..续本文上一页ently for gaining merit: you do a job for its own sake instead of for the commission. Even though you may receive the commission, you get the payoff in terms of merit. If you”re doing the job just to get the commission, you probably won”t get the payoff, because you won”t do a very good job. Whereas, if you”re doing the job for its own sake, you will probably do it well—and accrue the merit.
Dzigar Kongtrül: Many people do that. They become very good at what they do, and receive lots of compensation as well.
Elizabeth Namgyel: Isn”t it possible, though, that wanting to be happy and gain merit can simply become self-importance
Dzigar Kongtrül: Self-importance is having too much attachment to one”s own well-being and freedom from suffering, without having the same kind of care and concern for others” well-being and freedom from suffering. When we have a great deal of self-importance, we will never be able to enjoy whatever we possess that we have gathered through our hard work, wit, and cunning. It will always bring a sense of dissatisfaction. We will never feel quite ready to enjoy it, because we carry the burden of being attached to it. However, if we apply to others the same sense of loving and caring that we have in cherishing ourselves, we reduce the self-importance.
When self-importance is reduced, a door opens to your positive qualities. As you continue to reduce the self-importance, the positive qualities take deeper root in your mindstream and your heart. At that point, you have real discipline and you begin to sustain yourself with your innate positive qualities, rather than the drive to become important. The ability to love, to care, to be concerned, to be compassionate—these were all there from the beginning. Previously, they were guided by self-centeredness; now they are guided by the needs of others.
This innate love is a powerful force that is now being led by a completely noble, incredibly dignified leader. Before, this powerful force, an army with the richness of a whole kingdom behind it and the loyalty of the subjects, was being led by a crooked king, and that crookedness created a state of confusion that spread everywhere. When that crooked leader is replaced by a noble leader, with a genuine sense of dignity, everyone in the kingdom can reap the benefit of the positive qualities that are the basic nature of the kingdom in the first place.
Pema Chödrön: Is the leader self-reflection
Dzigar Kongtrül: The noble leader is altruistic mind, and the crooked leader is self-centeredness. Self-reflection is what discriminates between the qualities of self-centeredness of the bad leader and the altruistic mind of the good leader.
Pema Chödrön: It is interesting to consider the nature of the self-centeredness that seems to be prevalent in the West. I don”t think the term “self-cherishing,” for example, is all that helpful here, because the ego twist in the West isn”t that we love ourselves too much. Rather, we tend to have a negative preoccupation with ourselves. We might go shopping, not so much to feather our own nest, but to try to overcome some very bad feeling we have toward ourselves. Rather than cherishing ourselves, we hate ourselves. So, loving- kindness toward oneself needs to be developed as the basis before you can spread it to other people.
Dzigar Kongtrül: The loving-kindness is directed to your mind, not to the self. When you redirect the love and compassion from the self-centered approach, which has never produced good results anyway, to the altruistic approach, you find you have positive feelings in great abundance. Even though these are extended outwardly to others, they don”t leave your mind and end up somewhere else. They fill your mind and sustain it.
Pema Chödr&oum…
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