Is Humility a Doormat?

Do not choose bad friends.

Do not choose persons of low habits.

Select good friends. Be discriminating.

Choose the best.

Dhammapada 78

My understanding of true humility teaches me that I am worthy of the best in love and compassion. I deserve the best in companionship, the best intimate relationships, the best in everything and that includes the best beyond pretense. That doesn’t translate, however, to treating those I cannot get close to as anything but another manifestation of the divine. In my daily affairs I will run into people who cannot be trusted and cannot be expected to do anything that goes beyond the boundaries of self.

There is a distinct difference between discrimination and judgment and the wise know this well. Discrimination is an aspect of humility that does not judge but sees things as they are. Humility doesn’t make me blind to the horrors of the world around me but it sees behaviors, including my own, as they are. As I meditate I come to the Heart of Compassion with my inner eyes wide open (inner eyes that some refer to as the third eye). When I see humility in this light I come to understand that it doesn’t mean I become anyone’s doormat but rather I become helpful to those who suffer.

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geo, 4,695

The Jitterbug of Creation

To sit quietly and breathe when I first rise is the most important single thing I can do today of my own volition. When I have a conversation with my innermost self… an agreement or disagreement… something miraculous happens if I pause and give some thought as to who is having a conversation with whom. I realize then that I am not merely a consciousness separated from the world by a bag of skin named George. Something far greater than that is happening if I can extend my understanding to see that this consciousness is somehow connected to the cosmos… that there is a cosmic intelligence in this energy operating through my bag of skin from me to you an you to me.

This cosmic intelligence is the Heart of Compassion some call God and it is within this spirit that I can join in the dance of creation. The resistance of my ego wrapped in this bag of skin to remain a wallflower in the Grand Promenade of Creation is fostered by the notion, or fear, that I can’t dance… oh, but I can dance if I allow myself to be moved when the Jitterbug breaks out into to the rhythm of this wild bump and grind of God. I have a choice: I can stand on the sidelines and tap my feet in isolation as a spectator or I can get out on the floor and dance through this day enthusiastically in joyous harmony and unbridled exuberance with your spirit.

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geo, 4,694

Bathing the Baby Buddha

Trying to be right and kind with an eye for the perfection of the Heart of Compassion is no simple task if I expect to achieve it on any ambitious and grand scale. However, I can take the concept of perfection in the little things and, absolving myself of the failures and shortcomings of my daily affairs; it is possible to at least proceed in kindness to others. Thich Nhat Hanh’s description of perfection in the Miracle of Mindfulness asserts: “I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Jesus a bath. Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness; compassion, irritation, and teapot are all the same.” This is a simple thing to try but not so easy unless we see it in this way. Any parent who has ever given their child a bath knows how loving, kind and pleasant this chore can be if it is done selflessly and in the moment.

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Emotional Gyrations

Emotional gyrations of the sort we are tempest-tossed and confounded by are often those that arise by one form or another of self-importance or self-deception. I get upset by people or events because they either pass me by or have no respect for my person. A wise man once said, “Our enemies tell us more about ourselves than our friends.” How many times have I leaned on a friend only to have all the contrivances and folly of ego verified or justified? Our enemies teach us patience and humility while at best our friends can simply abide with us. A true friend knows his/her heart is prejudiced and all comfort outside of accurate evaluation is of no help. Being unable to get past the salve of codependence bordering on salaciousness we miss an opportunity, to not only grow, but to find resolution in place of conflict. If we are to find peace in our own lives…as distasteful and as frightening the prospects… we lay down our personal defenses without laying down our altruistic principles.

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geo, 4,692

Samsara Sucks

A movie was made of Water for Elephants, the novel by Sara Gruen. I saw it and it wasn’t a bad flick but, what hooked me from the beginning of the book, was the scene in the opening chapter about the old-folks home where old Janowski lives… (It was left out of the movie: aging seems to be too much a downer for Hollywood). He says,”I used to think I preferred getting old to the alternative, but now I’m not sure. Sometimes the monotony of bingo and sing-alongs and ancient dusty people parked in the hallway in wheelchairs makes me long for death. Particularly when I remember that I’m one of the ancient dusty people, filed away like some worthless tchotchke.” If I can’t find any humility in that inevitability I am doomed to go to the end with nothing left of me but regret and suffering.

I know that in my heart I still don’t get that particular point. Hell, I’m sixty-two and am only beginning to grasp the notion that I won’t always be as healthy and brilliant as I am today. And thirty years ago I never expected to live long enough to be as frail and as feeble of mind as I am today. Time alone couldn’t suck the pride out of me but it helps. It is all samsara and, in the words of Chogyam Trungpa, “Renunciation is realizing that nostalgia for samsara is full of shit.” And I might add, “…just like one day my Depends will be.”

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geo, 4,691

My High Horse

The alarming thing about such pride-blindness is the case with which it is justified. But we need not look far to see that this deceptive brand of self-justification is a universal destroyer of harmony and of love. It sets person against person, nation against nation. By it, every form of folly and violence can be made to look right, and even respectable. Of course it is not for us to condemn. We need to investigate ourselves.

The Best of Bill,  Humility, p. 40

*****

What we believe of the events around us is important but I have found that, if I am honest with myself, most of what I base my positions on politics is an emotional and knee-jerk response corresponding to whatever paradigm I have accepted as the truth. All I have to do to test this is to have a conversation with someone whose beliefs are different than mine. It is harder than I thought to move off what I believe no matter how open minded I think I am... no matter how well I've thought out my positions... how absolutely right, I am almost willing to go to war... to joust the windmills to the death from my high horse. When I discovered this I saw the source of conflict in the world. But what if the folks I am upset about are taking the rest of us down a perilous path towards destruction? What do I then? Do I take my spiritual axiom to the extreme and withdraw from the dialogue completely when all reason or passive resistance fails? Where would we be if Gandhi or Martin Luther King would have just prayed instead of stepping out of their safety zone to stand against injustice? On the other hand, where would the Western World be if Churchill would have surrendered to Hitler? Of course, these are extreme examples but they are sourced in the battle within. Let me resolve the battle within for direction as I rise from my cushion to follow the Heart of Compassion.

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geo, 4,790

The Best of Bill: May 1st

 

Therefore our practical question is this: “Just what do we mean by ‘humility for today’ and how do we know when we have found it?”

            We scarcely need to be reminded that excessive guilt or rebellion leads to spiritual poverty. But it was a very long time before we knew we could go even more broke on spiritual pride. When we early AAs got our first glimmer of how spiritually prideful we could be, we coined this expression: “Don’t try to get too damned good by Thursday?” That old-time admonition may look like another of those alibis that can excuse us from trying our best. Yet a closer view reveals just the contrary. This is our AA way of warning against pride-blindness, and the imaginary perfections that we do not possess.

The Best of Bill  (pp. 38-39)

*****

I don’t know why the early AAs chose Thursday as the day one ought not try to be “too damned good for” but I suspect any day would be a good one. It could be by Sunday for most Christians, Saturday for a Jew, or Friday for a Muslim. 

Chogyam Trungpa calls "spiritual pride", instead, spiritual materialism. People who love us, and are not alcoholics or addicts, usually tell us we ought to be proud to be sober as long as we have been. This is a fine sentiment and I am grateful for the spirit in which it is expressed. However, it is not healthy for me to take excessive pride for the time I have been sober. The spiritual practice that keeps me sober is a thirst for spiritual progress tempered by humility that allows me to grow with or without acknowledgement, for good or bad, from others. I am so very grateful I have family and friends who are supportive of my sobriety but many others have no such thing. In the end it is my contact with the Heart of Compassion that keeps me sober and not the recognition or accolades of others.

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