Premise: we are what we think about. Being nothing requires one to think about nothing. It's actually quite a lot of work to think about nothing! The brain is constantly solving problems while awake and while asleep, building up momentum.
Proposal: Instead of expending massive amounts of energy bringing an object of such high inertia to rest, why not just change the inputs you are feeding it to gradually alter its direction? Don't focus on the cessation and extinction of the turning of mind. Focus on feeding the turning of mind solvable or aesthetically pleasurable problems, to decrease the bandwidth occupied by unsolvable\fear based problems.
tldr: I'm not convinced the epicness of ego destruction is necessary for ego transmutation, if that is one's goal.
edit: Well, I just realized my analogy does not hold for all cases. In Physics, if you want to change the direction vector of an object in motion, to the opposite of its present heading, it will require at least as much energy as bringing the object to rest. So focusing on ego destruction could be worth it depending on where you want to go and where you are now.
Additionally, we also know from Physics that all motion is relative, velocity cannot be measured without a frame of reference. I think the Buddhists would argue that cessation of the turning of thought provides this otherwise missing frame of reference, enabling the thought\ego vector to accurately be measured when the turning of thought restarts.
Being nothing is not the goal here. By being nothing, with no thoughts or motion, we would be dead!
The point here is Understanding that we are nothing, to make it easier to let go of the material world, or to let go of any pains that befall us. In this way we have calmness, and gain wisdom.
As for your analogy, that our thoughts and selves are an object in motion, which we must curb to reach a desirable point in space: the reality is, there is no object.
>As for your analogy, that our thoughts and selves are an object in motion, which we must curb to reach a desirable point in space: the reality is, there is no object.
Ah, how convenient, a single objective reality where nonexistence is possible :)
To more precisely define my analogy and convey my understanding: current thought is a recurrence relation with previous thoughts. Inertia is the strength of the recurrence relation, the degree by which previous thoughts determine present thought. This is measurable as neural adaptation and learning. Ego or self is an observed distribution of thoughts occurring during a certain duration. As with statistical distributions, we tend to construct parameter estimators to make sense of the data[1].
Now, as with statistics, whether these generated parameters contain information and are useful in describing the distribution is up for debate and dependent on the question the investigator seeks to answer. But simply stating 'there is no object' is as sensical and productive as claiming 'there is no mean, there is no standard deviation'.
Ah, I see. I'm sorry, I thought the object was ego, but if it's thought in that abstract form, then that was my misunderstanding of your explanation.
Indeed, you are correct in that analogy, to that extent.
No apologies necessary, I did indeed use a newtonian object as the particular for ego in the first analogy. In regards to abstract forms and mental constructs as not existing in the same manner as objects, I'd disagree with you and the OP and hold that they do exist, at least in the same manner that everything else can be said to, if anything else is said to. In other words, I would assert there is no difference in types of existence nor duality between existence and nonexistence, object and nonobject, that is derivable and non-arbitrary. What I would concede is that an ego (and everything else) is "empty" of perfect causal independence. In other words, it must be emergent and generated.
Proposal: Instead of expending massive amounts of energy bringing an object of such high inertia to rest, why not just change the inputs you are feeding it to gradually alter its direction? Don't focus on the cessation and extinction of the turning of mind. Focus on feeding the turning of mind solvable or aesthetically pleasurable problems, to decrease the bandwidth occupied by unsolvable\fear based problems.
tldr: I'm not convinced the epicness of ego destruction is necessary for ego transmutation, if that is one's goal.
edit: Well, I just realized my analogy does not hold for all cases. In Physics, if you want to change the direction vector of an object in motion, to the opposite of its present heading, it will require at least as much energy as bringing the object to rest. So focusing on ego destruction could be worth it depending on where you want to go and where you are now.
Additionally, we also know from Physics that all motion is relative, velocity cannot be measured without a frame of reference. I think the Buddhists would argue that cessation of the turning of thought provides this otherwise missing frame of reference, enabling the thought\ego vector to accurately be measured when the turning of thought restarts.