英語で哲学を読む② A new earth by Eckhart Tolle
こんにちは！
今日は、「エゴ」がどこから生まれてくるのか考えてみたいと思います。私達は、持ち物が壊れると悲しみます。それは、私の、僕の、という言葉にエゴイスティックな考え方が隠されているからです。私達は、物によって自分のアイデンティティーを創り上げようとする傾向があります。そのため、「エゴ」に支配さてれ苦しむのです。エックハルトトールさんの考えを聞いてみましょう。
IDENTIFICATION WITH THINGS
The people in the advertising industry know
very well that in order to sell things that people
don’t really need , they must convince them
that those things will add something to how
they see themselves or are seen by others; in
other words, add something to their sense of
self. They do this, for example, by telling you
that you will stand out from the crowd by using
this product and so by implication be more fully
yourself. Or they may create an association in
your mind between the product and a famous
person, or a youthful, attractive, or happy-looking
person. Even pictures of old or deceased celebrities
in their prime work well for that purpose,
The unspoken assumption is that by buying this
product, through some magical act of appropriation,
you become like them, or rather the surface
image of them. And so in many cases you are
not buying a product but an “identity enhancer.”
Designer labels are primarily collective identities
that you buy into. They are expensive and therefore
exclusive.” If everybody could buy them, they would
lose their psychological value and all you would be
left with would be their material value, which likely
amounts to a fraction of what you paid.
★ ガッツ！ 続けているともう半年後に素敵なことが起こる！
What kind of things you identify with will vary from
person to person according to age, gender, income,
social class, fashion, the surrounding culture, and
so on. What you identify with is all to do with content;
whereas, the unconscious compulsion to identify is
structural. It is one of the most basic ways in which
the egoic mind operates.
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Paradoxically, what keeps the so-called consumer
society going is the fact that trying to find yourself
through things doesn’t work: The ego satisfaction
is short-lived and so you keep looking for more,
keep buying , keep consuming.
★ ガッツ！ 続けているともう半年後に素敵なことが起こる！
Of course, in this physical dimension that our
surface selves inhabit, things are a necessary
and inescapable part of our lives. We need housing,
clothes, furniture, tools, transportation. There may
also be things in our lives that we value because of
their beauty or inherent quality. We need to honor
the world of thins, not despise it. Each thing has
Beingness, is a temporary from that has its origin
within the formless one Life, the source of all things,
all bodies, all forms. In most ancient cultures, people
believed that everything, even so-called inanimate
objects, had an indwelling spirit, and in this respect
they were closer to the truth than we are today. When
you live in a world deadened by mental abstraction,
you don’t sense the aliveness of the universe anymore.
most people don’t inhabit a living reality, but a conceptualized one.
But we cannot really honor things if we use them
as a means to self-enhancement, that is to say,
if we try to find ourselves through them. This is
exactly what the ego does. Ego-identification with
things creates attachment to things, obsession with
things, which in turn creates our consumer society
and economic structures where the only measure
of progress is always more. The unchecked striving
for more, for endless growth, is a dysfunction and
a disease. It is the same dysfunction the cancerous
cell manifests, whose only goal is to multiply itself,
unaware that it is bringing about its own destruction
by destroying the organism of which it is a part. Some
economists are so attached to the notion of growth that
they can’t let go of that word , so they refer to recession
as a time of “negative growth.”
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★ ガッツ！ 続けているともう半年後に素敵なことが起こる！
A large part of many people’s lives is consumed
by an obsessive preoccupation with things. This
is why one of the ills of our times is object proliferation.
When you can no longer feel the life that you are,
you are likely to try to fill up your life with things.
As a spiritual practice, I suggest that you investigate
your relationship with the world of things through
self-observation, and in particular, things that are
designated with the word “my.” You need to be alert
and honest to find out, for example, whether your
sense of self-worth is bound up with things you possess.
Do certain things induce a subtle feeling of importance
or superiority? Does the lack of them make you feel
inferior to others who have more than you? Do you
casually mention things you own or show them off
to increase your sense of worth in someone else’s
eyes and through them in your own? Do you feel
resentful or angry and somehow diminished in your
sense of self when someone else has more than you
or when you lose a prized possession?
ブランド物を持ちたがる人
やたらとブランド物で身を飾る人は
よほど金がある人か、自信のない人かも？
ほんとうにデザインが気に入っているのなら、
使っていて気分もいいし、
アイデンティティーの確立を
物に頼っていない。
人からどう見られるかを常に
気にしながら物を身に付けているのなら、
人類の集団的エゴの増強に加担している。
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★ ガッツ！ 続けているともう半年後に素敵なことが起こる！
値段を高くすると売れたりする
同じ商品を売るのに1000円で売れなかった場合、
一万円にしてみると、パーッと売れることがある。
香水や化粧品は特にその傾向があるという。
「私は一万円出してでもこれを手に入れた」
という自己顕示欲の現れだろう。
エゴが物と同一化しようとしている証拠だ。
そこから、物への執着や脅迫観念が生まれる。
「もっとほしい」という、エゴの副産物が、
消費社会の特徴である「たくさん売りたい」構造を
増強させている。
執着を絶つと楽になる
そう簡単には諦められないものも多い。
数名で一つの物を共同で使っているとする。
A、B、Cという三人が、時間を決めて使っている。
そこに、Dという人物がやってきて、
ものすごく横暴な態度で、三人が共同で
使っているものを独占し始めたとする。
裁判もかけられないし、誰も味方してくれる人がいない。
この時、「私達の」とか「私の」とか
「私の時間なのに」、「私の番なのに」と言って、
私の、私の、と騒ぐのをやめて、
A、B、Cが使っていたものや時間を放棄して、
Dに全部くれてやったらどうなるだろうか？
不思議とDは去っていったりする。
偶然かもしれませんが、よくある話らしい。
↓ いつもクリックありがとうございます。応援してください。
★ ガッツ！ 続けているともう半年後に素敵なことが起こる！
💛英語表現💛
あんたが大将！
→ You are the head hancho!
彼女には借金がある。
→ She is in the red.
どうしたらいいのかわかんない。
→ Our plans are up in the air.
彼女は秘密をもらした。
→ She let the cat out of the bag.
彼女って、最高だ！ （魅力的な人に使う）
→ She looks like a million bucks.
彼女は狂ってる。彼女は頭がいかれている。
→ She is off her rocker.
あの映画には泣かされたよ。（感動して泣いた映画に対して）
→ That movie was a real tear-jerker.
この問題では、俺達は意見が合わない。
→ We don’t see eye to eye on this issue.
