Station 3 - My Essential Reality…Growing Beyond the Ego Self

Journal Questions

***Journal reflections represent an interior dialogue with my deepest center. These responses are for me. The relational practice of journaling allows me to objectify a response in written form. This exercise may assist in achieving clarity regarding insights to share with others.

What were the images or sounds from My Essential Reality that captured my attention? What do I remember from this module?


Examples of personality patterns that sometimes catch me as I practice believing this is “who I am” include:


I understand my “ego” to be:


For me to move beyond my personality type into the freedom of the Primal Merging Gene Marshall discusses would look like:


When Father Fragomeni talks about the “dispossession of self” indicated in the “baptismal imperative,” what is he attempting to communicate?


I understand my “essential reality” to be:


How do I practice “forgetting myself” and what is Dōgen attempting to communicate in this quote?

To study the self is to know the self.
To know the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be intimate with all things.
Self drops away leaving no trace
And that no trace goes on endlessly. - Dōgen


What does it mean to:

Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance. - Thomas Merton


What other questions do I wish the group to discuss?


Group Questions

What lines, phrases, or images linger in your memory from My Essential Reality? What do you remember?

If you were to choose one of the voices in this module to converse with over the next twenty years, what quote prompted your attention and what is the nature of the dialogue you might wish to pursue?

What interesting or neurotic personal personality patterns did you find yourself thinking about as Gene Marshall discussed his history of being “a nerd?”

What is an “ego?” How is it relevant to this conversation?

What personal practices have you found helpful to “forget oneself” and to move closer to the essential reality this module invites us to explore?

Talk about what you believe Dōgen is communicating in this quote:

To study the self is to know the self.
To know the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be intimate with all things.
Self drops away leaving no trace
And that no trace goes on endlessly. - Dōgen

And… What does it mean to:

Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance. - Thomas Merton

What additional questions do you wish the group to discuss?

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