Archive for July, 2010

Some ramblings about self, no-self, labels, names, Harold and Maude, and being “Buddhish.”

Who am I?  I’ve been called shy, excessively quiet, too loud, flamboyant, whimsical, frivolous, shallow, deep, too intense, funny, boring, intelligent, smarty-pants, airhead, over-responsible, compassionate, uncaring.  Am I any of these things?  All of them?   People seem to want to label, pinpoint, define.  Maybe it’s a grasp at certainty in an ever-changing world.  Applying labels to a person is too simplistic. We want self to be a fixed entity, but it is not.

Introversion has definitely been a staple in my personality toolbox, but I am able to act in other ways, as well, and this suggests that I am not always one way or another.  None of us are always this way or that, though we tend to cling to a fixed set of definitions for ourselves.  Other people often get attached to us being one way or another as well, and often don’t like it when we behave in a way that doesn’t accord with their preset ideas for our behavior.

I am also not a name.  I use a nickname at work (to avoid confusion with a co-worker with the same name), yet some of my co-workers insist on calling me by my real name, stating my nickname doesn’t seem to fit (i.e. “You’re just not a Debbie, you’re a Deborah”)  I’ve gotten to the point of, “whatever,” with this.  I’m not sure what someone with my name looks like. It really does not matter to me so much what I am called (though I find I’m responding more to the nickname and accidentally using it when I’m not at work).  My name is a collection of letters or sounds for the purposes of identifying me.  I might be offended if someone insisted on calling me, “honeybuns,” or, “loveybear,” but my name is not who I am.

We tend to attach to the things we call ourselves:  our names, our roles, our labels, or political opinions, our religious identity.  Yet, we can get out of control with this labeling.   Part of the reason I’ve wanted to attach labels to myself, whether personality, religious, or political, is, perhaps, wanting to be part of a group, or be able to present myself to others as x, to make it easier to sum up my beliefs and ideas when there’s not time or desire for a big discussion (i.e. it’s easier just to say, “I’m Buddhist,” or, “I’m a liberal,” than to go into a long explanation of exactly what I believe and how I got there, though most labels are too simplistic).

Yet, I’ve become more and more uncomfortable with even the label of Buddhist.  I follow a Buddhist path.  I sit zazen, do my best to follow precepts, and find that I’m happier when I practice.  So why am I uncomfortable?  Why do I want to say I’m Buddh-ish rather than Buddhist, or that I feel an affinity with Buddhism?  In part, it’s because of what non-Buddhists seem to expect of me when I say I’m Buddhist.

I guess I’m a disappointing Buddhist.  I wrote and published a Zen-related article once.  An acquaintance saw it and asked, “Is this true?”  (The answer:  Yes!).  I imagine that she was thinking I didn’t seem like a Buddhist.  When I’m a Buddhist I’m expected to walk around like an “enlightened” being, making wise statements, radiating serenity to all who pass¹, instead of being an imperfect person who blunders about, sometimes radiating angst and tension rather than serene tranquility, but does her best.

Then, there’s also the matter of what other Buddhists think.  There are those people who say you can’t be Buddhist unless you believe x, y, and z (and these seem to be different things, at times, depending on what tradition you practice).  While I “believe” in the three Dharma seals, which I think are at the core of Buddhism, the word belief seems inadequate here.  I can see impermanence, and from that, no-self.  If Nirvana is the extinction of attachment, grasping, I can see where that would bring peace.  But what I can’t do is believe in metaphysical things that I can never verify.  I can’t believe in, literally, the six realms of existence² I discarded a belief in a heaven or hell after death a long time ago and to believe in this seems no different.  I cannot believe in literal rebirth, for that would suggest a self or consciousness that gets reborn.  I know I’ll come back in some way.  I’ll someday be part of all sorts of other things…and I’ve come to the point where I find this beautiful.  But there is no way for me to verify that there is any part of my consciousness that will continue after I die; this does not seem to even be consistent with the anatman or no-self.  I believe in Karma, but in the sense that what goes around comes around, just on a bigger picture level.  There’s no divine payback or cosmic justice, but what we do affects the world in ways we can’t even begin to see or imagine, and we are bound to feel the effects of what we do, the actions we have taken.  But some people would say I can’t be Buddhist because I don’t believe these things in a literal way.

The Buddha often spoke against being attached to views, speculation about metaphysical stuff, and dogmatic opinions, yet this is what we tend to do, be we Buddhist, or Christian, or of any other religion.  It’s something about wanting something to cling to in an imperfect, uncertain world.  It’s about wanting reassurance that we are right.  It’s about comfort.

There’s a part in Harold and Maude I keep on quoting, just because I like it:  Maude asks Harold what type of flower he would like to be.  He gestures toward a vast field of daisies and says he’d like to be like them because they’re all alike.  Maude points out that they aren’t – each flower has its own individuality, its own peculiarities, its own “suchness”.  “You see, Harold,” she says, “I feel that much of the world’s sorrow comes from people who are this,” (here she gestures toward the particular flower in her hand), “and yet allow themselves to be treated as that.” (gesturing to the mass of flowers).  Though this statement has some truth in it that we limit our ability to experience joy when we conform in a way that suppresses our unique qualities, it is not the complete truth.  Like the daisy and all the other flowers, we are impermanent, changing.  We are this, but we are also all that, and a little bit of everything else, too.  I’m an individual, but I’m also part of a family, part of a society, part of the human race, part of the creatures of the planet earth.  The many and the one.  I’m also what I had for breakfast this morning ³, waters from around the world, and star stuff ⁴.  I also have Shakespeare in me⁵, and, by that extension, a little bit of everything else.  Treating ourselves and other people as that may be inadequate, but treating ourselves and others as only this – as a fixed entity, with fixed qualities is probably equally so.  We are, like everything else in the world, impermanent, with fluid, changing qualities.  To hold ourselves or others as a fixed commodity is limiting.

The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.

-The Indigo Girls.

I used to think the lyrics to the song were,  “the less I search myself for some definitive…” and that seems true.  The less I seek to put myself into the box of particularities with labels, fixed definitions, “I am…” statements, the more freedom I have, and the happier I am.  The less I worry about what I am, who I am, the less stress I have.  I’m also happier when I can stop worrying about other’s opinions and expectations of me based on their views of who I am.  I’m happier when I don’t have to try to fit myself into a mold – my own mold, or others’.  I’ve been molded enough, and spent too much time trying to find my “real” shape.  Maybe the reason I haven’t found it is because it’s without a fixed form.