Self Importance
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The nearest term I associate with self importance is ego.
However, self importance is more ubiquitous than we all think. But how can we observe this self importance in our daily lives, both outwardly and inwardly. We instinctively measure the task at hand in relevance to our importance.
There is this phrase from Zen practice, " Before enlightenment,chop wood, carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water". I would like to welcome Zen practitioners to further elucidate on the subtler points which I may have missed.
Outwardly or inwardly, the manifestations of self importance are mainly reluctance, avoidance and impatience in doing the immediate task at hand, Each time, when we or others are tasked with doing a mundane task, well, maybe not chop wood or carry water, for most of us do not really need to chop wood for cooking, and we also have the tap handy around us. Chopping could be quite a novel experience for us to be mundane and boring!
Perhaps maybe it is the doing of daily household chores like washing the dishes or sweeping the floors, or vacuuming the floors. Or something as simple switching of the power or flushing the toilet.
These are pretty simple things and yet, we are reluctant to do them. Why, simply because these deemed are too simple, mundane boring thing which do not warrant our effort or presence. This is what I mean as SELF IMPORTANCE, with capital letters .
Whether we are delegated or delegating, whenever we or others often feel these task are not important, unchallenging, an abuse of our talents, it is therefore a waste of our time. We simply do not think it is an efficient use of our abilities. Perhaps, in the office, the mundane clerical or manual work which is a misuse of our talents. Given enough of any these tasks may eventually build up resentment within us. I remember when I was an instructor, one of my student, who was in a supervisory position, seething in anger when I ask her to sweep the floors. She lodge a complaint with our principal. Or maybe, for some of you out there, you may have worked with jaded teenagers to do simple tasks, more melodrama, for their reactions being more extreme. Now, maybe you understand what I meant!
Whenever we project ourselves as being more important for the task at hand, we build impatience, we build resentment, we avoid doing it. This the bane having self importance and if we do not get promoted, either in our personal life or working one, we feel trapped and shackled. For we aspire so much of ourselves, but through our expectations of self importance, we make ourselves very unhappy.
I am sure we have heard of mindfulness, but very often, we reserve our utmost attention to what we deemed important. Very often, we manage to get 90% of our mission done right, only to screw ourselves up by the 10% in small details. We blame things out of our control, our scope. But screw up enough times, which deflating for the ego, you should have realise where the problems lies. Simply put, we are not patient enough!
However, we are very lucky as Buddhist, be given the important teaching of mindfulness, in another word, vigilance and then of course, calm abiding, which with mindfulness, works in tandem. One teaches us to focus, the other help improve and sustain this focus.
Our focus or mindfulness varies, depending on how distracted we are. But that is also a quality of our consciousness we can observe to better ourselves. Our concentration is not the same everyday. If you do enough of a task everyday, you will know same task every different day is a different experience.
But how can this be so, you ask? First, if you, for the first time, put your utmost mind, there is a lifting of aversion. You no longer abhorr doing unimportant things, not all the time, anyway, for what you are doing is now not deemed a waste of time. You do not procrastinate and leave things undone until the last minute possible, then rushing to finish as fast as possible. Things do not seemed that boring or unimportant now , simply because you are being mindful. However, if we do constantly hold that mindfulness, we also observe the waxing and waning of the concentration in that same task.
But why is this important? Well, when we are being mindful, thoughts comes, and thoughts go, specifically negative emotions which colour our present and future thoughts and actions. Then comes the effectiveness in any task at hand, as we do not gloss over "minor" details too "unimportant". Everything is now important, you simply do not skip attention! Put it in another way, there is an immediacy but no urgency. You have better staying power to complete your task, and you no longer feel so drained as before. You seem to breathe easy while working. And that 10% that takes 90% of your time now seems less effortless and rate of mistakes eventually goes down. Also there is that non unpleasant sensation of simply giving your most, being here, doing this. Of the last sentence, I am sorry I am unable to put in better terms. And all these, is while we are going about our lives, not in some sitting meditation.
Not attaching self importance make us more effective, calming and very content. This contentment comes being yourself and accepting your situation.
These are just some of my thoughts. Perhaps someone else would to share a their take on things.
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Ego, suffering, and change are probably a better conjecture of what makes up a self-importance than just ego.
Ego is just a presumption, or even an impulse, intuition, a conditioning since the day we were born. The reason why ego is at times such a headache is because this is how everybody were at times taught to begin a sentence with, 'i am fine'. In a linguistic sense, if the ego is ever a problem, it has something to do with the British language that we grew up knowing, because Singapore never invented the dictionaries and sentence structures that we are taught today to use. As for how these dictionaries and sentence structures came about and continue proliferating if at all, as a matter of compounded phenomena suffering has thousands of years of legacies since the British first set sail. Take a look at the change that also has taken place over centuries as well.
Ego is the British kingdom. So, they discovered the new world with the earlier technologies of imperialism, colonised dots in Africa, then India, Australia, Malaya, Hong kong and so on so forth. 'I' is a word in the British English language. And the 'I' spread as far as the British rule spread. The Buddha probably used a sanskrit or pali word other than 'I' just as our hokkien and cantonese have our own pronounciations. Even the way how a civilisation pronounces the term 'i' in their native dialects can affect their worlds, and in just one 'i' or 'I', or even me, my, mine, we and us, you can have dozens of translations of the Lotus Dharma Flower Sutra each's meaning a totally different one.
I got stuck briefly because I was trying myself to juggle sutras and suttas in English and Chinese, two of the more prominent modern languages. And within both English and Chinese teachings, there has been huge changes and sufferings in English history and Chinese history.
Count the number of dynasties and emperors that have changed since the first Chinese sutra. Today, the Chinese are still referring to sutras that came from such-and-such a dynasty, as a consequence the influences of their perhaps-less-than-enlightened ancient dynastic emperors are still driving the Chinese loony. Thusly or otherwise, even the sutras are doing nothing other than causing more stress and more change. Especially when Ananda is the arahant that supposedly memorised the sutras. In other words, on one end of the transcription spectrum maybe the Buddha really taught no dharma as the Diamond Sutra suggested, and every single other book was a joke by Ananda and co after the Buddha parinirvannaed. On the other extreme, maybe every single dharma left behind is for real, if we lose these books we have to wait another billion of years before we can get any form of real salvation.
At the end of the day the world may be publishing more translations including English ones on one part of the world, while others continue rotting elsewhere. Concurrently, wars are still ongoing elsewhere because one book and another book has got its own ego issues, self-importance indeed.
The dharma is not a secure refuge. Is the self a secure refuge then? Maybe there is only ego, and perhaps change and stress.
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Thank you for your for reading my post and givens some thoughts on it.
Perhaps your are implying sentence structure is affecting mind/thought structure?
Would you be kind enough to elucidate as I may be lost in your subtlety.
If we regard Buddhism as a teachings for humans, then we should see it from a perspective of communication and instruction.
Both as a communication and instruction, it has to go through typical channels of instruction. There is first, an attempt at targeting an audience, we need apply meaningful context. There are different comprehending levels of both instruction and the instructed, both intellectually and culturally.
However, I am speculating without full comprehension. Without specifics it is unlikely to ever engage constructively.
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Hi Weychin,
practise equanimity ... love yourself and also develop kindness to others
Not easy but be persistent
@ Singfail... I also heard that throughout the Chinese dynasties, the royal families have the power to change the content of the sutras... I'm not sure if it's true because i have not study Mahayana history yet.
Having said that, i recently attended a symposium hosted by a assistant professor from Taiwan. He said that whether or not the sutras are said by the Buddha isn't the main point, what he meant is to look beyond, and see whether the teachings in the sutras are in line with Buddhism... it may sound uncomfortable to people who only see Buddha as the main authority in the sutras/suttas...