As far as Buddhism is concerned, ego is ego. There's no such thing as Western ego, Eastern ego, Buddhist, Christian, whatever, ego is ego. Now, it's helpful in that way to understand that as far as ego in concerned in Buddhism, we're thinking of the word "conceit". Conceit is one of the very last attributes that disappear for anyone before they are enlightened. It's virtually the last thing.
Conceit means the thought "I am". Put anything after that. "I am a man", "I am Steve", "I am a teacher", "I am, I am, I am..." That's conceit. As long as we keep those thoughts "I am" we have conceit and we have an ego. So in Buddhism that's really what we're talking about. Now "You are famous meditation teachers, how has that affected your egos?" Rosemary and I try very hard for it not to affect our egos. When we are praised by many people at the end of a retreat, you've seen what happens, everybody is happy and a lot of people thank us. I don't actually take praise in that sense from brand new people as to meaning much of anything. I'm glad they're happy on that day, I'm very glad, because I've seen retreats when people are not happy. But as to them praising me, I don't see that's anything for me to develop any ego about, because a lot of them, a week or two from now, aren't going to be meditating any more. Some of them end up hating what their time was here. Some of them will become something else besides a Buddhist. So when people praise us we try not to take this as anything to do with "me, me".
Now many people come back a second time like all of you, and some of you come back again and again. We do take that as praise, indicating that what we're doing is good. Otherwise people wouldn't come back. But still we try not to allow that to affect our ego. We're just doing something very good, it's that simple, that's just a fact. I don't have to get a big head, I don't have to dwell over it, I don't sit down on my pillow and say, "I'm a teacher, I'm a great teacher, I'm ..." No, no, no. Those things have to be knocked off, they have to be thrown away, that's all pain, that's all an ego being caught up in statistics, in what we are outside. So as much as possible we try not to develop any kind of extra ego out of this practice. If anything, we try to go in the opposite direction, realizing the danger of it all.
I mentioned before that we're going to be talking about the eight worldly conditions later, and praise and blame are two of them. Without wisdom, these two conditions can be deadly, absolutely deadly for spiritual teachers. This is why people become like Jim Jones, or David Koresh in Texas, where 20 odd people died at that time, and again, with some person in Switzerland, 20, or 30 people died in a circle, committing suicide
To become attached to the praise and the fame as a teacher, and this is not just for a spiritual teacher, even University professors, etc., it's deadly, it can be suicide, because the person then forgets why they are doing the teaching. All we're doing here is trying to pass on information, teachings that we understand concerning the Buddha-Dhamma to try to help people lessen their Dukkha and find more inner peace, that's our purpose for being here. Our purpose is not to become something or someone.
But when you're good at something, then normally you become famous. It's just par for the course, it's just a normal thing to happen. So as long as Rosemary and I consider that it's just normal, that we do a good job, then that's fine, we're not allowing the fame to make any big ego.