“The stronger your ego, the more problems in your life,” says Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

We define expressions of ego as expressions of fear-based emotions. Think about it. Your every egoistic thought, word or action is generated by a fear-based emotion. How could it be otherwise?

Your mate says something that irritates you, and you respond curtly out of insecurity (a fear-based emotion). You fear your mate does not respect you enough, or you fear your mate thinks he knows better than you, or maybe you fear what he said is true. Or the insecurity has generated an attachment, resulting in anger when your mate didn’t live up to your expectations.

Or maybe your mate is late and you want to know why. Your ego demands your mate answer to you. Are you being possessive or jealous (both are fear-based emotions)?

If you work to rise above your fears, you rise above ego and this wisdom erases karma. The more patient and compassionate you are, the easier it is to evolve beyond ego ... resulting in less problems in this life and future lives.

In his book, “Virtue and Reality,” Rinpoche says, “By practicing Dharma today we also create the causes for our own happiness (the happiness of this life, future lives, liberation and enlightenment. This is something we can do right now. Therefore, it is essential to create as much good karma as possible, while we have the chance. We should take every opportunity to create even the tiniest merit. Since we want even the smallest comfort, we have to create its cause. Similarly, since we don’t want to experience even the smallest suffering or inconvenience, we have to avoid creating even the tiniest non-virtue.”