Ego me, as depicted by the berk who decided, mid head shave, to leave a Mohawk on his bonce, is, unfortunately here to stay and is, luckily an OK guy.
There is no dropping the ego. The monk in a robe is a monk in a robe, he's a guy in a dress who thinks that wearing the rag makes him simple and not attached to the material world. You can not make a virtue of simplicity. The true middle path of our times is surly to wear the prison uniform of modern "fashion".
Look at people on the streets, they wear a t-shirt advertising a corporate sponsor and a pair of prison issue, unoriginal jeans or shorts. It is as if the world was a prison and the rules were to wear just that, but as a nice prison they let you pick the corporation you wished to have on the front of the shirt.
To blend in and show simplicity the monk should be in a FCUK t-shirt and a pair of shorts with lots of pockets.
Show me the person wearing a shirt they made out of cardboard they had sprayed with silver paint and glued on Christmas decorations and I will show you a person embracing their ego and unique nature. When I walk through the streets I see people hiding, blending into the crowd in prison issue attire that they paid far too much money for. Looking the same as everyone else at their own great expense.
Ego is the enemy of the spiritual seeker, that which must be slain, but individuality is the realm of the ego, and individuality is the colour of life. You have to love it as all the best spiritual truths are a paradox on top and a unified truth underneath. Be unique, be you, and don't take you seriously. Don't make a virtue of simplicity or allow your drive to be egocentricity - just be you.
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Do we know if the tramp in the park, the guru on his pedestal, the monk in a temple, or the grandmother of 10 children is right? They all are if they got there by nature alone. If the guru is a fake and the grandma the result of an unhappy arranged marriage, then they are probably not happy. If the tramp made a decision to step out of society, he may be more real than the monk who, reading scriptures all day, still watches women from his bedroom window.
A monk forced to be so could waste his whole life unhappily, never attaining truth, when the love of a woman and the purpose of a job and raising a family may have competed him. Likewise a person chasing money, working hard for his whole life to obtain the perfect wealthy retirement on a yacht - then dying of a heart attack on his first day of retirement, would have benefited from a little Dharma.
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So the line is you, the middle is you. Be egocentric and suffer the ceaseless path of always being one step from happiness. Be too tied up in spirituality and then struggle with the physical world. Pride in your spirituality is as much an ego trap as materialism and does not change the fact that shit happens. Be as spiritual as you like but when a rape victim comes for comfort then "nothing lasts" or "empty your boat" won't cut it.
The middle is balance and no ones balance is the same, even your own balance point will move and have to readjust to change.
Ultimately, be you, LOVE yourself, the one person you need to love and go easy on is you. Failing in that leaves you dangerous to all around you.
......but don't love the self, don't worship the self, remember your root is in the great mind of nature and she in the Tao. Ha! hard to be normal isn't it? ...no, just stop trying.
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