Be Nobody (10 page)

Here's how it goes, if you're like me: We encounter a complex, constantly changing person or transitory situation, and then we freeze-frame the picture and impose some immutable characteristic on our snapshot: “He
is
a bad person; she
is
a liar.” Passing judgments like this—and we all tend to do it, don't we?—denies a basic fact of life: everything and everybody is impermanent and in a perpetual state of flux and change.

We know how complex we are—each one of us is an incredibly intricate mass of experiences, proclivities, memories, opinions, influences, and feelings. We're so complex, it's hard to know who we really are! But when we encounter one another, we seem to forget that others are at least as complicated. When such meetings occur, it's like one tiny edge of the huge balloon that is “me” touches a minute portion of the massive balloon that is “you.” And on such paltry, fragmentary evidence, I make my determination: “He is such an irritating person! She is so conceited!”

“Judging,” observes author William Young, always “requires that you think yourself superior over the one you judge.”
³
And it is always in the service of ego-enhancement, for as Eckhart Tolle points out,

There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right. Being right is identification with a mental position—a perspective, an opinion, a judgment, a story. For you to be right, of course, you
need someone else to be wrong, and so the ego loves to make wrong in order to be right.
⁴

Judging is, therefore, both deeply implicated in ignorance and precludes any sort of deep sense of kinship between ourselves and others. Instead of bringing us closer, the tendency to judge tears us apart. Rather than helping us appreciate our commonalities (including our common tendency to be judgmental!), judging imposes a rank order where (in our imaginations, at least) we're on top and others cower guiltily below.

As Mother Teresa said, “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
⁵
And as Jesus advised long before, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” What goes around will come around: “For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”
⁶
We know how unfair and hurtful it feels to have others judge us to be essentially this or that—wrong, bad, ugly, stupid, and so on. And yet, as usual, we create the causes for more of this by doing it to others.

•  •  •

Now, let's be clear. To refrain from judging does not mean that we no longer are allowed to make distinctions among things. In Buddhism, the ability to discriminate is counted as one of the five physical and mental parts, or “aggregates” (
samskaras
), that make up our very being.
^I
We cannot help but discriminate; it is innate to our nature, and without it everything would be one big indistinguishable blob.

But there is a difference between judgment and what we might call “discernment.” To discern means simply to recognize things as distinct from one another (from the Latin
discernere
,
dis
- meaning “apart” and
cernere
meaning “to separate”). And with its connotations
of being able to recognize or comprehend something (“He discerned a pattern in his behavior”), it is not bound up in ignorance (as with judgment) but rather it is the essence of wisdom.

While judgment inhibits learning, discernment is the very soul of it. It functions to distinguish, among other things, what works to bring happiness and what doesn't. Discernment involves identifying what is good for ourselves and others and what is not; what will be useful in our quest to live the good life, alone and in company, and what will only bring more pain.

Discernment is discrimination minus the self-righteousness and egoism that accompany judgment. It is fundamentally egalitarian rather than hierarchical—what I correctly discern to be beneficial for myself will also be good for you. Hurting others, selfishness, self-cherishing, and, yes, judging are not conducive to happiness, either for me or for anyone else. Loving-kindness, compassion, equanimity, and wise discernment bring happiness to anyone who cultivates them.

Discernment helps us honor Jesus's advice to take care that there be no hypocrisy fouling our evaluations:

And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me remove the speck from your eye”; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
⁷

There's a difference between different modes of differentiating. It's not discrimination that's the problem here. But we often exercise the discriminating capacity in a judgmental modality, a way of differentiating that is conducive neither to our own happiness nor to the betterment of our relations with others. This very same ability
to discriminate can be used to appreciate the distinctive and unique beauty and goodness in every particular thing and being. We all are indeed special somebodies . . . equally special in our own way.

One way to foster a healthy exercise of discrimination is to note that in every person there are good attributes as well as bad; in every situation, no matter how difficult and challenging, there are positive aspects and things to learn. Every cloud has a silver lining; every “problem” can also be seen as an opportunity; every person possesses at least some admirable and loveable traits if we look for them.

We perversely are so drawn to the negative side of things that we systematically ignore the positives that are always present—in ourselves, in another person, in a situation, and in groups (national, ethnic, social, economic, or religious) other than our own.

It's like when we get a small sore, cut, or scratch. The whole rest of the body is fine, but instead of thinking about all the bits that are OK, all the parts that are working well, we become obsessed with this one little scab and we keep picking at it. We fixate on the dark cloud instead of the silver lining.

Since we all innately have the ability to differentiate, why not exercise that power to choose that which will bring more happiness to ourselves and others instead of less, and that which will bring us together rather than separate us?

Whether we pride ourselves on our individual status, possessions, or accomplishments, or on our association with a national, ethnic, or religious group, when such vanity serves to prop up our sense of importance, it sets us up to fall.

Egotistical pride is universally regarded as an obstacle to true spiritual progress, and therefore to true happiness. In the Tibetan
Buddhist tradition, pride made it onto the list of the top five or six of the “mental afflictions” that militate against our sense of well-being and contentment. The whole of the religion known as Islam takes its name from the Arabic term for overcoming one's pride and practicing submission (
islam
) to God's will. And in Catholicism, pride is listed among the “seven deadly sins”—and, indeed, is often regarded as the worst of them. C. S. Lewis calls it “the essential vice, the utmost evil”:

According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil; Pride leads to every other vice; it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
⁸

Pride is a vice not so much because it is “bad” but because it is self-destructive. From a karmic point of view, as we shall see below, pride is one of the principal causes of depression and low self-esteem. What is elevated too high will fall very low; what rises up into the stratosphere comes crashing down into the depths.

Pride sets itself up to lose, in both the short run and the long run. In the short run, pride can only sustain its illusion of superiority by remaining a big fish in a small pond.

In my own case, I have taken pride in my intelligence since I was in elementary school. I remember feeling quite pleased back then to think that I was the smartest kid in my class. This may or may not have been true—relative “smartness” is slippery to measure, and memory definitely plays its tricks—but in any case there were only twenty or thirty others to whom I could compare myself.

Convincing myself that I was “the smartest” was less sustainable in high school—especially since I nearly flunked eleventh grade due
to truancy!—and even harder to maintain in college (there was that course in logic that I just barely passed, and plenty of other ego deflators and reality checks along the way). But it really wasn't until I got to graduate school that this particular illusion was completely blown out of the water. The truth finally penetrated through all the levels of self-deception that sustained my pride. It became indubitable that there were plenty of people way smarter than me—for there they were, lots of them, teeming around me at the university every single day.

And then, of course, a new mental affliction arose: envy. But that's a different story.

The point is just that pride in anything (intelligence, wealth, technical skill, physical beauty or strength or flexibility, or even in one's supposed spiritual attainments) can only be maintained in willful isolation from those who would challenge it.

While depression and problems associated with low self-esteem are on the rise, it is not contradictory to observe that it is actually the narcissistic
overestimation
of the self that lies at the heart of this beast. One modern expert has baldly stated, “There doesn't seem to be a great deal of really low self-esteem. The average person already thinks that he or she is above average.”
⁹
This double-faced Janus—simultaneously insecure and arrogant, self-abasing and self-absorbed—is consistent with the neurosis that arises with the self-preoccupation definitive of our culture.

So here's one helpful hint for solving the problem of pride: If you're liable to take inordinate self-regard due to your intellect, go to Harvard or the University of Chicago and hobnob with some hardcore eggheads. If you are vain about your good looks, stop hanging around with people you feel are obviously uglier and enter a beauty contest!
If you think you're so amazing because of your money, quit socializing with those who have less and chill with really rich people! If you think you're cool because of the flexibility you demonstrate when at your local yoga studio, go to an international yoga conference and check out the real competition.

Get the fish out of the small pond and into the ocean!

Pride takes a lot of work to maintain and prolong—not only in light of the constant real-life challenges to its inflated sensibility but also because of the impermanent and changing nature of the things we take pride in. The financial position or professional status, the popularity and fame, the cleverness or brainpower, and (especially!) the appearance and abilities of the physical body are unreliable. That's why pride and insecurity are actually two peas in a pod.

But it's the long run—the karmic consequences of pride—that we're especially concerned with here. So let's cut to the chase, shall we?

Led by pride into the lower realms, they are even in this human life deprived of joy. They will be servants who feed on others' leftovers—stupid, ugly, and weak. Stuck up with pride and miserable, they will be despised by everyone.
¹⁰

As we unpack this verse from the Buddhist classic
Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life
, we see that, first of all, the karmic principle of “What goes around comes around” is here reformulated as “What goes up must come down.” The high shall be made low; the first shall be last. The proud will sink in the afterlife into “lower realms,” and even in this life will feel inferior, like “servants” of others. Those who take pride in their intellect will see themselves as stupid; those whose arrogance centers on their good looks will
regard themselves as ugly; and those vain about their strength will feel weak.
¹¹
Having been too proud, one perceives oneself as inadequate intellectually and physically and, in general, will feel unloved by others (“despised by everyone”).

The proud, according to the laws of karma, will become the depressed.

But what's really interesting and insightful about this passage is that it also states that the proud will remain proud, even after they have been brought low: “
Stuck up with pride
and miserable,” the text says, pointing not only to the idea that karma tends to replicate itself (one of the effects of pride being a future propensity to continue to feel pride), but also to the fact that
one can be proud even while simultaneously feeling miserable, inadequate, and unloved
.

Or perhaps it's like this: it is possible to be
proud of
feeling miserable, inadequate, and unloved.

•  •  •

Medical science has not identified any single cause of depression. A whole array of factors, external and internal, is said to be capable of triggering it in any given individual. External causes might include family conflict, interpersonal conflict, bereavement, job loss, major life changes, and drug or alcohol abuse. (Sounds like a description of life itself, doesn't it?) Internal causes seem a bit more vague: previous negative experiences (e.g., a history of depression), “personality” (e.g., a tendency toward perfectionism), medical illness, and “family disposition” (i.e., bad genes).