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Thoughts and impressions on applying Buddhist principles in daily life, and modern applications of Buddhist concepts.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Selfishness breeds selfishness; compassion nurtures compassion
I had the great fortune to listen to one of the architects of the Euro speak in Vancouver last night and interviewed him this morning, listening to his views on how destructive our current international monetary system is and how it's potentially on the verge of collapse and is the root of unsustainable and selfish attitudes in modern, developed society.
To sum up what I thought was his main point: money makes the world go round, but not necessarily in the right direction.
He went through his analysis of our current monetary system, showing how our current view of money (as a store of value, a medium of exchange and a measure of value) has twisted society into thinking that greed is natural and in order to survive, we must compete with everyone else to obtain our share of money to buy scarce resources. He argues, most compellingly, that despite economic theory stating that people struggle to obtain scarce resources, in reality, people actually struggle to simply obtain money--which in reality is limitless and in real terms, has no inherent value.
He argues that many of us don't even realize that the way we perceive modern society, the economy, the market, etc., is so defined by the assumption that our current national currency is the only way to exchange goods and services; as someone wrote, we see money as being something as God-given as rain, when in fact it's a manmade construction that has value and purpose only because we bestow such influence on it.
The dangers of such a system are many, but the social effect ultimately is that it naturally leads people (however inadvertently) to become greedy, selfish, insecure people who need to obtain "enough" money to feel secure about the future and about their lives (and as we know, we never have enough money).
To hear an economist and a former national central banker say this was an eye-opening experience. I never imagined that someone of his stature and experience would be capable of saying something of a system, at some point, he helped to create (with respect to creating the mechanism that brought together all the currencies under the Euro).
But what was even more interesting for me was hearing from him the importance of the average citizen to be aware of this underlying assumption we have been brought up to believe in about money and change our attitudes in order to save the planet from ecological destruction and save society from falling apart.
His notion that we must create a system of exchange that is community-driven, mutually beneficial and creates intrinsic value is something that rings of Buddhist truth (although, I have no idea what his philosophical beliefs are).
Buddhist thought expresses the idea that in order for us to develop a genuine sense of absolute happiness and joy, you need to transform your selfish attitudes and desires into something that contributes to your environment and society. As the case with our attitudes with money shows, greed simply begets greed; selfishness begets selfishness. Your selfish attitudes will naturally bring out the same in others, and your entire environment will be filled with selfishness, because that is the attitude you, yourself, are projecting.
While it's easy to blame and focus on someone else's selfishness, in Buddhism, the reality is, the selfishness from others comes out because it's coming out of you too.
A simple case in point; during Halloween, if there are a bunch of kids heading towards someone with a bucket of candy and chocolate, and just one kid starts swiping at the bucket to get as much as possible; the other kids will simply join in the scramble to get as much as they can too. It's the herd mentality that seems to naturally happen when greed, selfishness and pride are the cause of one's actions. You do something out of greed, selfishness or pride, and you'll bring out the same negative qualities in others and create a negative competitive environment.
The same is true in relationships; in the beginning, a couple may feel totally happy to be generous and kind to each other, because their affection wants to express itself. But as soon as one partner starts to have selfish desires (i.e. I want more of this or that, or I deserve this or that), over time, the same attitude will breed in the other person and the relationship will begin to sour. If that attitude does not mutually change, the relationship is on the road to the end.
In general, this may seem like an obvious point, especially if you have experience to prove it, but it only proves the point that the causes we make--whether it's our actions, our words, or our thoughts and attitudes--have a huge influence on our interactions in our environment and in society.
From a Buddhist perspective, you simply cannot blame others for the negativity they seem to project to you; if they have a "it's all about me" attitude, and they seem to project that to you, it's also likely that you're projecting the exact same attitude. Just as affection nurtures affection from others, so too does selfishness breed selfishness from others.
So to change this seemingly external problem of being around selfish people, or people who embody characteristics we don't like, we, in fact, have to change ourselves and transform those seemingly negative traits into something positive and value creating. In order to attract the people with traits we like, we have to develop and express those traits in ourselves first.
If we want genuinely nice, caring, generous people to be our friends, we have to embody those traits as well (and the key word is "genuinely" have those traits). Just as we can't fake being selfish and mean, you really can't fake being compassionate and caring. If you are "being nice" in the hopes of getting something in return, you're simply setting yourself up for disappointment because your fake attitude is just that: fake. You don't really care about that person; you're just being nice in the hopes of getting the other person to do something for you, or to have as a backup for when you need help, or whatever.
This may seem like an idealistic, wish-washy idea, but in fact, it's the basis of some incredible examples of positive humanity around the world. Referring back to the issue of money, there are alternate, or "complementary currencies" in existence that have proven that a form of currency does not have to breed greed and selfishness. The utilization of a type of currency utilized in several states in the US called "time currency" which trades the time of a skilled person's efforts (i.e. one hour of gardening equals one hour of house cleaning, or cooking, etc..) has proven to create a strong sense of community and camraderie that ordinary money inherently cannot do. Rather than having people competing for each other's services (by undercutting each other to sell their service), the time currency makes everyone's effort equal and people feel more united, happy, and useful. Rather than breed selfishness, it has created a cooperative community to the point that it has encouraged people to be even more productive and generous to each other.
Within SGI too, the collective efforts of members and leaders to support each other in our Buddhist practice and our efforts to bring out our true potential as a human being, is another example of "compassion in action." Members across the country and around the world have, on a regular basis, supported each other through some of the most difficult circumstances--not out of any sense of obligation, but out of genuine concern for another person's life and potential to life a happy, joyful and productive life.
So ultimately, our ability to become genuinely compassionate people depends on our willingness to see the negative characteristics we exude, seriously reflect on it, and make a concerted effort to nurture our positive attributes that everyone has. After all, no one can tell us whether or not we are happy or not; and only we have the power to create the attitude necessary to manifest it in our lives.
I had the great fortune to listen to one of the architects of the Euro speak in Vancouver last night and interviewed him this morning, listening to his views on how destructive our current international monetary system is and how it's potentially on the verge of collapse and is the root of unsustainable and selfish attitudes in modern, developed society.
To sum up what I thought was his main point: money makes the world go round, but not necessarily in the right direction.
He went through his analysis of our current monetary system, showing how our current view of money (as a store of value, a medium of exchange and a measure of value) has twisted society into thinking that greed is natural and in order to survive, we must compete with everyone else to obtain our share of money to buy scarce resources. He argues, most compellingly, that despite economic theory stating that people struggle to obtain scarce resources, in reality, people actually struggle to simply obtain money--which in reality is limitless and in real terms, has no inherent value.
He argues that many of us don't even realize that the way we perceive modern society, the economy, the market, etc., is so defined by the assumption that our current national currency is the only way to exchange goods and services; as someone wrote, we see money as being something as God-given as rain, when in fact it's a manmade construction that has value and purpose only because we bestow such influence on it.
The dangers of such a system are many, but the social effect ultimately is that it naturally leads people (however inadvertently) to become greedy, selfish, insecure people who need to obtain "enough" money to feel secure about the future and about their lives (and as we know, we never have enough money).
To hear an economist and a former national central banker say this was an eye-opening experience. I never imagined that someone of his stature and experience would be capable of saying something of a system, at some point, he helped to create (with respect to creating the mechanism that brought together all the currencies under the Euro).
But what was even more interesting for me was hearing from him the importance of the average citizen to be aware of this underlying assumption we have been brought up to believe in about money and change our attitudes in order to save the planet from ecological destruction and save society from falling apart.
His notion that we must create a system of exchange that is community-driven, mutually beneficial and creates intrinsic value is something that rings of Buddhist truth (although, I have no idea what his philosophical beliefs are).
Buddhist thought expresses the idea that in order for us to develop a genuine sense of absolute happiness and joy, you need to transform your selfish attitudes and desires into something that contributes to your environment and society. As the case with our attitudes with money shows, greed simply begets greed; selfishness begets selfishness. Your selfish attitudes will naturally bring out the same in others, and your entire environment will be filled with selfishness, because that is the attitude you, yourself, are projecting.
While it's easy to blame and focus on someone else's selfishness, in Buddhism, the reality is, the selfishness from others comes out because it's coming out of you too.
A simple case in point; during Halloween, if there are a bunch of kids heading towards someone with a bucket of candy and chocolate, and just one kid starts swiping at the bucket to get as much as possible; the other kids will simply join in the scramble to get as much as they can too. It's the herd mentality that seems to naturally happen when greed, selfishness and pride are the cause of one's actions. You do something out of greed, selfishness or pride, and you'll bring out the same negative qualities in others and create a negative competitive environment.
The same is true in relationships; in the beginning, a couple may feel totally happy to be generous and kind to each other, because their affection wants to express itself. But as soon as one partner starts to have selfish desires (i.e. I want more of this or that, or I deserve this or that), over time, the same attitude will breed in the other person and the relationship will begin to sour. If that attitude does not mutually change, the relationship is on the road to the end.
In general, this may seem like an obvious point, especially if you have experience to prove it, but it only proves the point that the causes we make--whether it's our actions, our words, or our thoughts and attitudes--have a huge influence on our interactions in our environment and in society.
From a Buddhist perspective, you simply cannot blame others for the negativity they seem to project to you; if they have a "it's all about me" attitude, and they seem to project that to you, it's also likely that you're projecting the exact same attitude. Just as affection nurtures affection from others, so too does selfishness breed selfishness from others.
So to change this seemingly external problem of being around selfish people, or people who embody characteristics we don't like, we, in fact, have to change ourselves and transform those seemingly negative traits into something positive and value creating. In order to attract the people with traits we like, we have to develop and express those traits in ourselves first.
If we want genuinely nice, caring, generous people to be our friends, we have to embody those traits as well (and the key word is "genuinely" have those traits). Just as we can't fake being selfish and mean, you really can't fake being compassionate and caring. If you are "being nice" in the hopes of getting something in return, you're simply setting yourself up for disappointment because your fake attitude is just that: fake. You don't really care about that person; you're just being nice in the hopes of getting the other person to do something for you, or to have as a backup for when you need help, or whatever.
This may seem like an idealistic, wish-washy idea, but in fact, it's the basis of some incredible examples of positive humanity around the world. Referring back to the issue of money, there are alternate, or "complementary currencies" in existence that have proven that a form of currency does not have to breed greed and selfishness. The utilization of a type of currency utilized in several states in the US called "time currency" which trades the time of a skilled person's efforts (i.e. one hour of gardening equals one hour of house cleaning, or cooking, etc..) has proven to create a strong sense of community and camraderie that ordinary money inherently cannot do. Rather than having people competing for each other's services (by undercutting each other to sell their service), the time currency makes everyone's effort equal and people feel more united, happy, and useful. Rather than breed selfishness, it has created a cooperative community to the point that it has encouraged people to be even more productive and generous to each other.
Within SGI too, the collective efforts of members and leaders to support each other in our Buddhist practice and our efforts to bring out our true potential as a human being, is another example of "compassion in action." Members across the country and around the world have, on a regular basis, supported each other through some of the most difficult circumstances--not out of any sense of obligation, but out of genuine concern for another person's life and potential to life a happy, joyful and productive life.
So ultimately, our ability to become genuinely compassionate people depends on our willingness to see the negative characteristics we exude, seriously reflect on it, and make a concerted effort to nurture our positive attributes that everyone has. After all, no one can tell us whether or not we are happy or not; and only we have the power to create the attitude necessary to manifest it in our lives.
