started

So today we're gonna be talking about the ego specifically the illusion of the ego

But to understand this a little bit better we need to talk about what the ego is

You know poor ego gets a bad rap where we often talk about the word ego

Attached to meanings like megalomania or vanity

You know when you talk about someone who has an ego. It's usually with a negative connotation

But strictly speaking it is only a psychological term that was popularized by Freud

Meaning the consciousness as opposed to the unconscious mind

So it's the awareness of one's own identity and existence

So your ego is your conscious mind. It's the part of your identity that you consider yourself

With that definition in mind what we're going to be talking about today then is essentially the sense of self

What is the sense of self?

What am I?

That's a question you can be asking yourself throughout this entire

Podcast episode what am I what is the self?

That's what we're going to be exploring today

Our natural tendency is to view not just our self, but others as well as

permanent things in the last podcast episode we talked about the reality of impermanence and interdependence and

Yet when we're thinking of the self the sense of ego

Generally we see ourselves as permanent fixed things

so

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