The friend I just talked about is obviously a Zen practitioner working with this in her practice. As much as it really pained me to see in her such pain, what would have been much worse, what I would have hated to have seen—think about it, in the situation I just described, what is the very worst thing that could have happened to her?
STUDENT: The mother acknowledges.
DOGO: Exactly. Getting what she wanted. The worst thing that could have happened is her mother saying, “Okay, okay, okay, I admit it. I’ve been lying all those years. I’m sorry I did all those things to you. I’m sorry I lied about it. I admit it. I did it. Okay, you’ve got your acknowledgment.”
Why would that be such a bad thing? Because, what now? Think she’ll be any happier? She got what she wanted, what she’s clinging to. “If I get this, then I’ll be happy. Things’ll be okay then.” You get what you want and what changes? Nothing. You get that acknowledgment and how do you respond to it? Not, “Okay, Mom, my pain’s all gone now.” It’s, “Okay, now fix it. And what about this and what about that? And what if? And give me this and give me that.” As soon as we get what we want we either want more of it or we want to make sure we don’t lose what we just got. That’s why life denying you what you want is the kindest thing that life does to you.
Even when we understand that—and some of you have been at this for a while now and you know it’s more than a theory—but come on, can any of you, can any of you honestly say that when you think about that, when you realize the truth of that, do any of you feel your bodies relaxing? “Okay, not getting what I want... Being in awful pain... My worst fears always coming true... Ahhh, that’s great.” Of course not. There’s still that resistance. “I want. I want. I want. Me. Me. Me.”
The Zen teacher Wei Wu Wei was once asked “Why do we suffer?” He answered, “Because 99.9% of everything you think and everything you do is about yourself—and there isn’t one.” That’s why I keep telling you that you are your own imaginary friends. We create this fiction and we live for it. And we wonder why we suffer.
So, core beliefs really are what run us. The most deluded people that I meet are people whose—Well, okay, take a guess, what would you say the most deluded core belief is?
That you don’t have any core beliefs!
You have got to do an awful lot of this for a long time, unraveling, unraveling, unraveling, letting go, letting go, letting go, to be without core beliefs. And does that mean that these thoughts don’t come up anymore? I mean honestly, if you really want to be without negative, addictive, compulsive thought, then shoot yourself in the head, destroy your brain. I’m really not sure that would stop it. But nothing else is going to. For as long as you’ve got that piece of meat floating in your skull it’s going to think, it’s going to have those thoughts. That’s what it does. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s how you know how to get to your house from where you work. It’s how you know how to put your shoes on. There’s nothing wrong with it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the most negative thoughts you can have.
So if core beliefs that you’re worthless aren’t bad, then what is bad? There’s no problem with having thoughts that you’re worthless. What is the problem? What is the problem that arises from that thought? So, you have a thought that you’re worthless. That thought is harmless. So what’s the problem with it?
STUDENT: Acting on it.
DOGO: What makes you act on it?
STUDENT: Believing it.
DOGO: The problem is not with the thoughts. The problem is with believing the thoughts.
We get addicted to those thoughts. They’re really comforting. Our most negative thoughts are incredibly comforting because with those thoughts we can blame other people and, better yet, the most comforting core beliefs we have, the ones that destroy us, are: we blame ourselves. Best cop-out imaginable: “It’s not my fault. I’m a jerk. I’m a bad person, so therefore, it’s not my fault, right? I’m a bad person.”
If you really want to chase your tail, and if you want to drive yourself as deep into delusion as you can possibly get— I actually like to accommodate everyone, so here’s a recipe for a really catastrophic life—if you want to be really miserable, I can help you. Here’s how you do it. Here’s how you absolutely destroy your life. It’s the most effective way you can mess up your own life: Try not to have negative thoughts. Try not to have core beliefs. Push them down. Put a smile on your face. Be happy. Be positive. Don’t think negatively. You’ll either end up in a locked ward or on death row after you go postal and shoot a bunch of people if you think that way. Best way to make yourself angry is try not to be angry.
How do any of you feel—I’ve talked about this with some of you—how do you feel when someone says, “Hey, don’t be angry. Calm down.” Absolutely furious, right? “Don’t tell me not to be angry. Who the hell are you to tell me not to be angry? I’m not angry. I’m sick of you saying I’m angry, damn it.”
So, if you don’t want to react that way, what do you do? A negative, blaming, judgmental, angry thought arises. “Okay, just having a negative, blaming, judgmental, angry thought.” Now, what does that thought say? “No, but I’m right. This is true.” You say, “No, you’re just a thought.” The thought says, “No, but I’m a true thought. I’m a true belief. “You say, “No, sorry, hate to break it to you, you’re not a true belief. There are no true beliefs.” The thought says, “No, really, all the other beliefs are wrong. I’m right. I’m for real.” Which, when you’re angry, is what you feel. You’re always totally justified in the moment. It really is like a drunk who says he’s okay to drive. “Yeah, but you’ve had five DUIs.”
“Yeah, I was drunk those times, but I’m not now.”
Same with anger. “Well, I regretted it all those other times, but this time I’m right. I’m not over-reacting this time. No, this time I’m justified.” That’s a core belief. When you try to banish core beliefs you strengthen them. You replace them with other core beliefs.
The most common core belief you get in centers of spiritual practice is that you shouldn’t be angry, you shouldn’t be negative, you should be nice. I don’t want anyone in this sangha to ever be nice. And I promise I will never be nice to you. I’ll be kind, always. But I’m not going to be nice to you. Nice people are the angriest, most vindictive, hateful people you’ll ever meet. I mean really, think about it. Have you ever met—can you think of one nice person that you actually trust? That you really wouldn’t worry about if they were behind you with a knife in their hand? That’s what being nice does to you. We have these core beliefs, “I should be nice. I shouldn’t have negative reactions. I’ll just paste a beatific smile on my face, put the robes on and walk around bowing to everybody.” Yes, see how that works for you.
The way you let go of beliefs is not by having a belief that you shouldn’t have beliefs, but by acknowledging the beliefs as what they are. Simple as that. A negative story arises. “Just a story. Just a belief.” A positive story arises. “It’s just a story. It’s just a belief.” Acknowledge it. Don’t welcome it. Don’t fight it either. If you want to understand what’s running you, what actually runs your life—anything at all that upsets you, anything—ask yourself, “What is this? What is it? What am I holding on to?”
My ex-wife said to me one time—I quote this a lot because it’s really funny, but what makes it funny is that she was absolutely right—I said to her one time, “Why are you being such a bitch?” And she said, “Why are you attaching to your belief that I shouldn’t be a bitch?” Sure, she was taking a dig back at me, but I thought, “Actually, yeah. Yeah, she’s right. What’s giving me a bad day is not how she’s behaving. It’s my belief that she should behave differently.”
See, core beliefs? “Things shouldn’t be the way they are. They should be the way I want them to be.” Has there ever been a time for any of you, maybe one minute in your life, when you looked at the world and decided how you wanted it to be and the world saluted and did what
you wanted? I didn’t think so.
So when you react negatively, angrily, whatever, to what’s going on, when you’re suffering, however you name it, let go of the name you’ve given it and ask yourself “What is this? What’s my core belief here? What do I want? What is it I’m clinging to?”
It’s like my friend, when she said, “I don’t really care about my mother, but I’m really resentful.” Okay, well, what do you want? What do you resent not getting?
“I want her to acknowledge what she did.”
Why? What is that? See, that’s not really what you want. That’s a manifestation of it—“I want you to acknowledge...” What is that? Why do you want your mother to acknowledge what she did and you don’t want Bill Clinton to acknowledge what he did? You don’t care about getting that acknowledgment. Because there is something you want from this person. What is it?”
“I want her to be my mother. I want to feel that I’m loved by her.”
When you understand what the core belief is, it doesn’t go away, but it stops running you. You’re not chasing your tail anymore. You’re actually living your life. When you make a decision, you’re making that decision from the awakened heart, not just one more reaction to the conditioning that you never even realized you had.
We’re running a bit late so anyone got any questions on that? I’ll say for the benefit of one person I think hasn’t heard me speak before, what I say at the end of every talk: If what I said didn’t make sense, question it. If it did make sense, question it even harder, because what makes sense to you leads you right into belief and right into delusion.
I don’t believe anything I’ve told you. I don’t need to believe it. If I believed it, I’d be separate from it. If I believed what I had told you, I would be lying to you. I’m not lying to you. And the reason I’m not lying to you is because I don’t believe what I just said. So, if it didn’t make sense, question it. And if it did make sense, question it even harder.
Questions?
STUDENT: Dogo, is one of the problems with beliefs that it makes something seem permanent too? One of the things I say—I do a lot of conflict resolution in my job and of course it’s easier to see in other people than myself—I just get this sense initially when all that emotion is there, and two people are mad at each other, or one’s mad at the other, there’s such a sense of permanence. I have plenty of that too, but watching it in other people it seems like you notice it. A little bit later, the next day, or two days later, it’s not such a big deal, but right at that moment not only is that person mean, but they’ve always been mean and always will be mean, you know that attachment to that? Is that a core belief?
DOGO: Exactly. That’s a perfect example of a core belief. Suppose I think you’re behaving in a self-centered, inconsiderate way; if I’m not caught up in belief, then even though I don’t like what’s going on, my response is going to be, “I think you’re being inconsiderate. You’re not thinking there are other people involved here. I think you’re really caught in a self-centered view.”
If I’m caught up in belief, then we’re completely polarized. There’s no room for dialogue there.
“Why is John doing that?”
“Because he’s self-centered.”
“Why is he self-centered?”
“Because he is.”
“So, he always is?”
“Yeah.”
“So, you don’t like him?”
“Well, he is my friend, but...”
And that actually ends friendships. We decide that what’s happening right now is permanent. “I don’t like this. I don’t like what you’re doing. Therefore you’re a jerk and you always have been.” That’s what belief is. Belief is entirely about reaction, not response.
We put a label on someone. “He’s a liar.”
“Does he always lie? He never says anything true? If I ask him the time, he’ll lie? Well, he told me the truth. I checked my watch.”
“Yeah, but he’s a liar.”
So, he’s not a human being. He’s not a person. He’s a liar. Or he’s selfish. Or she’s really flaky and unreliable. We take something we don’t like. We react badly to it and we make it a belief. And so that’s who the person is. They’re not a person anymore. They’re a piece of behavior, one piece of behavior. And that’s belief. That’s what belief does.
That’s why every belief is wrong. You can’t have a belief that’s true. If I think that a person is unreliable in some ways, they say they’ll do things they don’t follow through with, well, okay. But if I say, “That person’s a flake...” What about when they actually get to work on time? What about when they do what they said they were going to do? Even if what I think about the behavior is factually accurate, the belief can’t be true. Because no one is just that. Nothing is just the one thing.
Whether in your personal relationships or at work, when “someone makes you mad,” pause. No one else can make you mad. And no one else can make you happy. You respond angrily to what happens. You make you mad. So, when you react badly to something that’s happening, whether it’s just another driver—“They shouldn’t drive like that.” Shouldn’t drive like what? Drive in the way that I don’t like and that inconveniences me. No matter what’s happening, whether it’s something as trivial as the way other people are driving on a busy freeway, whether it’s how your colleague is behaving, whether it’s how your family member is behaving, as soon as you find yourself reacting angrily or with upset of any kind, just pause. Turn back towards the self. “What is this? What is the belief here?” And you’ll realize it’s entirely about yourself. It comes down to one thing: “I’m not getting my way. Therefore he or she is, insert pejorative here______.” That’s the belief.
You’ll see other people doing it towards you. When you pay attention to this, when you just see it for what it is—not trying to change it, not trying to make it go away—just see it for what it is, it doesn’t have that power over you anymore. And you also realize that someone else’s anger towards you isn’t about you. It’s about their core beliefs. It’s about their core reaction to what they think the world is doing to them. And in that moment, they believe you’re the representative of this world that just won’t do what they want. But it’s not about you.
And so, when someone is taking it out on you, when someone’s made you the enemy, someone is demonizing you in that way, you don’t need to defend anything. You don’t need to take it personally. That doesn’t mean you become a doormat, that you roll over and let yourself be abused. Actually, quite the opposite. When you don’t react to things in an egoic or self-protective way, then you tend to do whatever needs to be done.
By and large, someone who’s being a doormat wants something from the other person. Someone who’s being aggressive and fighting wants something from the other person. When you’re not making it about yourself, when you’re not defending, and you’re not attacking, you see things just as they are. It’s just this. Just this. Just this. Over and over again. It’s just this. This is what’s going on. You might still decide to be someone’s opponent, but not their enemy.
THE MOST INTIMATE
Jizô asked Hôgen, “Where are you going, senior monk?”
Hôgen said, “I am on pilgrimage, following the wind.”
Jizô said, “What are you on pilgrimage for?”
Hôgen said, “I don’t know.”
Jizô said, “Not knowing is most intimate.”
Hôgen suddenly attained great enlightenment.
In Scotland in the early 1990s, I helped Kevin Williamson choose poems for publication in Rebel Inc. magazine. One day, when we met up to discuss some submissions, he handed me a poem that didn’t have the author’s name on it. “What do you think of this?” he said.
“Who wrote it?” I said.
“I’ll tell you after you tell me what you think of it,” he said.
Was this a poem by someone I knew and liked? Someone I knew and disliked? He wouldn’t tell me. I read th
e poem, and, wondering if it was written by my worst enemy, I recommended that it be published.
Afterward, I realized that it was the first time in years that I had intimately read a poem. Usually, when I read a poem, I had a story about it. In a poem I read by Gary Snyder—one of my favorite poets—the first line seemed like a cringe-worthy cliche, and had it been written by someone else I would have laughed at it. But because I knew it was by Snyder, and I knew that I liked Snyder’s poetry, I gave it the benefit of the doubt. I wasn’t reading the poem intimately, but through the filter of my “knowing.”
I have a Zen student who’s a talented photographer. Sometimes he uses an editing program to enhance his photos. I prefer the ones he leaves unenhanced. Recently, I was looking at some new photos of his, and I saw one of an airplane that was glowing with a colorful painting of a cardinal. Assuming it had been enhanced, I decided it was an okay picture, but that I didn’t like it as much as I liked the others. Then I realized that it hadn’t been enhanced—the airplane was actually painted with that design. I then felt that it was one of my favorite pictures he had taken. The picture hadn’t changed, but my story, my “knowing,” had. I wasn’t viewing the picture intimately.
We do this not just with the books we read and the pictures we view, but with all of our lives. We think we know what’s going on, but it’s that very knowing that keeps us separate from our lives and our hearts. Not knowing is most intimate.
ORDINARY PERFECTION
Ordinary mind is the way.
— Nansen
Those who love themselves above all others, who place themselves at the center of a self-created universe, are those who cannot love. They are left anguished, alone and bereft.
— Chris Hedges
A Zen student used to tell me, “I want to be special.” She saw her failure to be special, to be outstanding in some unspecified way, as the cause of her discontent. If only she could be special, she said, she would then be happy.
Kill Your Self Page 5
