Humility and Conceit

Or, You are perfect just as you are

When I decided to get sober and attend meetings, I started hearing a lot about “authenticity.” At the time, I did not understand what it meant to be “authentic,” at least in recovery spaces, much less why it was often described as a cornerstone of Twelve Step programs. The New Oxford American Dictionary offers the definition “of undisputed origin, genuine.” Under the entry for genuine, I found: “truly what something is said to be; authentic.” Neither was terribly helpful.

More helpful was the repeated emphasis on being humble and humility. Even here, though, I still crawled around in darkness until my sponsor and I started working on Step Seven together. Step Seven reads:

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

As with previous explorations of the relationship between Buddhism and the Twelve Steps, this post is limited in scope to the first word of Step Seven.

I write elsewhere about my decision to replace God with the Three Jewels of Buddhism: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Lately, my Guiding Teacher has spoken of a fourth jewel, the Zendo (meditation hall; place of practice), that field which co-arises along with the Teacher, the Teachings, and the Community. If you are fortunate to have a Dharma center near you or any place where you may sit, walk, reflect, and breathe deeply, please offer your time and energy to care for it. Such spaces are vital.

Similarly, I will leave the expression “remove our shortcomings” untouched. I continue to wrestle with how to understand it. You can read my “wrestlings” in the posts linked at the end of this one. I welcome all comments and suggestions, too. Recovery is not something we do alone; maybe it cannot be done alone. Instead, we do it together.

What is humility? What does it mean to be humble or to ask for something humbly? I want to approach these questions obliquely, specifically through a talk on sitting practice by Kobun Chino Roshi, using the Metta Sutta (Lovingkindness Sutra) as a point of contact. And please do not worry—there is plenty of Dogen Zenji, too.

The Metta Sutta, as translated from the Pāli by the Amaravati Sangha, opens with the following:

This is what should be done
     By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who seeks the path of peace:
     Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
     Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
     Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm and wise and skillful,
     Not proud or demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
     That the wise would later reprove.

When I started exploring Buddhism and its teachings about fifteen years ago, the Metta Sutta was the first I committed to memory, initially only this first part. I remember being struck by its clear statement of how someone can move with the world. I was inspired, too—I wanted to be that practitioner, skilled in goodness and walking the path of peace.

Another striking feature is the pairs of qualities that appear in a handful of verses. The qualities that form each pairing are not synonymous, nor are they entirely unconnected. Their selection and arrangement feel deeply intentional.

For instance, the pairing of peaceful and calm with wise and skillful recalls Buddhism’s two “wings”: compassion and wisdom, sometimes expressed as “serenity and illumination.” Without the former, meeting what arises without judgment or prejudice can be challenging. Without the latter, it can be difficult to discern the appropriate response to what arises. Both are essential to navigating our relationships—those nearby and far away—in wholesome ways.

Similarly complimentary, if not mutually reinforcing, is being “unburdened with duties” and “frugal in [one’s] ways.” Frugality, whether in a strictly economic sense or more generally, reduces the obligations we must satisfy to put food on the table or maintain our reputation in a particular social circle. And there is, from my point of view, delight and ease in not feeling “weighed down” by one’s To-Do List. In the absence of such a burden grows a spaciousness that loosens attachments to thoughts of I-me-mine. Looser attachments to the ego or “small self” keep our desires well-balanced, which, in turn … you can fill in the rest.

Thus, I expect to shine some light on humility by spending time with what it means to be conceited or to be without or with little conceit.

A sign of spring from the grounds of O-An Zendo

This brings us to an instance when Kobun Chino Roshi shared his thoughts on zazen (seated meditation) practice. He opens with the following:

Buddhism grew out of the enlightenment experience of Shakyamuni. We don’t know exactly what his experience was, but evidence of Buddha’s experience comes from the basic teaching that our refuge is our own experience. So our teacher, Dogen Zenji, advised us that the way of the Buddha is discovering your own self.

Even though the desire to sit is a kind of imitation of the historical Buddha, many Buddhists do not do this practice. Actually most Buddhists don’t sit in zazen. They think it is conceited, taking the attitude, “You think you can do the same thing as Buddha.” But from my search for what kind of teaching Buddha gave, the teaching is, even today, that if you say you cannot sit, that’s conceit. Not to feel that the importance of your life is as important as the historical Buddha, that is a conceit. You don’t condemn your life by merely observing the helpless state of your own self. Life is absolutely rare.

These are powerful words—especially those in italics, my italics—partly because they invite a broader understanding of how we judge ourselves, specifically when we compare ourselves with others.

Sometimes, being conceited means having “excessive pride in oneself.” Other times, it means “a fanciful notion.” Both are in play here, but I want to focus on a third way in which the quality of being conceited appears in our lives: when we devalue ourselves and underestimate the importance of our lives.

The point is brought into sharp focus when Kobun proceeds directly to the extreme, which is, at the same time, arriving right where all of us are. In this instant, your life is just as important as Shakyamuni Buddha’s life. Period. The offering is not that your life will be just as important if you practice and study for ten, twenty, or thirty years. It already is right now.

You might doubt this, however. You might point out that you are not an accomplished religious or spiritual teacher, that you were not the inspiration for a major world religion. You might share that you cannot meditate or at least cannot do it well. Why? Perhaps you cannot fold your legs into a pretzel; perhaps when you sit down, your mind races more than when standing in line at the grocery store. You may offer a long list of ways in which greed, anger, and ignorance influence your actions, contributing to your suffering and the suffering of others. You may state plainly that you are not enlightened. So, how could your life be as important as Shakyamuni Buddha’s life?

“All right,” I would reply. “Still, you are not quite right.”

Please do not confuse your life being as important as Shakyamuni Buddha’s life with your life being Shakyamuni Buddha’s life. These two things are not the same, and the latter is not necessary for the former.

The importance of your life does not depend on your being an accomplished religious or spiritual teacher; it does not depend on your inspiring a major world religion; it does not depend on your being able to fold your legs into a pretzel; everyone’s mind races from time to time, especially when we sit down, and this includes Shakyamuni Buddha; and it does not depend on never being caught up in greed, anger, and ignorance.

And as for your supposed non-enlightened state, the truth is precisely the opposite: you are enlightened. Of that, I assure you.

So Dogen Zenji writes in Bendowa (On the Endeavor of the Way):

Know that fundamentally you do not lack unsurpassed enlightenment, and you are replete with it continuously. But you may not realize it, and may be in the habit of arousing discriminatory views, and regard them as real. Without noticing, you miss the great way […]

And in the poem Zazenshin, we read

The essential function of each single Buddha, 
The functional essence of each single ancestor, 
Manifests as not-thinking, 
Completes as not-merging. 

Manifestation as not-thinking, this manifestation is intimate of itself; 
Completion as not-merging, this completion is verified of itself. 

This manifestation that is intimate of itself is never defiled; 
This completion that is verified of itself is never absolute or relative. 

Intimacy that is never defiled, this intimacy is liberated without relying on anything; 
Verification that is never absolute or relative, this verification is genuinely actualized without any attempt. 

The water is clear to the bottom; fish swim like fish. 
The sky is vast, reaching into the heavens; birds fly like birds.

By being wholly and completely yourself in each instant, you radiate effortlessly, and the brilliance of your life shines in all directions.

There is another way of understanding Kobun’s words, though. This is the perspective from which you reveal your excessive pride born from attachment to a fanciful notion.

To believe that “You [cannot] do the same thing as Buddha” is to single yourself out as so special—unique even—that you are the sole exception to a way of being with the world that is open to everyone. Yet doing this is, at the same time, a way of devaluing yourself and underestimating the importance of your life.

By overestimating yourself and the importance of your life, you simultaneously underestimate yourself and the importance of your life. You err in both directions and in both ways not well.

There is a sense in which you can do this, by which I do not mean that it happens all the time. For that, while true, misses something significant.

Kobun goes on to say

Nobody can tell you what you have been; you have to see it yourself, what you have gotten and how things are going.

No one can tell you who you are, where you have been, or where you are going. You are the unquestionable authority for your life and your experiences. And at the same time, your sight is often clouded by dust. Mine is too, by the way.

To be the unquestionable authority does not always mean to be right; it does mean to be the source in and through which decisions about moving with the world ultimately arise from and return to. It is fundamentally up to you how you are and how your life unfolds. In this sense, you are the unquestionable authority because you are entirely responsible.

So if you say, “I cannot sit because I am not Shakyamuni Buddha,” that is on you, no one else. Or if you say, “I cannot be the practitioner outlined in the Metta Sutta, skilled in goodness and walking the path of peace, contented and easily satisfied, not proud or demanding, straightforward and gentle in my speech,” that comes from you. Nothing is standing in your way but yourself, which is to say your judgments, or as Dogen put it above, your “habit of arousing discriminatory views, and regard[ing] them as real.”

The good news about all of this is that, as the unquestionable authority for your life, you can reorient yourself. Every instant presents an opening in which you can pivot and turn around freely. And you can do this because, just like Shakyamuni Buddha, you are entirely and necessarily free.

Another sign of spring from the grounds of O-An Zendo

The crucial insight here is that by underestimating yourself and the importance of your life, you simultaneously overestimate yourself and the importance of your life. Or, by overestimating yourself and the importance of your life, you simultaneously underestimate yourself and the importance of your life. Conceit runs in both directions, eventually collapsing into itself. The result is that we miss “the great way,” which is another way of saying that we miss the opportunity to show up for ourselves and others.

This brings us back to humility, being humble and humbly asking for something when circumstances encourage such a response. What can we say about humility in the light of this exploration?

The expression “being right-sized” comes to mind, an expression I also heard often in recovery meetings. As I understand it, the “right” here is not a moral right—its use does not invite considerations of what is right or wrong, good or bad, or virtuous or vicious according to an independently existing and universal moral code.

Rather, the “right” in the expression “being right-sized” has the same sense as the “right” found in each spoke of the wheel that together constitutes the Noble Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. Here, “right” signifies what is appropriate, skillful, and wholesome, and what is any one or all three of these things, and, therefore, “right” is determined by the particular circumstances in which we find ourselves. To use the favored expression of my Guiding Teacher, the “right” is “exquisitely specific.”

And so I want to close by sharing one more insight from sitting with this topic for the past week, using another passage from Dogen Zenji.

Perhaps my favorite passage in the entirety of Dogen’s writings appears in the Genjōkōan (Expressing What Is Most Essential). It reads:

No creature ever falls short of its own completion. Wherever it stands, it completely covers the ground.

These sentences are yet one more expression of this post’s central theme: that you are never deficient, never lacking in anything, are neither better nor worse, neither more nor less, but always full, perfect, and whole, necessarily.

Still, my practice recently has been revisiting favored passages with greater attention to their context. So, here are the sentences that immediately precede the passage.

When a fish swims in water, there is no end of the water no matter how far it swims. When a bird flies in the sky, fly though it may, there is no end to the sky. However, no fish or bird has ever left water or sky since the beginning. It is just that when there is a great need, the use is great, and when there is a small need, the use is small.

In this way, no creature ever falls short of its own completion. Wherever it stands, it completely covers the ground.

What I had overlooked in the past and see with some clarity now is how completeness co-arises with the particular circumstances in which we find ourselves and manifests differently depending on the particularities exquisitely specific to those circumstances.

To be wholly and completely yourself in each instant does not mean that you appear in just one way at every instant. Our innate completeness is one thing; its expression—what it is to be right-sized, to be humble—is another. The ability to be adaptable, flexible, and therefore responsive to what arises requires that we hold lightly how we judge ourselves and others and the comparisons that inevitably arise because of those judgments.

From a place of unceasing trust, we shine; with awareness that nothing is missing, we move unhindered. We meet each moment directly and respond accordingly; our size always “right” because there is nothing to prove, only those to serve.

For some additional reading, you might check out these recent offerings:

Resistance

Step Five: Part Three

Step Five: Part Two

The quotations from Kobun Chino Roshi are from “Embracing Mind: The Zen Talks of Kobun Chino Otogawa.”

Some quotations from Dogen Zenji are from “Treasury of the True Dharma Eye,” edited by Kazukai Tanahashi. Other translations are by Francis H. Cook, also from the same.