I’m number one!

Posted: March 10, 2008 | Author: Doug | Filed under: Buddhism, Family, Japanese, Language, Religion | Leave a comment »

My wife* and I had a great weekend together. We had a couple good talks about life, religion and shared lots of good laughs. Baby, who was sitting on the bed with us, just played with her books, or crawled around trying to stand up. The second talk was particularly amusing, where we were in the car, driving to get some coffee before going to the temple service. Somehow we got into a discussion about how selfish we are. She quipped, in Japanese, jibun de ichiban (自分で一番), which means “Self is #1″.

Basically she hit the problem on the head. No matter how much we pretend to be pious or good, it’s rooted in our own self-centered nature. Case in point:

1. Why do we help others? To practice compassion in Buddhism.
2. Why do we practice compassion? To attain good merit, to be a “good Buddhist”,* to ease my sense of discomfort at someone else’s suffering.
3. Why do we hope to attain good merit? To attain a better rebirth in the next life (or avoid a bad one).
4. Why do we want to be a good Buddhist? To be praiseworthy in society, or to get closer to Enlightenment.
5. Why do we wan to get to Enlightenment? Because we want to ease our own suffering…

You get the idea. Of course, being kind to others, even when rooted in selfishness, is way better than just being a out-and-out selfish jerk. At the same time though, we should not kid ourselves by imagining ourselves as pure and praiseworthy. It just fuels one’s ego.

Of course, we can cite examples where someone selflessly risks their lives to save someone else, and that’s great, but how often do people normally do that? Not very often. It’s nice to know that we are capable of genuine, selfish good, but let’s be honest: most of the good we intentionally do, especially as part of a religious practice, has selfish motives behind it. Knowing this has made me rethink some stuff, but I’ll discuss that another day.

* – Whom I often tease by calling her bosatsu (菩薩) or “Bodhisattva”. She has a way of pointing out things I often miss in reading Buddhist books and texts. She often reminds me I spend too much time doing that.

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