Words

When you don’t cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life that was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thought. Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much.
Don’t say this is an oaktree but say this is called an oaktree for example if you are speaking with children. They should learn that nature is more than just a label we put on. The word is just an abstraction and has nothing to do with the thing itself.

Content and Structure of the Ego

The egoic mind is completely conditioned by the past. Its conditioning is twofold: It consists of content and structure. The content you identify with is conditioned by your environment, your upbringing, and surrounding culture. It’s different for everybody.
The unconscious compulsion to enhance one’s identity through association with an object is built into the very structure of the egoic mind. One of the most basic mind structures through which the ego comes into existence is identification. One of the most basic levels of identification is with things.

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. And so in many cases you are not buying a product but an “identity enhancer”.”
What you identify with is all content; whereas, the unconscious compulsion to identify is structural. 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.
When you can no longer feel the life that you are, you are likely to try to fill up your life with things.
You can value and care for things, but whenever you get attached to them you will know it is the ego. Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on them.

The Illusion of Ownership

The Ego tends to equate having with Being: I have, therefore I am. And the more I have, the more I am. The ego lives through comparison. How you are seen by others turns into how you see yourself.

Wanting: The Need for More

No ego can last for long without the need for more. Therefore, wanting keeps the ego alive more than having. The ego wants to want more than it wants to have. And so the shallow satisfaction of having is always replaced by more wanting. Wanting is structural, so no amount of content can provide lasting fulfillment as long as that mental structure remains in place.

Identification with the body

In the west the physical appearance of the body contributes greatly to the sense of who you think you are. For many people their sense of self-worth is intimately bound up with their physical strength, fitness etc. And because their identity is based on their good looks they will suffer when it begins to fade. Physical form shares the destiny of all forms – impermanence and ultimately decay.
But it is not just the people with good looking bodies who are likely to equate it with who they are. You can just as easily identify with a “problematic” body and make a illness or disability into your identity. You may than think or speak of yourself as a “sufferer”.
If there were nothing but thought in you, you wouldn’t even know you are thinking. You would be like a dreamer who doesn’t know he is dreaming. So there must be more: a new dimension of consciousness.

The ultimate truth of who you are is not I am this or I am that, but I Am. If for example a person lost everything so there is nothing left to identify with, the ego is looking for something new to identify with. Sometimes this situation results in complete freedom if there is no new identification. The spirit is released from it’s imprisonment in matter.

Waiting means you don’t like this moment. Whenever you are “waiting” why not practice being instead of waiting.