Self-esteem

by Ven. Thubten Gyatso

We cannot remember our birth; but I am pretty sure our thoughts were something like: "What the hell's happening? Get me outta here!" But because our speech apparatus had not yet matured, we were unable to express our indignation other than by screaming loudly, which only brought smiles to the faces of those standing around - adding insult to injury and convincing us that we had been born into a world of sadists. From that moment on it was "me versus them," and our demands were simple: the world owed us pleasure, praise, love, and possessions.

Throughout our life, the rise and fall of our self-esteem has been directly related to the fulfilment or frustration of these four demands. We crave pleasure, praise, love, and possessions, not only for the immediate experience they bring, but also for the self-confidence they engender: "I won that round against the world." And we fear pain, criticism, dislike, and poverty not only for their suffering, but also for the crash in our self-confidence: "I lost that one."

If we are honest with ourselves and take a good, hard look at the way we have lived our lives, we will see that we have selfishly pursued these aims from the time we received our first toy in the cradle until this year when we bought a new car, or from the time we competed with our siblings for parental attention until the time we stole another person's partner or cheated on our own partner. Our adult behaviour is just a sophisticated version of our infantile wants and don't wants; our bodies have matured but our minds have not. And what has been the result of our relentless pursuit of pleasure, praise, love, and possessions? Dissatisfaction, separation, loss, and an empty future.

So that's the bad news. I could go on, but I want you to finish reading this article.
Self-esteem has two factors - the self that is esteemed and the fulfilment of the four demands that is the basis of our esteem. Firstly, if we look at the objects we desire, they are unreliable because they are transient by nature, and even the pleasure they bring is transient and impossible to maintain. We are not cast into despair when the beauty of a sunset is absorbed by the darkness of night because we know it is temporary, but as children we screamed when it was time to go home from the beach because we imagined the pleasure would never stop, and as adults we wept at the loss of a loved one because we thought they would remain with us forever.

It is our grasping at pleasure and the objects of pleasure conceived as permanent fixtures in our life that causes us so much pain. The solution is to remember the transient nature of things and to enjoy pleasure without pining for it when it has gone.

With regard to the "self" that we esteem, our self-image is based upon our body, our current state of mind, and our personal history of achievement or failure in the pursuit of those four basic demands. Sometimes our self appears attractive and sometimes unattractive, always bearing the decorations or scars from past competition with the world, and so we like or dislike our selves according to the way we project our self to exist. Herein is our greatest mistake: incorrectly, we believe our self-image to be our true self, and our chance for future happiness is limited by thoughts such as, "I can't do this because I failed in the past." And so we join the billions who fall by the wayside of life without courage to continue.

Buddha showed that the self-image is not the true self. There is, in fact, no true self. Just as "beautiful sunset" is a label given to a transient combination of disparate conditions, "I" is a label given to the temporary combination of our body and mind, neither of which is the self. There is no self beyond this label. Anorexics and body-builders obsessed with the physical aspect of their self-image are flogging a dead horse. Academics competing with each other in the pursuit of fame and glory are chasing shadows. Business tycoons accumulating vast wealth are walking on clouds. They are all destined to failure because the "I" they are attempting to please, and the objects through which they seek pleasure, do not exist in the way they are imagined to exist.

Invincible self-esteem and true happiness can only be achieved when, through the power of realising that we are empty of existing inherently - as we have always believed ourselves to exist - we have the courage to engage in the practice of giving pleasure, praise, love, and gifts to others without seeking reward.

Gyatso

This teaching is by the Venerable Thubten Gyatso (previously Dr Adrian Feldmann), an Australian monk and old friend now working in Mongolia. One of the senior students of Lama Yeshe, Lama Zopa Rinpoche (and also Geshe Roach) he is currently teaching at the FPMT centre in Ulaan Baatar. These teachings originally appeared in his local English language newspaper in Ulaan Baatar and arereproduced with his permission.

Thanks to Diane Olander (pelmo@got.net), these teachings first appeared on the Internet on the website (www.gepeling.org) of
The Jangchub Gepel Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies,
6960 Highway 9, Felton, CA 95018, Tel: 01 (831) 335 1217
where you can find many more teachings and other interesting material.