Self Esteem

Unfortunately, Zen practice can take on an esoteric quality with practical manifestations remaining unseen and not useful. 

Fathoming essential Buddhist truths can be abstruse, and incorporating these truths into everyday life is even more challenging. Our task is not to meditate endlessly toward no end. Meditation is intended to reveal our internal body of truth/bodhi (e.g., awakening). If it doesn’t accomplish that end, it falls short. 

Today I want to make an attempt to bridge this divide and underscore both a pressing current need and Zen’s answer, and my analogical tool for this attempt will be a tree:

A tree is an amazing plant. It grows from a tiny seed into a giant above-ground structure we can perceive. The “lifeblood” of a tree is the sap, which moves throughout the trunk and limbs, delivering essential nutrients from the soil. If any part were missing—roots, trunk, sap, or ground—the tree would not be a tree. All four parts are needed. From the outside, the roots are neither seen nor the sap; neither is the pathway through which pass the nutrients flow. Another vitally important, unseen-beneath-the surface phenomenon is how each separate tree is joined (through its roots) with other trees forming a symbiotic unity.  All we see is just the outward form—what is expressed.

In a sense, we are like a tree. We, too, have discernible attributes. Our outward form is clearly seen, and we have an inner world with psychic and spiritual attributes. And exactly like a tree, we have a ground (from where the nutrients arise) with undetectable attributes. The analogy works as far as it goes, but what is the application to everyday life?

In our contemporary world, there is an extraordinary attempt to fashion dust into permanence. Core beliefs are often equated with the identity of those who share such beliefs. And to present a perspective that challenges these beliefs is to challenge their sense of identity. When a person is firmly rooted in a tightly-held idea of who they are (good, bad, or unestablished), the psychological response will most likely be to hold tight to preconceived beliefs regardless of spiritual evidence. In such a case, cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias are at work. The result is reification (psychologically converting their imperceptible subjective being into a perceptible object and believing they are merely a bag of flesh and bones). Reification is often considered a sign that someone is thinking illogically, but irrationality is likewise understood as rational.

Specifically, this complex thrust reinforces and transforms something, which has no substance into something, which does. I’m referring to self-esteem. In so doing, we are functioning like a tree, which grows detached from the ground, suspended in thin air, but with perceptible attributes. This thrust is doomed to failure, but rather than allowing it to die a natural death, we attempt to shore it up with devastating results and consequences. We are rooted in turf, but our ground is spiritual rather than earth, yet this turf is unseen and to deny this link creates genuine problems. How so?

There are two primary sutras, which define Mahayana Buddhism and, therefore, Zen. They are the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra. The fundamental message of both sutras addresses the true nature of the Buddha, and us, as both form (with definable attributes) and emptiness (without definable attributes), which sadly is a broadly misunderstood proposition. 

The common-coin understanding of emptiness is vacuity, which is not what emptiness means from a Buddhist perspective. What emptiness does mean is a lack of intrinsic, independent substance. In other words, things arise dependent upon time, conditions, and other things. This definition’s most basic expression is “form is emptiness”—every form; however, they may be defined. That notion is called dependent origination.

The majesty and ultimate power of this arrangement distinguished Mahayana Buddhism from all other spiritual/emotional forms and were the centerpiece of Nagarjuna’s ministry. He reasoned that if the dependent origination proposition had any validity, emptiness must itself be empty: Empty emptiness. This idea takes some digestion before it hits home.

The undeniable conclusion of dependent origination is that everything is relative. To relate to things that are empty of substance (such as a self), as if it had substance, is a doomed proposition. Everything at the conditioned level is subject to this conclusion.

Likewise, the conditional’s opposite is unconditional, not subject to relativity, defining attributes, or impermanence. But doesn’t this arrangement defy dependent origination? Indeed it does (almost), and here is where Nagarjuna shines. 

Empty emptiness means that dependent origination itself is empty (of independent, intrinsic substance), and the opposite which arises with dependent origination, is independent origination: The realm of the true Buddha otherwise know as the Dharmakaya (from the Sanskrit “Dharma” meaning truth and “kaya” meaning body=Body of Truth). 

Such Sanskrit principle seems to have little practical value to 21st Century people, but there is a realm with value, which is timeless and transcends all language. This is the realm of our own mind, which is not subject to artificial reinforcement and is readily accessible to everyone. Everybody has a mind (even though nobody can find it). We get hung up by names and thus lose the significance of the message. Zen Master Huang Po gave us a helping hand in unraveling the language. He said the Dharmakaya is the void, and the void is our mind; not what we ordinarily think of as mind manifestations, but rather the indefinable source (e.g., it is transcendent and thus beyond rational understanding).

What this means has vast implications for practical reality and self-esteem. The nature of a Buddha (Buddha-Nature) has three parts, two of which have definable attributes and are subject to conditions. The conditioned parts are the Nirmanakaya (physical body) and the Sambhogakaya (reward or spiritual body). These parts are born and pass away, and it is at this level where we experience everything—sadness, joy, and everything else; this is the tangible, physical form where transcendent wisdom is expressed. Within the conditioned realm, karma rules, and if that is the whole story, we are without hope because the conditional realm is governed by discrimination—forced to choose between one thing vs. another. 

Fortunately, this is not the whole story. The third part—the Body of truth—is the unconditional source and beyond karma (e.g., cause and effect). This is the true never-born, never-die realm of the Buddha (and us)—the basis of all life.

So if the “self” of the conditioned realm is vulnerable and insubstantial (without hope), what does that suggest regarding self-esteem? It simply means that a tree (and us) rests upon the ground, where unseen spiritual/emotional stability arises, and true life with genuine identity is found. To try to shore up the “dust” of an insubstantial self and convert it into a substantial self is an impossibility! But there is no real division between these two realms. There is only one realm with both discernible attributes and non-attribute attributes. We are one whole thing, not two, just as a tree is only one whole tree with both seen and unseen attributes. Our mind is not divided.

The result of this artificial shoring-up is much like trying to counter disease by destroying the immune system. An artificial self is a foreign body, every bit as toxic as a virus, and our immune systems are designed to rid us of these foreigners. This is a natural process that allows life to continue and flourish. A virus is very, very small, and can’t be seen without the use of a powerful microscope. 

On the other hand, an artificial self is quite discernible, albeit in a delusional way. It is so prominent that it over-rides and masks our true (unseen) nature, leaving us with a firm belief that we perceive ourselves as our true nature. The death process at the conditional level is painful. Since we don’t like pain, we resist or hold on for “dear life,” not realizing that this conditional death is critical to realizing our true, unconditional life. 

What most of us fail to see is that suffering plays a vital role in our own awakening. Bodhidharma told us, “Suffering is the seed, wisdom the sprout, and Buddhahood the grain.” We all hate to suffer, so we resist the lesson. This speaking manner sounds strange and esoteric, but regardless, it is a practical reality with vast implications. We fail to notice that our suffering occurs because we refuse to let die what must die and that emancipation can only occur through this death (of what is unreal, yet seen).

The bottom line for self-esteem is to allow nature to progress and let the artificial self die so that we can access our own body of truth—our primordial mind. It is like a snake that sheds its skin as it grows larger. When this “awakening” occurs, we realize that our power for transformation depends on what is our unconditional being/self. This true-body (without definable attributes) fuels and enlightens our conditions and guides our way through to wisdom/prajna. We are thus both conditional and unconditional—neither insubstantial nor substantial, but both. This is the Middle Way of the Mahayana—between linked together psychic substrate of both form and emptiness.