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20100629GRAANL8

1:50

Kindly generate bodhimind, [saying]:

At least for the benefit of all mother beings, I would like to obtain the stage of buddhahood for which I would like to listen, learn, practice, and develop perfection.

So, both: mind of total dedica-… altruistic plus personal interest combined together. Combination. It looks like a contradiction, but that’s how you generate.

And today, before I go, continuously going [/continue], uh, you know like Shantideva’s… that we have talked yesterday: the Shantideva’s :

Whatever joy there is in this world, all comes from desiring others to be happy; and whatever suffering there is in this world, all comes from desiring myself to be happy. What need is there to say much more? The childish work for their own benefit; the Buddhas work for the benefit of others. Just look at the difference between them. If I do not actually exchange my happiness for the suffering of others, I shall not attain the state of Buddhahood. And even in this cyclic existence, shall have no joy.

So we talked that yesterday quite detail. We need not to talk more. However, last night, somebody raised a question, uh, two points. One was saying self-cherishing or self-grasping comes when the people’s self-esteem is too low, and that you need it. When your self-esteem is okay and then you don’t have grabbing for the self-cherishing. Uh, that is one question.

Somebody else raised another one, and, um, saying, and we are so much beat up by our self, for our self, within that… (I’m sorry, my eyes is not working very well, is that Billy, or…? Oh, okay. So I was wondering if it’s Billy or Jill!) So, anyway, so, self-esteem and this self-cherishing. So that is a practical question that we do. We really do have that big – I think Cindy’s the one who told me, right? And there’s somebody else who said, who is it? I forgot. Who? Somebody else said something else. So…uh, I forgot. Do you remember? Somebody talked to me last night. Maybe the person’s not here.

So anyway, the most important thing is this: self-esteem. What is the difference between that, what do we call that self-cherishing, and self-esteem? So wondering this thing you know, it’s clear to me [that] self-esteem is you have to build up, you do have to build up, you have to have it. Self-cherishing, you can see what Shantideva’s talking. So how do make a distinction within us? This becomes self-esteem; and this becomes self-cherishing. I think that… I don’t think we can simply say something and draw a line, but I think we need to think and I’m sure those psychologists and also those who are teaching psychologies, I’m sure they have their own definition. So, we’ll be happy to hear and see what we could find. Before I say anything, I’d actually like to hear – but everybody would have something to say – but let me hear from Tony. [8:52]

Can pass that thing to… yeah? Look that way and talk…

Tony: honestly, it’s not something I’ve thought a great deal about recently, but self-esteem, what came up to me was that self-esteem has to do with, is similar to self-respect. It’s recognizing that one has inherent quality, that one has goodness that they can connect with; and that one should feel good about oneself, uh, not necessarily better than others. What I get from self-cherishing is a fixation or a looking at oneself as sort of the center of the universe that needs to be protected against all others. I don’t know if that’s getting to the point, but that’s what immediately came to mind.

Rinpoche:You say that because you are influenced by a Buddhist?

Tony: I’m not sure.

Rinpoche: Mahayana Buddhist?

Tony: Because I’m thinking of the concept of self-… well, self-cherishing is a Buddhist concept which does not really exist in Western Psychology per se.

Rinpoche: Oh, it does not?

Tony: Um, In that particular instance – I mean I can’t say it doesn’t exist because certainly there are impulses for self-preservation; there are sort of, um, egomai-.., things like egotistical or egomaniacal activity which are considered not pro-social, things that are not good for you. But the idea that organisms, whether it’s people, human beings, or whether it’s animals, protect themselves, is very fundamental. I mean this is the primary thing that organisms are thought, or brains are thought to be evolved to do, is to protect oneself. Now I think that in social creatures, social organisms, certainly protecting oneself, can also be associated with protecting one’s baby, protecting one’s friend, protecting a kin, protecting a member of a particular social group, and this would be… maybe, I mean, I think this is sort of… I think that there is a lot of thought, or controversy maybe, whether that, um, protection of a kin member is sort of an extension of the idea of self, or if there is a self and other, even a concept of self among non-human organisms is, I think, very controversial, but, for myself, when I think of the difference between self-esteem versus self-cherishing, self-cherishing being a Buddhist concept in terms of being seen as something that’s problematic. I think most evolutionary psychologists, most psychologists, see protecting oneself as very important, and that the development of ego… so if you look at psychodynamic thought, development of ego is very important. We have to protect oneself; this is a good thing; this is how we are able to function in the world. But I think that even, you know, within psychodynamic thought, or other types of psychological thought, there seems to be a distinction between an appropriate self-cherishing, or appropriate way that one can protect oneself and develop oneself, and maybe one that is too self-centered, and too overblown – it doesn’t work well with others. It’s not pro-social.

Rinpoche: I have a follow-up question. When you use ‘ego,’ what definition of that ‘ego’?

Tony: From that, I’m probably relying on Freud’s definition and the subsequent psychodynamic thought, psycho-dynamic, meaning kind of the schools of psychology which have grown out of psychoanalysis and subsequent thought. So there, I mean Freud didn’t say ‘ego,’ by the way, he said ‘Ich.’ He said ‘I’ and ‘Super-I’ or ‘Over-I’ and ‘It,’ the thing. Which then, when it translated, the English turned it into ‘Ego, Super-Ego, and Id,’ which is actually Greek, because it didn’t sound… because people, I think, you know, wanted it to sound a little bit more elegant, you know, than saying ‘I’ or ‘Over-I,’ so they use ‘ego’ and ‘superego.’ So ego just means the normal… I mean from a psychodynamic thought – there’s other people that know much more about this than me – um, but my understanding is in psychodynamic thought, the tripartite mind has an ego, which is sort of your normal, everyday, uh, functional self [13:40] which we have manifest and conscious awareness of; you have the Superego, which is a sort of an overseeing side, sort of a repository of feelings of guilt, feelings of goodness, what you should be doing; and you have the Id, which is sort of the source of kind of carnal desire, of lust, and other libido, and things like that, and, you know, liking food, and attachment.

So you can think of this in a way, related to, kind of, maybe wisdom, maybe, sort of basic attachment and anger and sort of consciousness in between. But that’s very rough. But that’s what I mean by ‘ego’ when I say ‘ego.’

Rinpoche: Looks like Buddha ???? completed right?[14:28] ???

You have remarks? Right, right, right. What about Ann? Do we have small, portable, hand-carry one? Uh? Don’t walk in Jonas’s territory! You’re in trouble.

Audience: I think the part that I agree with the most… I mean I agree with the description of psychodynamic theory, but I’m not sure…

Rinpoche: What is psychodynamic theory?

Audience: It’s one theory of psychology, and it’s, um… what I think to me is most important is the idea of self-esteem and self-respect being very close together. And in psychology, or psychiatry, the self-respect is based on, you know, being a decent human being, being someone who has some self-determination in your life and a number of other things like that. I think the distinction in the Buddhism is that it’s based on something much greater than that. And the self-esteem that is necessary before it’s possible to practice something like ‘Exchanging Self and Others’ has to be grounded in goals that are greater than a single life. Otherwise this could be seen as overwhelming rather than an empowering thing. To exchange oneself for others is a step towards the goal that’s the basis of one’s self-esteem and self-respect. So, I don’t know. I can’t comment on practices like this simply within a limited, one life, psychology view. And that’s, unfortunately or fortunately, that’s the box within Western psychology operates.

Rinpoche: Good thought, thank you. You have something more to say?

Audience: Well, the only thing I would add is that the exchange practice whereby you would be willing to give up your life for someone else, which is – I mean all the examples that are given from the Jataka tales, you know, you sacrifice… the Buddha sacrificed himself so the tiger wouldn’t eat other people or gave up his life… or cut your arm off, or cut a piece a piece of your thigh off so that the maggots could be taken from the dog with your tongue – all of those stories are counterintuitive to conventional psychology. Why would we want to do that? And I completely agree with Ann that if we didn’t have the overarching goal of enlightenment or a better future life or any of the Buddhist goals whatsoever, there’d be no reason in Western psychology to do those things. Self-sacrificial behavior is counterintuitive because, as Tony said so clearly, you know, the ego wants to stay alive. We want to survive, and we want to triumph in some ways. And to give up our life for someone else, there has to be some other reason for us to want to do that.

Audience: Although naturally a mother will walk into a fire to save her child

Audience: And Tony did speak to that because he talked to the idea of kinship.

Rinpoche: [laughing] That’s right.

Audience: And that’s the bridge, obviously.

Audience: And that’s what we’re doing, mother compassion, compassion like a mother for her only child. And that’s… but that’s not a leap. We don’t look at it as the child and how they look at the mother; it’s how the mother looks at the child. And it doesn’t take a second thought. I hear women all the time say, ‘I’ll walk in fire to save my child, but not my husband.

Rinpoche: [laughing] Yeah, I’m coming to you. We will pass that onto someone else. On that side. Elizabeth’s hand’s up. You want to say something, anything, Amy? Maybe after a little, okay. Let’s pass to Elizabeth first and then I want to hear from Deborah.

Audience: Rinpoche, I’m reminded of a teaching that you gave in 1996 – no, seriously, this was huge for me, I mean, huge, I think I’ve reread this a hundred times. We were speaking about the first verse of six session yoga which said, you know, ‘In my heart I turn to the three jewels of refuge; May I free suffering beings and place them in bliss,’ and a question was raised as to, ‘Hey, I’m not gonna make a vow that I can’t keep, and I don’t see myself as being capable of freeing all sentient beings and placing them in bliss.’ And your response was: that is because we generally have a limited sense of who we are, and, in fact, the decision that you cannot have the sense of yourself being able to free all sentient beings and place them in bliss is a form of self-cherishing, that you have a…

Rinpoche: Can you repeat that, what…?

Audience: The sense of being a person who can’t make a vow to free all sentient beings and place them in bliss is, in fact, a narrow sense of self-cherishing. The person has a context of who they are, okay, they have defined who they are, and that person does not define themselves as a person who may be able to free all sentient beings and place them in bliss. And that just… when you said that, it totally shifted, you know, at least my perception, of what, you know, how do you take a vow that is beyond how you think of yourself?

Rinpoche: Thank you. Hartmut? No comments? Deborah?

Audience: So, Rinpoche, when you were asking initially what is the difference between self-esteem and self-cherishing…

Rinpoche: We need to know our-self. We are saying: here’s where we draw the line. This is this. This is that. So, somehow we have to come on that quite clearly.

Audience: So, as a psychologist and as a practitioner, I want to attempt to answer both sides of that. From the self-esteem point of view, traditionally psychology that Tony was describing and Ann was describing, includes the notion of this ego and superego and id, but there are other theories that I find much more able to speak to the issue of self-esteem. The category is called relational psychology that is based in fundamental neuro-scientific research on the neurobiology of relationships and based, in fact, according to… John as you were talking, to what happens between parents and children, in particular, mother and child, that is, at its core, a life supporting engagement of relationship between a vulnerable one and somebody who’s in charge of caretaking, and that there are all sorts of biological processes that support that…

Rinpoche: Did you say ‘biological’?

Audience: …Biological processes that support life at the beginning of life in the child. So there’s a neurobiological substrate to the process of engaging in relationship that supports development. And when that goes well, when there’s the nurturance in place to support growth and thriving, flourishing – what comes out of that is self-esteem. To me self-esteem points to a relationship that is working well towards life-giving connection and development. So the child in such a relationship says: I am loved; I am known; I am cared about; I have permission to be all that I am. This psychology is again based in basic understanding about the very nature of what it means to be alive. We need this level of support in order to become fully we’re capable of becoming. So self-esteem to me is not just a quality of: I’m okay, or, I’m great, or, I can do things. It’s really based in this felt sense of: I see myself in your eyes, and because I see you loving me, I feel that love in me. So when I came to the world of Buddhist practice and I listened to the teachings of becoming compassionate, I immediately thought of what I understood from the world of psychology around this relational experience. To me, it was a kind of, almost, isomorphic relationship. It was a kind of relative of… the psychology model was a relative description of a really profound reality about what it means to be human. And in the Buddhist teachings, it added an amazing layer of profound truth that further grounded something that I have seen in this mundane world of, you know, helping people. So, I see them very simpatico, there’s resonance there.

Now, in terms of self-cherishing, the way that I envision that from a psychological view, is what we know in terms of disorder. There’s a notion of narcissism, for instance, where the sense of grandiosity: I am in the center of the universe, I matter, other people don’t matter. Um, there’s a sense of a… it’s an ignorance, an obliviousness to the surround, the nature of relationship, the sense of other, the needs of others, and, and, deep suffering that comes with that. To me, that’s a mundane example of what it means to be self-cherishing. So the two, it seems to me, one indicates the suffering, the other, the joy. To be self-cherishing is suffering; to be imbued with a sense of self-esteem is a sense of joy because of the nature of connection with others in a loving relationship.

Rinpoche: Thank you. Cindy, you have something more to say on that? (28:59) That’s your question.

Audience: That was my question, and, um, there was a second part to it! Because I think that… when I think about self-cherishing, what I was asking was, not necessarily a person who’s a total narcissist or complete like anti-social person, but regular people like everyone in this room who’s… everyone in this room is a good, nice person, who wants to be helpful. And we also are full of self-cherishing, and, you know, to different levels. And I was just trying to understand that as… what would prevent me from, you know, my actions that I do, pulling… it seems like a lot of self-cherishing is just to build yourself up, to fortify yourself, because you feel afraid, or you feel weak. And so people do that in different ways. And then the purification, remember I was asking you about that? I said that in the meditation that you led us through, the purification is the second half. It’s the reminder, it’s the cleansing, that underneath all that we are pure and good. And if we keep doing those practices to remind ourselves that we’re pure and good, we might be able to relax our self-cherishing behaviors, because we don’t need our addictions to make us feel safe. I don’t know if that makes sense to anybody else, but…

Rinpoche: I think it does, of course! I think maybe Supa or Khenpo, do you have anymore comments? What do you think? How about Kathleen?

Audience: I don’t know if you talked about this yesterday, or if this is old hat, but the word self-cherishing often is confusing to people who are new to this and it causes kind of a split in your mind, because cherishing is a word that has a very positive and beautiful connotation, and when you use it to describe ego centered behavior – ego in the Buddhist definition of ego – then … that’s my comment. I think it’s problematic.

Rinpoche: Okay. Chris? No, okay. So let it go to Amy.

Audience: I don’t know how much I have to add because I don’t really know anything about psychology. But back to the issue of self-esteem and self-respect, to me, I think they’re completely connected with a healthy sense of self, a healthy ego that we need to operate in conventional reality that we need to acknowledge the existence of. And that self-esteem is a realistic understanding of our good qualities and not… without an overreaction to the bad qualities, without beating ourselves up. And the thing that I’ve always found in coming to Buddhism is that so many of us come without that, without that healthy balance of understanding the good qualities, but, you know, over-reacting to the bad qualities and beating ourselves up. And to even begin practice, it seems like we need that in place. So… and then also the trouble comes in when, you know, the understanding the distinction between self-cherishing and protecting yourself in a healthy way, boundaries not over-extending, not risking your mental health or your physical health, all of these things come in.

[34:00]

Rinpoche: I’m overwhelmed with this. Honestly. It raises another question of… question within me. Even the Buddhist spiritual path, within the Buddhist spiritual path alone, I can’t say much about those… the points that you are raising by the different psychology thoughts. But within the Buddhist spiritual practice alone, I raise a question for myself. Is this the thing that we still could not let it go? So we try to hold on. Self-respect, and a certain portion of ego we have to keep it, and I have to build it up… sort of could not let it go of it. is that the case? Or in that case, are we, are the Buddhas urging us to give up totally for self-value? I mean let’s skip the cherishing. Totally self-value, and replace it by the value of others. And we couldn’t do that, that’s not… because remember this is the secret, profound, both, remember? So we just cannot let it go, so we are sort of hanging on here by finding another hat under which we can cherish.

Or… but it’s also absolutely true, the whole thing, the whole thing, the whole practice itself, the whole thing, is making improvement and better the individual. Yet we are ssaying self-cherishing is bad, it’s not this. So, is that that you’re going to let it go, or everything out, and then replace it by the cherishing, by extreme altruistic dedication? So within that are we going to find the true self which is going to go to the enlightenment? Is that the case? Or what is it? I think that raises another question?

Audience: … If you don’t recognize what it means to value yourself, how do you give it up? If you don’t recognize it to begin with?

Rinpoche: Well, giving it up is not that big of a deal. Honestly, just don’t bother about it.

Audience: so lots of people give up, they volunteer to put themselves into danger for things, but sometimes they do that for selfish motives as well, and crazy motives.

Rinpoche: So I think we have more questions than answers here. But I think it’s important to pay a little attention rather than when you read this text, when you read about it, when you teach about it, and when you meditate, you have to do something. But you have to put a limit and someday you have to move, that’s true. And however when you’re really going to go reaching to that level, is that totally replacement of self completely? But on the other hand, if look in the wisdom aspects of it, they simply tell you something’s not there. So the compassion path is also… so maybe that’s what they try to tell us, or something was lost in between. Or, what is it? I think it’s something that we have to think more, then drawing conclusion. In my opinion, that’s what my thoughts are.

And now we’re really going beyond [40:36] what we call ego, or what is definition of ego, and what is it, and what is definition of self-cherishing and all that. I think we’re just going beyond that, a little bit beyond that, and seeing are we really getting deeper in the water and sinking up to this level, or what is it? Right? And I’m supposed to swim and guide you right over there. So I think that’s a question that we have to consider. But that doesn’t mean you hold back, we hold back our practice! ‘I don’t know what self-cherishing means, so can’t think much about it.’ and that will be another pocket for laziness to hide.

So, any remarks Sarah?

Okay, so we have more to think [about] than conclude. And I probably somewhere we have to go beyond the definitions. I really think we do. Ann wants to add something. And Tony wants to add something, too.

Audience: Um, I just want to know if you think… the way I think of these practices is these are practices for bodhisattvas or aspiring bodhisattvas and um…

Rinpoche: We are supposed to be.

Audience: Yes, and I wonder if some of the …without that as the intention, then these don’t make much sense. And that’s all I wanted to say.

Rinpoche: That’s true. But those who are thinking they’ll make sense and those who are not thinking, that doesn’t make sense.

Audience: So, Rinpoche, thank you, what was coming up in my mind – and I agree strongly with Ann that in regard to… about this point when you ask about, you know, what is the psychological difference…

Rinpoche: Yeah, I know, I know.

Audience: …between self-cherishing and…

Rinpoche: I think we have to go together, because I don’t think we can ignore each other. We have to go together.

Audience: but I think it’s also important to recognize that Buddhist psychology and Western psychology really has very different referents, it has very different goals – in many ways, in some ways there’s a lot of ways where they go together – but the goals, the referents, the ethics. For example, Asanga may have been institutionalized, you know, if they caught him out there cutting ff his leg. That’s crazy, that’s insane! Yet from a Buddhist standpoint – recognizing as Ann points out – the Buddhist standpoint has a different cosmology, it doesn’t see only this particular life as being important, it sees many lives, it has different ethics in many ways. There are many parts of basic human goodness that I think are quite shared, in my opinion, between Western psychology and Buddhism. There’s points of basic compassion. So also Deborah was talking about sort of the neurobiology of compassion, of maternal love, for example, and of secure attachment. So in psychology attachment is considered one of the best things possible. Having secure attachment is fantastic. This is what you strive toward. You know, it’s using the same word in a different way, of course, but I think it’s important to recognize that, where I think there’s quite a bit of distance in which… in terms of basic human goodness and pro-social emotions, that Buddhism and Western psychology travels together, that I think there’s some profound differences and perspectives.

Rinpoche: True. Thanks. I think Heather McKenzie wants to say something. She’s raising… Can you pass that back there? No, don’t get up. Just pass it because everybody has hands.

Audience: Thank you, Rinpoche. I just want to say when my… it took me a long time to think about what a self was because it seems like self is used in one way that you’re trying to get rid of it in the annihilation, you know, frame, and the other way, there’s a sense of self with self-esteem. And what I do in my practice is I give up everything that is identified as impermanent to me, and then I also… I’m left with a part of myself that seems like my aspiration for my Buddha nature, so, which eventually someday will join in spontaneous creation of bliss and void, you know, so, it’s not… I feel like I’m full when I give up the impermanence, the impermanent things. So I’m not losing myself.

Rinpoche: Okay. Can you give that behind there?

Audience: Thank you. I was just thinking about the Tara practice we do in the morning, how we’re building up all these qualities in ourselves. And that would be the self-esteem part, the capability, and so forth, and the self-cherishing would be the not-that. But the self-esteem seems pretty clear to me as far as being capable of stopping your self-cherishing.

Rinpoche: Okay. I think Madeleine wanted to say something. Somebody may have to get up and walk to Madeleine.

Audience: You know, to me, the place where self-cherishing, self-esteem, and self-compassion all come together is in this simple phrase: I and all beings.

Rinpoche: Huh?

Audience: When you say ‘I and all beings..’

Rinpoche: Oh, I and… okay, I’m sorry.

Audience: Because at that point, you’re leveling the playing field. You’re putting yourself with every other person, every other being. There’s none above; there’s none below; there all there on one level. So that’s where it comes together for me.

Rinpoche: Thank you. Now David and Hartmut, both. David. You don’t have to sit like this, some young guy can sit… You’re an old man, you know that!

Audience: Um, maybe I’m making it too simple, but let me try anyway. It seems to me self-esteem… well, first of all, going back to what Amy said about feeling that you are good, recognizing your good qualities, not getting hung up on your bad qualities. I would take it even a step further - that ultimately self-esteem is realizing we are good apart from qualities good or bad. I mean I guess it’s Buddha Nature; it’s realization of our Buddha Nature; of our fundamental potential for enlightenment; our fundamental being enlightened we haven’t realized. But we don’t have that because we’re in samsara. I mean, we’ve lost that. I mean whether it happened historically, or whatever, but here we are in samsara, we’ve lost that. And what happens is we lose that natural sense of self-esteem, and as Cindy said, we replace it by a self-cherishing which is a separation of ourselves, from the world, from others. And our goal is to get back to both of… to the… fundamental self-esteem of our Buddha Nature and we do that by… one way we do that, according to the practices is by working on the self-cherishing, working to weaken it, working to strengthen the cherishing of others which is kind of like trying to work back up the ladder that we fell down. I don’t mean to make this sound like a temporal thing, like it actually happens in time, but maybe it does. But it’s sort of conceptual…

Rinpoche: Right, right.

Audience: It’s an antidote. Sorry, it’s an antidote to that fall - to take a Western, kind of, metaphor. And so we’re trying to get back to that really primal self-esteem, which is the recognition of our Buddha Nature, and with it, the fundamental interconnectedness of all beings, ourselves with others. We’ve lost that and we’re trying to get back to it. And when we lose it, we fall into self-cherishing and when we get back to it, we recover it. We recover that fundamental nature, that fundamental realization of our nature.

Rinpoche: Very good. Thank you. Hartmut.

Audience: I think you said it right at the beginning, when we did the motivation, it seems contradictory to say, ‘I want to become a Buddha.’ It’s the biggest egomaniacal idea – for the benefit of others. So how do you put both together? And Shantideva, the same guys who says, you know, exchange yourself for others, also says, ‘I will conquer everything. nothing shall conquer me. I, a child of the lion-like conqueror, should remain self-confident in this way.’ So you need this enthusiasm and this power of self-empowerment. And at the same time, you use it to eliminate the self. It’s very strange.

Rinpoche: I think we’ll pass now to… no, no here. Dimitri.

Audience: I was just thinking a very simple distinction between self-esteem and self-cherishing is; the more self-cherishing I have, the more I’m thinking about myself, the more I’m worried about myself; the more self-esteem I have, the less I think about myself. Real confidence…when you really feel self-esteem, it’s like you’re no longer thinking about yourself at all, you’re curious about the world around you, and you walk out and you just do your thing and you’re relaxed. And the more you have self-cherishing, the more it’s even an issue. So it’s just a simple definition for me: the more comfortable I feel, the more I’m able to go out and be like, ‘Hi! Who are you?’ I’m curious about your experience or whatever’s happening, and you can do your thing and relax. And the more self… it’s like shyness or egotism or anger, all those things that come from the self-cherishing, whether it’s picking yourself up or diminishing yourself, it’s because we’re still worrying about ourselves so much. So in a way, like the simplest definition, or distinction, for me is the healthy self-respect is when you, kind of, completely lose any thinking about yourself anymore; you’re just in the world.

Rinpoche: Okay what does she want to say? Thank you, Dimitri. This is MTV view?

Audience: What I was thinking was that when you value yourself, when you have self-esteem, you can do things for others without expecting anything back. So whether you’re a mother, whether you’re a teacher, whether you’re a friend, you don’t feel like you’re giving yourself to somebody else, you’re just doing it and you’re not expecting anything in return. And I think that practicing that and being selfless and altruistic is the best way to improve your self-esteem because you get something back that you’re not asking for – it comes back in time.

Rinpoche; Okay, Chuck is the last person.

Audience: I think it’s very interesting how we talk about self-cherishing, self-esteem, and self-respect. The question I have is how do we determine our self-respect and self-esteem? Is it based externally on punishment and rewards? If it is so, then self-cherishing is the external manifestation of our self-respect. So this whole issue of ‘How do we define ourselves?’ is an interesting one in terms of self-respect. It’s very limited… all external punishment and reward is very limited. All we have to look in the United states is our prison system, it’s based on external punishment and rewards. All the research now also shows that if you have a reward for doing a good thing in public, you will actually lose interest in doing that. So it’s interesting, it’s all externally based. So my whole point is: maybe self-cherishing is how we define ourselves externally, and it’s the fictitious ego that keeps the culture and entertainment industry happening, and that’s why it happens that way.

Rinpoche: Thank you. And that’s the end of questions. But we have to end somewhere.

As I said earlier, I think there’s more questions than answers. But some points are extremely important because the terminologies are used by different… and it means something else, and that’s very definitely true. And also here, really, on the one hand, we’re saying, I mean we here, the self-cherishing is absolutely not good, and our aim is to get rid of it. We may say it is bodhisattva… inspired by bodhisattvas, but I think we have to think… if one thinks about enlightenment as a result of practice, and then that’s definitely only the point. Only the point.

And love compassion has a sort of profound path, and I think that applies to all. And if you don’t take love-compassion as the profound path, something other than that… helping ourself and uplifting, then the question differs. Otherwise, I think it does.

(1:00:21) So, I still have the same question. It doesn’t clear to me. Are we supposed to give up everything, walk away? And then find something else? Because on the other hand, you say, ‘I have to build this, I conquer this,’ as Hartmut called it, and all those. So it’s really a question that we have to think, and think a lot, meditate, practice. There has to be an answer for that. It think the answer individually has to find within that. And somehow I don’t like to dismiss by saying ‘this is right, that’s not right’. I can’t, don’t want to, can’t. So in the meanwhile, for practitioners, until we find really what is there, what is the line where you draw, and it seems to me when there’s criticizing the self-cherishing, that this obnoxious self-ness, and you call it…?

Audience: Narcissistic self.

Audience: Narcissism.

Audience: Narrow, selfish, self-interest.

Rinpoche: That’s easier for me to say, but that doesn’t mean I should settle in that language all the time. What do you call it?

Audience: Narcissistic. Narcissus was the Greek character who saw himself in the water and fell in love with itself. Narcissus is his name. So the word that comes from that is ‘narcissistic.’

Rinpoche: Narcissistic. Allright, so thank you for giving the background also. So I think for the time being, we have to somehow temporarily define that as a… something… you’re saying the self-cherishing is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. You have to have something to hold it. so, the obnoxious self. Sometimes we do, when we become extremely pushed in a corner and then we show all our colors and we become obnoxious person anyway. And the other person shows up. So, obnoxious person and who really was fighting for everything. And if it goes too far, we say that person has gone crazy, and it sort of when it remains on the borderline, and then that becomes obnoxious person. I think sort of not going that far, but leading towards that, it probably will define them… all because of the change of the language. Rang jin zhing (??) we call it in Tibetan, right? Rang jin zhing. Self-cherishing is rang jin zhing. And the altruistic and… huh? Why are you shaking your head?

Audience: Famously, when the Dalai Lama was meeting with psychologists, he was asked by a Western psychologist about self-hatred, and he was puzzled, and he said, ‘What do you mean self-hatred? How does that exist?’ And the psychologist explained that this was very common as a problem. Lack of self-esteem (1:05:00) or self-hatred at its most extreme, and he didn’t understand it. he didn’t get the fact that people could hate themselves. We get that, believe me! So I don’t think it’s just terminology. I think that there’s a basic psychological difference, East and West, where Buddhism has to make a big leap to deal with the kind of Western psychology in which lack of self-nurturance and lack of… and self-hatred is a huge issue for many, many, many people. And that has to be dealt with before you even begin to deal with the difference between self-cherishing and self-esteem and all that kind of stuff.

Rinpoche: I didn’t hear. It’s an important point, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. to me, self-hatred is self-cherishing. Believe me. You want to know why? You want to know why? You hate to anybody, whoever you hate, because you’re not happy. Isn’t it? If you’re not happy… if you are happy, you don’t hate anything. You’re not happy with yourself , so you hate yourself. Because you are cherishing what you want to achieve, you’re not getting it. Perhaps His Holiness never had self-cherishing, so that’s why he might be surprised. Honestly. Otherwise, you know, self-hate is a part of self-cherishing.

Audience: That makes very good sense.

Rinpoche: Thank you. It should. I don’t think it’s even a big surprise at all. But we’re hiding behind language, so we’re not getting that, that’s true.

I’m finding some answers here.

1:08:01 Audience: It’s just that I don’t know how to contextualize words of yours that I took down on the first day. That the beginning of love for yourself is being comfortable in your own skin, happy with who you are, and proud of yourself, you stand up for yourself, settle yourself. That sounds like self-esteem. But then when you get into the wisdom question, the question is ‘what self?’…

Rinpoche: I think it’s different.

Audience: You think it’s different. I’d like to hear the difference.

Rinpoche: Yeah, I think it’s totally different.

Audience: Is it relative self?

Rinpoche: No, no, I’m not going to go there. I’m not going to go into relative and absolute, not at all. Not at all.

Audience: Then please say more.

Rinpoche: Here we’re having self-cherishing, self this, self-hatred, self – all this is a certain point of defining self. Point of defining self. And that mind is not looking beyond conventional self, and when the wisdom comes… you know this level of conventional self is this, this, that, can overcome quite a lot of negative, negative addictions that we have, but cannot really get completely out. And then the second step, or what you take is what are you still holding behind that? And then by the… who is the self, by the way? Who is the self anyway? And then its answer comes, it is the certain combination, what normally terminology says, ‘dependent origination.’ So meaning really there is something that you can point out. So that’s why even that little left over those addictions are completely destroyed because there’s no base to remain on them, anything, without that. Intelligence, great intelligence people can see that right from the beginning, so then you don’t have those problems. And the only problem is the conventional me is more important than the conventional others. So that’s just has to work with this otherwise it’s a done deal for that person. And when you see on that level, then ultimately you really don’t have strong anger. You get angry, so you’re not happy. You have mood, you’re not happy. But you don’t have that anger that make you unable to sleep. Sad for days, or even shaking your body, all of those are not there to that person. And to that person, that person may say, ‘Yeah, I may catch you’, but you can see that person can no longer carry that, ‘I catch you’ for a long time at all. Ten, fifteen minutes, hour, days, or weeks later, it’s gone. But there you have to put efforts to fight ‘I’ll catch you,’ it’s gone.

So, all of those, I think that’s how it works... Don’t cry baby!

Audience: Don’t call attention!

Rinpoche: I’m sorry, okay. So that’s it. Whether you call that guy happy-go-lucky or crazy-guy, or whatever, or happy person… can we go and have lunch, or is it too early? [more chatter about lunch]

So what you did today, some people may think, ‘You didn’t teach anything,’ but I think we raised very important points, very important things within us, something to think about. And don’t be quick to draw conclusions. Don’t be quick to draw conclusions.

That’s it.