Cultivating a healthy sense of self

Qualities of self

• Self-centered thought versus self-grasping ignorance
• Understanding self-confidence

Self-centered thought and self­-grasping ignorance (download)

Questions and answers

• Self-centered thought being separate from the self
• Handling distractions and sleepiness during meditation

Self-centered thought and self­-grasping ignorance: Q&A (download)

There’s one center of teachings in Tibetan Buddhism called Lojong. Lo means mind or thought, and jong means to train or transform. Sometimes it’s mind training, thought transformation, something like that. These teachings are similar to the Lamrim teachings, the gradual path teachings—they fit in quite well. In some of the Lojong texts, I find it quite potent that they point out very clearly, without any padding or niceties, what it is that makes us miserable and what we do that makes us unhappy. I really appreciate that kind of approach because it helps me to see things clearly. Sometimes, if I get a cushioned approach, then my mind gets confused. Is it this or is it that? I like the bluntness of thought training teachings. One of the things that they all identify as the real difficulty for us is there are two kinds of thought. One is called self-grasping ignorance and the other one is the self-centered thought.

The self-grasping ignorance is a type of ignorance that is innate. You’re born with it, it’s beginningless. It never had a beginning moment. It wasn’t because of some apple, or something like that. It’s just always been afflicting the mindstream. This ignorance projects a way of existing onto people and phenomena that they do not possess. That way of existing is very hard to see because we’ve projected it for so long that we think it’s normal and real. How we see things is how we think they actually exist. When we start to do a bit of analysis, we see that things don’t actually exist the way they appear and that what’s been projected onto them is this view that they have their own entity inside of them, that there’s something inside of them that makes them “them,” and not something else, and that they have independent existence. Because they have their own entity, then they don’t have parts, they don’t depend on causes, they are unrelated to our mind, that they’re just out there as just some absolute objective reality. That’s kind of the way we see the world, isn’t it?

There’s this objective reality and I just happen to stumble into it. Even the way we think about ourselves is that we feel we are an objective reality too. There’s this real person standing here, here I am. We have this whole grasping of an identity and, when we investigate, we see that that isn’t actually how things exist. If we take an apple, we all look at the apple and it looks like an apple. Any idiot who walks in this room should know it’s an apple, right? Isn’t that the way you see it? Out there, out there, in here, there is an apple, right? In here there is an apple. This thing is an apple, totally separate from my mind, totally separate from your mind, has its own inherent “entityness” as an apple. That’s the way it appears to us, right? If that were so, if it existed, then we should be able to find the thing inside here that’s really the apple. Because it looks like there’s some apple nature in here, so we should be able to find the apple. If we peel it, we put the peel over there. Then you get one of those core things that goes whirr, and you pull out the core, you put the core over there and you put the rest here. Is the peel the apple? Is the core the apple? Is this white thing with a hole in the middle an apple? No. You might say well, the white thing with the hole in the middle is an apple, but if that was sitting in the grocery market, a whole pile of them, of white things with holes in the middle, and it said “apples for sale”, would you buy them as apples? You wouldn’t say that’s an apple. You would say they did something to the apple. It has a hole in the middle and it doesn’t have any skin and it’s turning brown. That’s not an apple, don’t tell me it’s an apple and charge me for an apple. We see that all these things put together in a certain particular arrangement, when we look at it, we have decided collectively to give it the name apple. We’ve just decided collectively to give it that name, but when we look at the base upon which we label apple, none of those things are an apple. Are you with me?

The same thing happens when we look at ourself. When we look at our body. We’re very attached to our body: here’s my body. Let’s use the word my, that’s even better. My. We’re all attached to everything that’s mine aren’t we. My body, my mind, my family, my ideas, my image, my praise, my reputation, my job, my authority. Everybody looks mean to me, so we are very attached to my. What is it that makes something mine or my? What is it? If I say this is my cup, is there something inside this cup that says mine, that says Chodron’s? See anything? We took it all apart and the paint and porcelain, is there something mine about it? There’s nothing mine about it. We only give it the label mine because it’s sitting on this table and I happen to be using it. If it’s sitting on your table, and you use it, then you label it yours. Well, you if you haven’t mine, but you don’t know who mine is. In the same way, anything that we have, we say my room. What is it that makes it my room? There’s something in the room that makes it my room. No, but we’re pretty attached to my room aren’t we, and if somebody goes in it without permission, we get miffed. Or we think, my iPod. Mine. There’s something in that iPod that makes it yours. No. It’s only called yours, because you traded some pieces of paper for it. When you trade pieces of paper for that object then you are entitled to call it mine by our conventional societal agreement.

Is there anything mine inside of it? No. Look at our body. We say my body. What is mine about our body? What’s mine about our body? What is our body? There’s sperm, there’s an egg, there’s milk, and then everything we’ve eaten. Isn’t that what your body is? Hello? A sperm and an egg and a combination of everything you’ve eaten minus everything you’ve pooped out. [laughter] Ok, and that’s what our body is. We say my body as if there is a my that possesses this thing. When you look at it, we can’t find any my that owns it, and if there is going to be an owner, then at least we should say that one eighth belongs to our father, one eighth belongs to our mother, three quarters belongs to the farmers. Because the food came from the farmers. What is mine about this body? We feel mine so strongly, don’t we? Everything is mine. This morning we were talking about image and reputation and stuff like that. My reputation. First of all, what’s a reputation? What’s a reputation made out of? Can you see it? Can you hear it? Can you touch it or smell it or taste it? Can you? No. None of those things. What’s a reputation?

Audience: Somebody else’s thoughts.

Venerable Thubten Chodron (VTC): Yes, it’s somebody else’s thoughts. Think about it. When you say my reputation, is my reputation just other people’s thoughts? I want to have a good reputation, which means I want other people to all have good thoughts about me. All my reputation is, is other people’s thoughts. Now if other people’s thoughts are anything like our thoughts, are our thoughts very reliable? Are our thoughts about other people very permanent and fixed and reliable? Our thoughts about other people change all the time, don’t they? Whether the person’s here, whether they’re not here, whether they do something or not, our mind just, you know, changes its thought, like this. Don’t other people change their thoughts about us like that? All our reputation is, it’s just a compilation of their different thoughts. One person has this thought while another person has another thought. Do we have one reputation, or do we have a reputation for each person who looks at us? Because on any particular day, somebody is going to look and say, “Oh, Chodron, marvelous” and somebody else is going to say, “Oh, Chodron, bossy.” [laughter] You know? And somebody else is going to look and say, “Oh, so helpful.” Somebody else is going to say, “So ugly.”

On any particular day, what are the thoughts that people have about me? I mean there are so many different thoughts that come in their mind and go out of their mind in very rapid succession, and yet that’s all my reputation is. All reputation is, is what other people are thinking. What they’re thinking is like so, in the air, isn’t it? And changeable. What’s “mine” about it anyway—it’s only their thoughts. What’s mine? We say my reputation, but it’s their thoughts. What makes it my reputation? We are so attached to it, it’s kind of nutty, isn’t it? We begin to see that the things that seem so solid for us, when we examine them, they aren’t so solid. We see that they actually exist very much in relationship to our mind and in relationship to what we have to call them at any particular time. One day this cup is mine, and the next day it’s Joe’s. The next day it’s Cindy’s. The next day it’s Frederick’s. It keeps changing who the “mine” is, that possesses that. It’s quite interesting when we start looking at the things that we call mine and ask ourselves well, what is mine about that? Why am I holding onto this so strongly? That’s talking about self-grasping ignorance. How we think that things have their own entity within them, but they don’t actually exist that way. We’re confused about how they exist and so apprehend them in the opposite way from how they exist. We apprehend them as independent, but they are dependent. That’s one of the first ones, the self-grasping ignorance. That’s one of the culprits for us.

Then the second one is the self-centered thought. Sometimes it’s called self-cherishing, but I don’t think self-cherishing is a very good translation because in another way, we should cherish ourself. I mean we should cherish ourselves. We are human beings, we have the Buddha’s potential, we are worthwhile, we need to cherish ourselves. That’s why I don’t like translating it as self-cherishing. I think it’s confusing. When we say self-centered, or self-preoccupied, that resonates a little bit more. What’s a self-centered person? Somebody who just spins around themselves, who’s focusing on themselves, who’s always thinking me, I, my and mine. What’s a self-preoccupied person? Somebody who’s always thinking about themselves. We have this attitude as well, don’t we? I mean, whose happiness do we think about all the time? Mine. Whose suffering do we think about all the time? Mine. Whose good looks do we worry about? Mine. Who’s reputation are we concerned? Mine. Whose praise do we consider? Who do we want to get praised? I want me to get praised. Who do we think should avoid any blame or criticism? Me, I haven’t done anything wrong [inaudible].

Always this incredible self-preoccupation. Everything spins around ourselves. These two are identified as the culprits, as the source of our problems. This is a very different approach because usually we think that our problems originate outside. What’s the source of my problems? Well, my parents did this, or they didn’t do that. What’s the source of my problem? Well now, it’s everybody…oh, it’s my genes, you know, I’m genetically predetermined to have these problems so I can’t escape them. My DNA’s my problem. Why do I have problems? Well, the government’s unfair. Why do I have problems? My teachers are creeps. Why do I have problems? Because my brother does this and my sister does that. Always, always, always, we think that our problems come from outside, and similarly our happiness comes from outside, and so we’re always sitting there trying to grab at everything that’s going to make us happy and push away everything that’s going to make us miserable. Yet what the thought training teachings are saying is that the real culprits are these two distorted ways of thinking. The self-centered thought and the self-grasping ignorance. That those two are the real culprits.

Let’s look at the self-centered thought and see how that acts as a culprit. Well first of all, before I get into that, let me explain the difference between cherishing ourselves in a healthy way and valuing ourself and being self-centered. Because those two often get very very confused, and it’s really important to be very clear on the difference between them, because there is a conventional self, and we do have the Buddha nature, and so it’s important to respect that in ourselves, isn’t it? And if you are practicing the bodhisattva path, you do need a strong sense of self. A strong sense of self doesn’t mean you’re grasping at yourself as inherently existing, and it doesn’t mean that you’re being self-preoccupied. That strong sense of self is a feeling of self-confidence. Because if you’re going to practice the bodhisattva path, you have to have some energy and some umph. You can’t practice the bodhisattva path if you’re sitting there, [thinking] “I’m just poor quality, I can’t do anything right. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me. I can’t do anything right.” [inaudible] You can’t practice the bodhisattva path by relating to yourself in that way. We can’t practice the bodhisattva path by saying, “I’m so evil! I do everything wrong. My mind is continually polluted. I hate myself because I can’t do anything right!” That’s also afflictive.

You can’t practice the bodhisattva path by hating yourself. What we need to do is to recognize that self-confidence is something very different than being prideful, the inverse kind of pride which is hating ourself. We need a sense of self-confidence. We need to cherish ourselves in the sense that we recognize our potential, and that potential is something to be cherished. Even the qualities that we have now that make us interested in the Dharma, that the part of us now that wants to live an ethical life, the part of us that values love and compassion, the part of us that is generous, the part of us that is patient and kind and tolerant and wants to be helpful to other people, we have to respect that part of us. We have to cherish that part of ourselves. It doesn’t mean we get arrogant over it, but we cherish it because those qualities are good qualities, aren’t they? We need to cherish them because they are beneficial. Bottom line.

We also need to take care of our body because our body is the basis on which we practice the Dharma. If our body’s sick, our body’s weak, doing Dharma practice becomes much more difficult. You still can do it, but it’s certainly more difficult isn’t it? We all know that when we’re not feeling well, it’s harder. We need to keep our body healthy, and we need exercise, and we need sleep, and we need food, and we need to drink, and we need just to keep the body healthy, and that doesn’t mean we’re being self-centered if we do it with the proper attitude. It just means we’re recognizing the body for what it is. It’s the basis upon which we have this human mind and this human life which are so incredibly important and valuable for realizing the path. All of that is very different from self-indulgence or self-centeredness. Self-indulgence and self-centeredness, that’s what you were telling us about your aunt this morning. That incredible self-preoccupation with, how do I look? All of that and it’s so painful, isn’t it?

Sometimes we can be very self-preoccupied in terms of our looks, especially because of the way the society and the advertising industry talk to us. We see all these images and magazines and everything of all these stupendous looking people and we think, oh, I’m supposed to look like them, but I sure don’t. You know what? Even the models don’t look like the pictures of themselves in the magazines. Because it’s all been computer altered. What do we have? We’re comparing our body to some body that is computer altered, an image in a magazine that’s computer altered and then we’re feeling like we’re not good enough. Is that crazy? That’s crazy, isn’t it? It’s totally nuts. Or we look at what is branded as success in our society. Success is if you can throw a ball through a hoop. I have a real hard time with that one. You’re really good at throwing a ball through a hoop so that means you’re a wonderful person. Or you’re really good at mixing different chemicals together, that means you’re a wonderful person. Or you’re really good at figuring out numbers so that means you’re a wonderful person. Or you’re really good at putting color on cloth and that means you’re a wonderful person. In any case, we are fed these images of what it means to be successful, and we compare ourselves to those and we always look deficient don’t we? Always. We’re always deficient. What’s totally amazing is that we always think, if I could only be like that person, then I would be good.

Even if you get that first place, then we have all the pressure to stay first. You get the championship of whatever, now you’ve got to do it again? How are you going to do that? The self-centeredness is always thinking my way. How do I fit in compared to other people? I want to be seen as successful. I want to be recognized. I want this. I want that. I should be like this. I should be like that. All these shoulds that we put in our mind—they’re all self-centered. I should do this; I should do that, I should, I should, I should. I have to, I must, I’m bad because I’m not. It’s all stuff that people have made up as what we consider success in society, it’s only according to social conventions. Stuff that people’s minds have made up. Then we all compare ourselves to that, and we all come out deficient. Every single one of us in every single category, even if you’re first. Even if you’re the person everyone’s comparing themselves to. You still don’t feel like you’re good enough because all these other people are trying to displace you and knock you off, and how are you going to keep being that?

We compare our body, and our body doesn’t look good enough. We compare our intelligence, and our intelligence isn’t good enough. We compare our knowledge, and we don’t know enough, we compare our artistic ability and it’s not as good as somebody else’s. We compare our athletic ability, and somebody’s better than us, and on and on and on and on. Because we’ve been brought up in this culture, that it’s just saying well, that’s good and everything else, but you’re not perfect yet and you should be. Then we grow up with this horrible self-image. Horrible self- image. Then the way the self-centered mind comes in here, is that self-centered mind thinks I am this horrible image. This is me. It grasps me, and then it says, “This is unacceptable. This horrible image is me, that’s unacceptable, I hate myself. But it’s not even good to hate yourself, so I hate myself for hating myself. Then I hate myself for hating myself for hating myself.” It just goes on.

It’s all the self-centered thought because it’s all just spinning me me me me me me. We don’t worry about everybody else like that do we? Look at somebody else in the hall. You don’t look at that person and worry about their self-image, and if they’re first, and if they’re best, if they’re most beautiful, most athletic and most intelligent. You don’t look at anybody else and develop anxiety about that, do you? No. We all just focus on me. Isn’t that a bit unrealistic? I mean that there are five billion human beings on this planet, and we focus just on my image, and my reputation and my success. It’s just kind of nutty. Then thinking like this, with all this incredible self-preoccupation, does that make us happy? No way! No way! Because all we’re doing is thinking, I’m deficient in this, and I’m deficient in that. Does that make us happy? No. Does that benefit sentient beings? No. Do we do it a lot? Yes. This is why we say that the self-centered thought is the culprit. That self-centered thought is not who we are. It’s not me. It’s just a thought. You have to be very clear about that.

That self-centered thought is not who we are. It’s just thought that comes and contaminates the mind, but it is not our nature. It’s a thought that’s been lying to us this whole time. The more we listen to that thought, the more unhappy we get. I mean all of you, and you all have friends. Think about what bothers your friends and what your friends are unhappy about. When you think about your friends’ problems and their suffering, can you see some self-centeredness in there? That’s because they are paying so much attention to themselves in an unhealthy way, rather than paying attention to themselves in a healthy way. It’s an unhealthy kind of self-attention—you can see it. It’s often much easier to see in other people isn’t it? We can see other people’s hangups and problems. Why is that person so down on themselves? They have such good qualities. They are so miserable because they are so self-critical. We can see it very easily in our friends, can’t we? Can we see it in ourselves? Sometimes. Our Dharma teacher points it out. [laughter] Sometimes when we are stuck in the middle of our self-centeredness, oh, it’s so painful because everything in the world is then referenced to me. Everything in the world is always referenced to me. Then everything becomes a big deal. They put my seat in the dining room table here because that’s the place of the lowest person. Or that’s the place of the highest person. We impute all of this stuff, don’t we? There’s a chair in some place at the table. Who cares? We impute all this motivation. They’re putting me down; they’re putting me up. They think I’m bad, they think I’m good. Nobody was thinking anything when they put the chair there.

Lots of times, we just reference everything to ourselves. Oh, somebody made that comment. They were saying it to me. They weren’t saying it to anybody else. They were saying it to me. So we assume we’re always getting criticized when we aren’t. Or, we assume that we inflate ourselves. Oh, somebody looked at me. Somebody smiled at me. Oh, this nice attractive person smiled at me. Well, actually, they were just walking down the street and looked and smiled. Oh, it’s me! You see either way, we make such a great deal out of me. We don’t do anything near that for other people. When we don’t feel well, I don’t feel well. I don’t feel well! I don’t feel well. When somebody else doesn’t feel well, do you spend all day worrying about it? Thinking about it? No. Oh, so and so doesn’t feel well, let them sleep it off, it’s ok. I don’t feel well? Oh, I hurt here. It hurts here, I must be dying of cancer. You know, everything. Completely self-referenced. That self-centered thought makes us miserable because whenever we spend time paying that kind of unhealthy attention to ourselves, we get really miserable, don’t we? We’re so easily offended.

We walk in a room and two people are talking in low voices, and we go, they’re talking about me. You watch that in the community. You walk into the kitchen and two people are talking, and you walk in and they stop and you go, “They’re talking about me, I’m sure. They must have been saying nasty things because they stopped talking as soon as I came in. They must be complaining about me.” As if we’re so important, they have nothing other to think about. We are so important they have nothing else to talk about.

We just make ourselves important in ways that we’re not important, and the ways we are important, because we have this Buddha potential, we totally ignore. This kind of stuff, this is the function of the self-centered attitude. This is how it works, and we can see it again and again and again. I want this, I want that. We wake up in the morning. What do we think about? I want something to eat, I want something to drink. I want a nice warm room to come out, or to stand up in, out of bed, or if it’s August, I want a nice cool room. We’re always wanting something. How it looks to me. I don’t like that painting on the wall, I want this painting on the wall. This constant self-referencing is so painful and it’s also so unrealistic and it’s so unnecessary. We really don’t need to suffer like this, we really don’t need to.

Sometimes there is this thought, if I don’t take care of myself, who else will? Nobody’s going to take care of me if I don’t take care of myself. Haven’t people been taking care of us our whole life? Haven’t people been taking care of us our whole life? They took care of us when we were babies, they took care of us when we were toddlers, they gave us an education, they brought us up, they grow the food that we eat, they cook the food that we eat, they build the buildings that we live in, they make the clothes that we wear. Haven’t people been taking care of us our whole life? What’s this thought that if I don’t take care of myself, nobody else will? People have been taking care of us. When we really reflect on this, then it can be very good for adjusting the way we look at things and bringing things into a clearer focus.

That’s why, if we want to take care of ourself, his Holiness the Dalai Lama, says if you want to be selfish, and here he’s playing on the word selfish, but if you want to take care of yourself, take care of other living beings. Why? Because if we can care for them and they have more peace and more happiness, then first of all, we live in a nice environment with people who are happy, which is nicer for us, but also if we take care of others, then our heart really experiences the freedom and delight that comes from cherishing other people. Not being attached to them, but just cherishing them. Cherishing them is different from being attached to them. Being attached to people is painful. I mean it’s happy in the beginning, but later on it gets painful. Because they aren’t what we want, or we aren’t what they want, and they don’t do what we want. We don’t want to do what they want, so that’s the self-centered part that’s very mixed in with attachment. If we just look at others and there’s a sentient being just like me who wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer and we cherish them. Then our own heart can feel so happy just by cherishing and expressing kindness. However, that person reacts to us. If we have an agenda of, oh, I’m being kind to you so you’re supposed to reciprocate by doing this and this and this, then that’s the self-centered thoughts coming in and we’re going to be miserable again because they are never going to fulfill our expectations. If we just take delight in the process of giving, and let them be and be satisfied with just the process of giving, then there is some contentment and joy, and there aren’t the strings and confusion with other people because we don’t have an agenda for them.