So this week we are looking at humility and there's a story about Mahatma Gandhi when he was in South Africa.
He was living in an ashram there and he put together a set of rules for people in the ashram to live by.
And the first rule was that everyone was supposed to practice humility.
And someone in the ashram told him well you you can't practice humility.
So he crossed that out and then at the bottom of the list of rules he said you should practice all of these rules in the spirit of humility.
So humility is not something that we do.
It's not an action like a mental action to be humble.
Maybe it's more like the absence of things.
You know the absence of a highly wanting mind.
A greedy mind.
Or the absence of ambition.
Or the absence of conceit.
Like propping ourselves up.
We don't do humility.
It's something that often other people observe in us or how we might be characterized or how we might characterize others.
Like that person is humble.
So I said on Tuesday that Buddhist culture it often emphasizes humility.
And the most prominent way is the tendency to avoid speaking of one's own spiritual maturity or attainments or even practice.
And a lot of Buddhist cultures there's a strong value not to build up or boost or do any sort of self-praise.
Being really careful about that.
Which is quite opposite to our culture.
You know we are such an attainment oriented culture.
So while Buddhism doesn't emphasize humility the results of our practice look that way.
What the practice does emphasize is kind of overcoming the opposite of humility.
Overcoming arrogance.
Overcoming conceit.
Overcoming comparing ourselves with others.
You know avoiding or overcoming these poisons as they're known of greed and hatred or aversion and delusion.
And the reason being is because they hurt.
Like part of our clinging leads to suffering.
So to be sensitive and pay attention in a way where we're seeing our attachment to this sense of self.
Where we're caught up in the selfing of the me and mine and myself.
To bring awareness to the selfing.
How we want other people to perceive us.
How we present ourselves to other people.
How we're holding our concept our self concept.
Whether that self concept is positive or negative.
Whether we're seeing ourselves as special or the opposite of special.
Like how are we holding this?
Are we clinging to this perception of self?
Any kind of way in which we're playing the game of comparing ourselves to others.
It involves a kind of conceit.
And this is deeply ingrained in our culture.
So the opposite the alternative to kind of comparing ourselves to others is to not even play the game.
Just walking through the world through your life without needing to measure yourself in relationship to other people.
That can be just a whole practice.
So the focus in our practice is to have awareness.
Let awareness be cultivated and nourished.
So that we can see the ways in which we're arrogant.
The ways in which we're conceited or caught up in selfing.
And learning to let go of that.
And maybe the benefit of when we let go of it is that someone might refer to us as being humble.
But it wouldn't be a self concept because humbleness is not an activity.
It's not something we do.
It's a result of how we are because of the absence of these qualities of conceit.
So one of the ways to source,
I guess,
Healthy humility is to recognize our limitations,
Our personal limitations.
To recognize that maybe you don't understand everything.
Or you don't know as much as you think you know.
It can be a little bit oppressive to be around people who think they know everything.
I find it more helpful to be around people who kind of leave the field open.
They're open to this is what I know.
This is what I understand.
And you know,
There might be more to more of this than I see.
Or I'm open to understanding more.
Maybe you have something to contribute here.
So there's more than one perspective.
There's other attitudes and other ways of looking.
One Buddhist teacher defined humility as a willingness to learn.
So willingness to learn another aspect of humility is a willingness to be corrected,
Really.
How willing are you to be corrected?
Think about that.
And my,
I have other communities of Buddhist practitioners,
Dharma practitioners,
Outside of our group here.
More of my practice community that's been with me since I started long ago.
And in this community of practitioners,
We come to each other and we invite feedback.
So I often consult with other teachers and invite my Dharma friends to give me feedback.
Like I can say,
Is there anything you see about how I am that's off?
Or would be useful to tell me?
Because I can't see my own delusion.
It's very hard to see your own delusion.
So I invite others to tell me.
I invite all of you.
If I'm doing something that seems deluded to you,
Please,
I'm curious about that.
And there's a whole different feeling when someone says you're invited.
Like,
You know,
There's a welcoming.
I want to hear.
It's a lot easier for others to be like,
Well,
You know what?
Yeah,
There is something.
Now that you've mentioned and acknowledged it,
There is something that I think would be useful for you to hear.
Perhaps we need humility to respect other people.
Or we need something like humility in order to have compassion.
In some ways,
I feel like humility is a vehicle for compassion.
Because then there's,
You know,
Not holding others or ourselves to some sort of like superhuman standard.
When we are able to see and recognize our own limitations,
Then we're willing to accept others for their limitations.
So the willingness to accept our own creates a willingness to accept others.
Maybe some of you know that the word humility or humble is related to the Latin word,
Which means humans of the earth.
Humans of the earth.
It's a beautiful expression.
When I think about someone on the earth,
You know,
There's like,
Ah,
There's a simple groundedness.
When we're on the earth,
There's a simple humble,
Like it's a humbleness.
And it's a praise that we offer.
When we see people taking the time to value others,
Having a practice of appreciating people,
Other people.
It can be hard when there's conceit,
Or when there's fear,
To really actually take time to see other people in an appreciative way.
At the heart of some of these elements of spiritual life,
Like recognizing the limitations of all our virtues,
Of all our good qualities,
All our conceptions of self.
You know,
By recognizing the limitations,
Then we kind of get to the heart of the matter.
There's a certain kind of humility that even the good qualities or virtues have their limitations.
Even the wonderful ways of being in the world,
Of being a virtuous person,
Has its limitations.
So we celebrate the good qualities in ourselves,
But we also realize our limitations and fold them into.
You don't have to be just a good person,
Or a bad person,
Or an in-between person.
You can just be a person.
The person who's free of not something.
Or just realizing that nothing is really ultimately useful as a self-identity.
Humility is not relying on self-identity.
Not at all.
Not relying on me,
And myself,
And mine.
There's no self there.
It's just freedom and not clinging.
We rely on the not clinging.
Helen Keller wrote,
I long to accomplish a great and noble task,
But it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
So don't try too hard to be humble,
But practice showing up in a way that's without conceit,
With willingness,
That will benefit yourself and others.
Thank you for your consideration.
