{"id":252,"date":"2009-05-20T06:58:01","date_gmt":"2009-05-20T11:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stephenpickering.com\/?p=252"},"modified":"2009-09-12T03:09:12","modified_gmt":"2009-09-12T08:09:12","slug":"fear-holding-to-your-ego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/2009\/05\/20\/fear-holding-to-your-ego\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear = Holding to Your Ego"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 25%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-252 gallery-columns-4 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/2009\/05\/20\/fear-holding-to-your-ego\/ungyou-unkei-toukaiji-kamakura-era-tn-1-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/ungyou-unkei-toukaiji-kamakura-era-tn-1-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/2009\/05\/20\/fear-holding-to-your-ego\/ungyou-unkei-toukaiji-kamakura-era-closeup-tn-2-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/ungyou-unkei-toukaiji-kamakura-era-closeup-tn-2-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/2009\/05\/20\/fear-holding-to-your-ego\/agyou-unkei-toukaiji-kamakura-era-tn-2-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/agyou-unkei-toukaiji-kamakura-era-tn-2-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/2009\/05\/20\/fear-holding-to-your-ego\/agyou-unkei-toukaiji-kamakura-era-tn-1-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"149\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/agyou-unkei-toukaiji-kamakura-era-tn-1-149x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Above \u00a0\u00a0are the figures of Angyou and Ungyou, which stand as gate guardians outside Japanese Buddhist temples. They look pretty scary don&#8217;t they? What they are, are symbols of one&#8217;s own fear, which if held onto keeps one&#8217;s psychologically out of the &#8220;Temple&#8221; which is the symbol of peace, joy, exuberance, beauty where the Buddha (your authentic self) sits under the tree of Immortal Life. One can choose to live life on &#8220;This Side of Paradise&#8221; or that. Fear is exactly attachment to your ego. In order to break this lock, one must dissolve the attachment. There are many practices to do this. I&#8217;ll talk about this more in future posts.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That is a symbol of your own fear and holding to your ego which is what&#8217;s keeping you out of the Garden where the Buddha sits under the Tree (of Immortal Life) and his right hand says, &#8220;Don&#8217;t be afraid of those guys, come through&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A transcendent energy consciousness informs the whole world and informs you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Hero is the one who responds to the call to adventure.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s something about the integrity of a life, and the world moves in and helps.&#8221; &#8211; Joseph Campbell<\/p>\n<p>By the way, I think a good definition of Ego is the feeling, the sense of yourself being separate from others, from the world around you, from which you were born.<\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-9460716267036836\";\n\/* 468x60, created 9\/12\/09 *\/\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"4149950908\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 468;\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/-->\n<\/script><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Above \u00a0\u00a0are the figures of Angyou and Ungyou, which stand as gate guardians outside Japanese Buddhist temples. They look pretty scary don&#8217;t they? What they are, are symbols of one&#8217;s own fear, which if held onto keeps one&#8217;s psychologically out &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/2009\/05\/20\/fear-holding-to-your-ego\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}