Category Archives: readings

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window on self-promotion

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An interesting concept: self-promotion.  Some of the events that stirred the dukkha pot over the last weeks have been encounters with the manifestation of self-promotion.  Actually it hasn’t been obvious, coming couched as self-compassion.  However, the language should have tipped me off.

“It’s really important to me to do this on my own.”

“I don’t want to be part of a group.”

OK, I take that back.  The language didn’t tip me off because it sounded very assertive in setting boundaries.  The only thing at hinted at something being fishy was a felt sense of the ground shifting, the subtext sliding from goodness to grasping.  And, I tend to give a lot of credit to the inherent goodness in the Other.  That is, I give credit forgetting that inherent goodness is not necessarily goodness manifest.

Am I being harsh?  I probably am.  My downfall always comes from looking at ways connection and community can be cultivated.  If we dug deep, it’s likely tied to losing culture and community at a young age.  Or maybe it’s having had a powerful family and community which trained a mind that knows there is safeness in numbers, that the work is easier when the aspirations are embodied by many.  Who knows.

Whatever the reason, I know community is critical and it’s always a shock to realize the Other may not share that vision.  I think getting through the koan window on this one is to stop assuming that building sangha is a common aspiration for all Buddhists.  The other part is to develop a discernment of self-compassion from self-promotion.  Paul Gilbert, author of Compassionate Mind, notes that self-compassion and compassion for others go hand-in-hand.  He also is very clear in pointing out the difference between self-compassion and self-promotion.  In fact, as I read it, the latter is a shadow side of the former, cultivating competitiveness, entitlement, and personal indulgence.

It’s hard to differentiate just by listening to the words.  Is it setting a boundary?  Or is it holding a possessive view?  Is it clarifying the nature of self?  Or is it clinging to Self?  It’s a tricky line we all cross over and over.  And I see myself caught in its sticky web when I blunder along assuming the other has not only the same aspiration for a mutual outcome but the same North Star to guide us there.

Thank you for practising,

Genju

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what if again

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How would you live then?

What if a hundred rose-breasted grosbeaks
flew in circles around your head?  What if
the mockingbird came into the house with you and
became your advisor?  What if
the bees filled your walls with honey and all
you needed to do was ask them and they would fill
the bowl?  What if the brook slid downhill just
past your bedroom window so you could listen
to it slow prayers as you fell asleep?  What if
the stars began to shout their names, or to run this way and that way above the clouds?  What if
you painted a picture of a tree, and the leaves
began to rustle, and a bird cheerfully sang
from its painted branches?  What if you suddenly saw
that the silver of water was brighter than the silver
of money?  What if you finally saw
that the sunflowers, turning toward the sun all day
and every day – who knows how, but they do it – were
more precious, more meaningful than gold?

Mary Oliver

and I’m wondering… what if
the very thing you believed in most,
that you knew in your heart all along
as the most intimate song

came and sat beside you?

Genju