Today I'd like to talk about Codependency and Interdependency and the Bodhisattva Way. Or another title for my talk might be Self-Esteem and the Practice of No-Self or Self-Esteem and Forgetting the Self. Don't be fooled by the fancy title. I don't have this all figured out and in fact I hope that you will help me.

[01:00]

These are topics that come up a lot in conversation around here and in practice talks. And I think that understanding these issues is really central to practicing in a way that's correct and helpful. So I say correct and helpful, trembling on the one hand that you may think that I'm so arrogant as to hint that I might know what that is, or worse, that you might actually think that I do know what it is. So the purpose of this kind of a talk is not to give you something, not to give you some information that you can take home with you, but to give you some encouragement and to arouse something in you, because you already know everything from the point of view of Buddhism,

[02:27]

we're all already complete and already enlightened, and there's nothing to add to that, but generally we don't feel that way. So the purpose of lecture and of practice is to arouse the thought of enlightenment. So as I said, I'm going to talk about something that I don't understand very well myself, and maybe together we can shed some light on it. Recently I was talking with a friend who felt that our practice and our Bodhisattva vow, which we'll recite at the end of this talk, which talks about saving all beings, vowing to refrain from evil, to practice good, to live for the benefit of all being, to save all beings, to enter all the Dharma gates, to end all the delusions, to practice the way of Buddha.

[03:49]

She heard as an injunction to put the needs of other people, other beings, ahead of her own. And I think a lot of us hear it that way. And she practiced very sincerely trying to do that, trying to put other people, other beings, first. And she did it for a long time, and was really quite shocked when she realized it wasn't working, and tried to do it better. And as she tried harder and harder, she felt farther and farther from her true nature and found herself getting more and more angry and feeling more and more ripped off, particularly by people she'd been trying so hard to help.

[04:58]

making great sacrifices for, she felt. So how could, and above all, she felt kind of ripped off and cheated by Zen practice, which she kind of felt had encouraged her to do this as a path to enlightenment, and she sure didn't feel like she was getting enlightened. She felt like she was getting heavier and heavier and heavier. In fact, it seemed particularly ironic that this Buddhist practice, which in its words and ideas and behavior, surface behavior, seemed so different from what she'd been taught growing up, what she thought she'd been raised with. And yet she felt more and more kind of low and not good enough in the way that she felt growing up in a kind of abusive family.

[06:15]

In her family, it was my friend's job to behave in such a way that made her parents feel good about themselves. And maybe that sounds familiar. That was certainly my job in my family. And there were some specific things that I was supposed to do. But a lot of what I was supposed to do to make my parents feel good about themselves was never stated. And certainly, the overriding principle that I was supposed to make my parents feel good about themselves was never stated, and I'm sure that they would have denied that that was one of the rules. So I want to talk a little bit about self and self-esteem, and I'm not going to talk about it in a real precise kind of way. I'm not going to talk about it in a clinical way.

[07:29]

I'm not going to talk about it. Buddhism doesn't talk about self-esteem as we know it, but I'm going to talk about it in a general way. When we're really little, you know, we can't distinguish self and other very well. Babies have to learn the difference between them and other people, and they learn, you know, like by biting, baby bites mom, it's different than if he bites his own toe. If I bite my toe, it hurts. If I bite somebody else, they hurt. And I may hear about it. But the difference between self and other is continually fuzzy because babies need other people so much. So if a baby's hungry, that's very uncomfortable and A baby's comfort is contingent on somebody else coming in and doing something.

[08:39]

And then the baby identifies comfort with whoever comes in and makes him comfortable. What complicates the situation is that parents are in the same fix. It looks like the parents are there to meet the baby's needs. The parents also have their own needs, and one of the main needs that parents have is to feel okay about themselves as parents. So when they guess right and do what makes the baby smile, parents feel real good. And when they guess wrong and the baby isn't happy, Sometimes parents can be very kind of calm about that and sometimes they get very upset and feel like, and they feel bad.

[09:44]

They feel bad because the baby feels bad and then pretty soon they feel bad about themselves and they feel like they're a bad parent and they're bad and before long you hear them complaining about what a cranky rotten baby that they have. That's the beginning of babies getting trained to meet the needs of their parents. So because parents' needs and children's needs are intertwined in this very complicated way, what we learn about who we are from our parents is very much colored by who they are.

[10:47]

Not so much who they actually are, who they fundamentally are, but who they feel or think they are. who they feel or think they are in relation to who they think they ought to be and how they think they ought to be. And then there's another layer over that about how they see us in relation to how they think we ought to be and how they think they ought to be. And the end result is almost nobody is raised with any kind of that the self that we know as me, the conditioned self, is a bunch of experiences, it's a bunch of images that we have, that we get through mirrors that are variously distorted. And how distorted the mirrors are, you know, is quite variable.

[11:53]

But the self that we're talking about in Buddhism is not that self. And whether the self that you got from your conditioned self is very distorted in one way or very distorted in another way, or maybe not so distorted, It's still a bunch of images that are part of your experience and part of your training. Last night I was invited to work with a group of parents who had been meeting together for many, many years, and they had started out, I guess, as a childbirth preparation class, and then it became a kind of parent support group, and they all got to be friends, and it's kind of like a big extended family.

[13:17]

And I like the idea of working with these people because I'm really interested in community. And you don't see it much out in the suburbs where I live. And here was a bunch of parents who really seemed to be trying to work on it. And I don't know what happened to the facilitator they'd had for years and years, but somehow they called me and asked if I'd be interested in working with them. And so walking into a group of people who've known each other for eight or nine years, and you don't know any of them, sort of interesting experience. And one of my therapist friends said, watch out, you may get eaten alive. And it was interesting to me, all these people were very conscientious parents and really wanted the best for their children. And we're talking about the various things that were going on with their kids now.

[14:22]

Their oldest kids are all eight or nine. Some of them have second kids, some of them have third kids. There were about 25 kids playing outside while we were talking. And they were really very, very, very sincere and they were just hungry for information. Now these are parents who are very well-educated people and they go to all the things that are at school and they read all the books that there are about raising children. And every aspect, you know, teaching, making them successful, making them smart, making them well-balanced. These people want to have perfect kids. And they wanted me to help them have perfect kids. They said, well, you know, anybody can be a facilitator of a group.

[15:23]

What we need is an expert. And I said, that's not me. And they looked really disappointed. And the more they talked, the more I saw myself a few years ago when I also thought that had to do everything right and would tear my hair out when things didn't seem to be going right or according to what I thought my plan was. And what I saw was that these people didn't want my help getting out of the way of their kids' development. They really believed deep in their heart that more information would help them, that if they could just find the right trick for this problem or that problem, that they could actually solve it.

[16:29]

And they actually, they really believe in their heart of hearts that, as far as I could tell, that success in the world as we know it, out there, is what they want for their kids. And I went home feeling really awful. Just really low. And I felt really like a failure. And I couldn't figure out why. I felt so bad. You know, I thought about what had happened at the group and how I'd handled it. You know, I didn't do anything terrible. It had gone as well as that sort of thing could go, I think. They hadn't all clustered around and told me how wonderful I was and how much they wanted me to help them.

[17:36]

And I had started out by telling them that I wasn't that kind of group leader, and that it was their group, and they could do anything they wanted with it. And if there was something I could do to help, I'd be glad to do that. But something in me really wanted them, I think, to come around and say, boy, I really needed to hear that. And I didn't do that. And the clue I had that there was something in me that wanted their admiration or support or encouragement or something was that it wasn't very long into my kind of rumination about this evening when I began

[18:47]

to feel, to think some thoughts like, if only these people had heard of practice. My values are real different from their values. I don't want, that's not what I want for my kids. And very quickly, and they shouldn't want it for their kids. there was this kind of move, very subtly, from appreciation of my exposure to Buddhist practice to feeling a little bit superior. And I couldn't pull it off. No matter how hard I tried to feel superior to these people, I couldn't do it. That's pretty lucky, actually.

[19:55]

It felt pretty awful. But, you know, usually that works. For me, anyway. Often it works. If I'm in a situation where I can't fit in, I can usually find something wrong with those people. some way to be superior. And we do that in practice a lot. You know, there's, it looks like there's a right way to practice, particularly in Zen where it's so formal. And we come and we, you know, start out real awkward and we don't know how to do it and we want to master it and then we do and we feel good, and we can teach other people how to do it, and you feel pretty good. And that's not what practice is really about.

[20:59]

People who have the kind of upbringing that teaches them very quickly how to live up to a certain kind of standard, how to conform, how to really sense what other people need and want from them, even before those other people know it themselves, are very good, often make very good Zen students. There's There's a story that Mel used to tell about teachers and students that I think really exemplifies the confusion between selfless service, or dropping the small self, and the kind of conditioned behavior

[22:14]

that you learn in a family where your parents are so self-absorbed for whatever reason that you need to be very alert to their state of mind and do either stay out of the way or do just the right thing in order to avoid getting punished. And so you learn that, both for your survival and to feel okay enough to get by. In the Japanese tradition, there is a story about what does the teacher want from the student and how the teacher and the student relate. And the word connected with it is Sendaba. And the Master, I'm going to probably get this story screwed up because I haven't read it for a while, but the Master is sitting in his room and the student, the first student, he rings his bell and the student comes in and

[23:37]

brings him some tea, and that was just the right thing. And, you know, the next student comes by, and he lights his fire, and that's just the right thing. And the Master never has to ask for anything, because the student is so tuned in to the Master, and so well trained, that without the Master having to ask, the student knows what is the right thing at that moment. And in Japanese culture, there's a lot of that kind of behavior. If you go to a good Japanese restaurant, the waitress will, or the waiter, will invisibly fill your teacup before you ever know it's empty, will notice that the rice is getting low, won't ask you if you'd like some more rice, more rice will appear, and they're invisible about it.

[25:02]

And we look at that, those of us who were raised in this kind of family, and often say, ah, I can do that. And we can't. And it doesn't bring us any closer to our true nature. It reinforces our conditioning. It's just another kind of ego. So the problem is that the Bodhisattva path is a path of awakening. And that means waking up from our automatic unconscious conditioned ways of doing things.

[26:05]

It means beginning to see things as they are, which requires dropping all those layers of how it ought to be, and how our parents thought it ought to be, and how their parents thought it ought to be, and everybody's disappointment with each other, for all those generations that landed on us as a thick veil between us and our actual experience. And when we can do that, we have the opportunity to experience the unconditioned and to realize our true self. Somebody asked Thich Nhat Hanh about how Buddhism dealt with the problem of low self-esteem and he said, well, Buddhism deals with the problem of low self-esteem and also the problem of high self-esteem. The way Buddhism deals with that is by helping us see things as they are.

[27:16]

And both low self-esteem and high self-esteem is some kind of reaction, some kind of comparison, some kind of experience that isn't what it is, but is already judged before it even happens. before I even knew it, I was feeling inadequate in this group last night, because those people were so much the way I was raised to be, the way my parents were, that I was immediately aware of all the ways in which I was not an expert, all the ways in which I couldn't meet their expectations, all the ways in which I hadn't ever been able to meet my own parents' expectations.

[28:25]

And none of that... It took a while for that to become conscious, and So my experience wasn't clear, it was just this discomfort, just this feeling, not good enough. So the way Buddhism deals with the problem of low self-esteem and high self-esteem is to help us experience our life directly. And we experience our life directly by learning to observe what's happening and to look for the clues by watching the moment-to-moment variations in our state of mind in zazen and throughout the day.

[29:36]

we begin to get a little distance so that we don't identify with our moment-to-moment state of mind the way an infant identifies with its moment-to-moment state of mind or the way an exhausted parent identifies with its and its infant's moment-to-moment state of mind. And when we, if we started out with what we would call low self-esteem, beginning to see ourselves clearly may make us feel better about ourselves. And in this combination of a Japanese tradition which has certain kind of cultural baggage that comes with it, and the baggage that we bring to practice from our own conditioning, we may have a lot of difficulty separating dignity from puffed-upness and self-respect from pride.

[31:00]

And those are things that we need to pay a lot of attention to. I think that the basis of what people often call codependent type behavior or overprotective behavior or doing too much for people, may start out as an experience of really experiencing somebody else's need, but the need to do something about it is our need. And it's important to be very clear about that.

[32:07]

And in order to tolerate the discomfort around us, the pain of the world, we have to be able to recognize and tolerate our own. So when we hear about Avalokiteshvara, who sits over here, hearing the cries of the world, it doesn't mean that that we are also Avalokiteshvara doesn't mean that in order to be a good Zen student we have to be able to fix, to make all those people stop crying. We also can't Just ignore them.

[33:15]

We can't say, well, I can't stop all those people from crying, so I won't. I'm not going to try. To hear all the cries, to experience the pain, to see that as our own pain, and to save the many beings in here. So I think I've said too much already. Maybe we could talk about this. saw, when they had their eyes open, whatever they happened to see was the point where they got engaged in social action.

[35:02]

So he woke up and he saw homeless, not other people's, the other things. What do you think about that? Well, I think that's quite true. Speaking in my own case, that's absolutely precise. And I think it was interesting for me When you feel good about yourself, as you are.

[36:03]

Yeah, when you feel good bad about yourself, you feel right to be that, as it is. And then it's much easier to approach social action, not from a view, but just as an explanation. Andrew? It seems like you talked about several things, and one thing, there's a self-esteem thing that's kind of mixed in, but that Algo Lactate spora, here's the Christ, the moral, simply, it's hearing, seems so important in modern life. It seemed like what Vicki Austin was jogging at the day that she came here, and everybody My ancient twisted karma. I find in my life that, you know, talking about something that's going on with me, just to say it and have somebody hear it and say, oh, gee, so sorry.

[37:17]

It's so much better for me than, oh, is that what's happening? Well, let me fix it or let me do something to help you get out of this problem. It's just, I can't stand that. I'd much rather just say what I have to say. Oh, my ancient twisted karma. And have someone say, oh, I hate that. Oh, that's too bad. Oh, your ancient twisted karma. Yeah. And the fixing it or making it perfect is when it becomes a problematic behavior. And I think it has something to do with my own feeling fundamentally okay. Like I can have these difficulties and problems, but still I'm fundamentally okay. I'm remaining on the child side to talk about the parents need to have the child behave a certain way so that they feel better.

[38:49]

And for me, what that brings up is all my life that I'm only now seeing at 43, that all my life that was what was weighed into me was If you don't act like this, you're going to be in big trouble. And so I did everything right, and then that started feeling terrible. And the more I came into my own self, and the more real I felt I had to be, the further my parents went away from me. And ultimately, the most real I became, I got completely abandoned. And it just showed me

[39:31]

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