Your defending a wallet, thats not survival thats preservation of your belongings not your life.

And if the person trying to mug you doesn't give up? Or pulls out a knife? I can see this situation escalating quite quickly. A situation that could have been avoided if the ego was kept in check, and the wallet handed over.

Yes its satisfying a ego but again your defending honor not life.

Same as above - a situation can escalate quickly, and sometimes we don't even realise how things got to be so bad.

If anyone tries to take your life, or might I add if you are starving and need food or water to live ego doesn't come into it. You just need to live...

We choose to eat exotic foods and drink fine drinks and by having these we are surviving but if all that was taken away you wouldnt care what food it was so long as you are fed and watered...

Most people wouldn't think of going and killing a cow or rabbit and start eating it because you might think the process is gross and you wouldn't wanna get covered in guts and yuncky stuff because of your image...
However if you had no choice you wouldn't care about that...

All true. But we're not talking about starvation, we're talking about fighting/being attacked/martial arts.

Well actually we was talking about material wants and why the mind desires such things...

To reiterate Su Lin's earlier post - is there any way to be involved in a fight without ego?

(newbie question alert!) I was wondering if the composure, calmness or presence of mind developed during practice relates to ego in any way?

You can suppress the ego when fighting.
In fact most of us do that when training as we have a clear mind. Pride, being better than someone, looking good, doesn't always come into it...

There's more than the ego that contributes to our actions when fighting. As a rough some up your ego is more of a concious process of whats happening.
If you fight just to beat someone or be better than them just for the hell of it, your fighting with an ego because it makes you feel good then its more of the ego.

If your defending from a mugger or whatever then the ego is suppressed because your intention changes from concious fighting to defending your life. Your not trying to look good your trying to defend yourself from harm.

I believe it is possible to fight without an ego even in competition. But that doesn't mean losing the ego to fight is the best thing for you.
I train to suppress the ego because of my own philosophy but it will always be there.

Thanks Ryusui_Ryu.

Wonder what Pete makes of all this???

Wow - what an incredible response. Clearly guys you all at some point have given this some thought. Its certainly an issue playing out in my mind at the moment.

Addressing the first half of this topic.... I have a vision of happiness. Its doesnt include gold plated objects but its a level of existance that is about the recent survey 'that all a young male needs to survive is 13k' I place great emphasis on family and friends but again in the world we live in for them to have the best in life you need money. For example, theres no way in hell I want my parents to have the NHS dealing with their health issues in later life - I want the best and that requires money.

With regards to how this topic evolved into ego and survival. Thats a difficult one.

Surely not wanting to be a victim is egotistical?

Stick this in your Martial Edge pipe and smoke it Pete;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego,_super-ego,_and_id

Id, ego, and super-ego are the three parts of the "psychic apparatus" defined in Freud's so-called structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described. According to this model, the uncoordinated instinctual trends are the "id"; the organised realistic part of the psyche is the "ego," and the critical and moralizing function the "super-ego."

It should be stressed that, even though the model is "structural" and makes reference to an "apparatus", the id, ego and super-ego are functions of the mind rather than parts of the brain and do not correspond to actual somatic structures of the kind dealt with by neuroscience.

The concepts themselves arose at a late stage in the development of Freud's thought: the structural model was first discussed in his 1920 essay "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" and was formalized and elaborated upon three years later in his "The Ego and the Id." Freud's proposal was influenced by the ambiguity of the term "unconscious" and its many conflicting uses.

The terms "id," "ego," and "super-ego" are not Freud's own but are latinisations originating from his translator James Strachey. Freud himself wrote of "das Es," "das Ich," and "das Über-Ich"—respectively, "the It," "the I," and the "Over-I" (or "Upper-I"; thus to the German reader, Freud's original terms are more or less self-explanatory. The term "das Es" was borrowed from Georg Groddeck, a German physician to whose unconventional ideas Freud was much attracted.[1] (Groddeck's translators render the term in English as 'the It'....SNIP etc etc

PeteMills wrote:
Wow - what an incredible response. Clearly guys you all at some point have given this some thought. Its certainly an issue playing out in my mind at the moment.

Addressing the first half of this topic.... I have a vision of happiness. Its doesnt include gold plated objects but its a level of existance that is about the recent survey 'that all a young male needs to survive is 13k' I place great emphasis on family and friends but again in the world we live in for them to have the best in life you need money. For example, theres no way in hell I want my parents to have the NHS dealing with their health issues in later life - I want the best and that requires money.

With regards to how this topic evolved into ego and survival. Thats a difficult one.

Surely not wanting to be a victim is egotistical?


Having enough to live on is all good but it changes when you are striving for more and more in the hope it will make you happy when you probably won't be.

Ah yes Mule, Frueds take on the id, ego, super ego!!

Its difficult to understand the real differences in the phsychy in relation to these elements.
I'm no professor but we understand a basic concept of our ego a such in relation to pride, arrogance, greed etc.

By not wanting to be a victim is that not being egotistical?? hmmmm interesting, I can see why that question would be raised and in all fairness I don't know a solid answer but in my opinion...

Partly yes but it depends on if you don't want to be a victim through the idea of it being scary and traumatic or...
Not being a victim because your better than those scum and they wouldnt dare touch you because you will kick there scum butts...

Also in a way thinking it won't ever happen to you is egotistical... But the ego also doesn't always mean a negative thing that makes you a ass hole. The ego is a process which as a mechanism can make you react differently to certain things.

You must of heard of 'Big ego's' this is usually referred to people who are arrogant etc...


You see its very complex, I am in constant research into the human psychology and more things I know the less I understand!!

PeteMills wrote:
[quote]However, my emphasis here is on the spiritual. I still pine after material possession, I want the flash car and big house etc. Should my MA training have taught me something here? Or is it a question of not been shown the way in my training?[quote]

Not sure if your looking for an answer in the wrong place. Quite often a lot is made of finding peace and spirituality in the martial arts, probably because of tv shows like Kung Fu and period kung fu films. However, should you expect to get some sort of spiritual learning from training in martial arts any more than playing five-a-side or going to the gym?

I think a lot of us in the martial arts world at one time or another have the lovely idealised views of chinese warrior monk meditating in the shaolin temple or the samurai writing a poem in calligraphy. The problem is this is the 21st century and the world we live in, whether we like it or not, is a capitalist society. We need money to eat, we need money to provide shelter, we need money to provide clothing, we need money to provide for children, etc.

It may not guarantee happiness, but ultimately having money gives you choices. Should you feel guilty for making money and using it to enjoy yourself? I don't think so.

If your looking for spirituality then perhaps you might want to look at other areas, such as religion if that's your thing. However, if your happy having some materialistic tendencies then don't beat yourself up about it! I don't think that there is any moral high ground in being poor.

As for ego, I'm reminded of how someone described me when I was at uni. They said I was so arrogant that I didn't feel the need to show my arrogance.

However, should you expect to get some sort of spiritual learning from training in martial arts any more than playing five-a-side or going to the gym?

Controversial Steve! In one swift sentence have you not just dismissed 2000 years of martial culture?

I think he means that it isn't as relevant today- people tend not to live their lives completely embroiled within that martial life, we do martial arts but we aren't warriors. I usually struggle to see how I would get spiritual enlightenment from training - I see martial arts as being seperate to something spiritual.Yes maybe once when warriors fought to the death had a far more spiritual outlook but I'm not so sure it's relevant in today's society.