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What is Important

For this Sunday morning dharma^[1] talk, I would like to talk about what is important. As an introduction to what I'm going to say, in my understanding of Buddhist teachings and practice, what's important in this world is that each of you is important. Each of you is valuable, precious, and lovable. Buddhist practice is predicated on the idea that we do, in fact, take ourselves as valuable, significant, and important for our care and attention.

Because we are so important, it's also important to trust something that's more important than ourselves. We are so important that we don't want to be limited by ourselves, but rather learn to trust something that's greater than ourselves, or something which is not caught up in the whole self-system. It can seem like a bit of a paradox to say it this way, but it's a way of appreciating ourselves while not being caught up in or preoccupied with the self. It is a way to discover something trustable that's different than the usual ways in which we self-identify, measure ourselves, contrast ourselves, or hold onto ourselves.

We are too important—our well-being and happiness are so important—that we don't want to hold on to the self and cling to it, because it diminishes and limits us. There's this wonderful, dual aspect of really caring about ourselves, and because we do, we almost at times forget about ourselves. That's where the greater good can reside. This is not a dismissing of ourselves. It's not a total, permanent forgetting of ourselves, but rather putting ourselves in a context where we actually trust something different than the self we're preoccupied with. For Buddhist practitioners, a wonderful place to place this trust is in the practice—trusting the practice more than we trust ourselves.

What is Practice?

What do we mean by practice? We trust mindfulness. We trust engagement with Buddhist values. We trust our capacity for attention, goodness, concentration, and love. We trust the practice of those things more than we trust our mind's preoccupations—being caught in the labyrinth of self, the wind-drag of self. We trust practice over the ways in which self-concern slows us down, closes us down, contracts us, and separates us.

To trust the practice more than we trust ourselves is key. The practice, of course, comes out of ourselves and is part of ourselves, so in a sense, we are trusting ourselves when we trust the practice. But it can be helpful sometimes to not see that as the self. It's like stepping out of the whole self-game and self-concern.

The Three Aspects of Practice

To understand how this works, we can define what practice means in a basic way. I think one of the first basic ways is to live ethically—to live in such a way that we don't knowingly or intentionally cause harm to others. This is central: do not cause harm.

The second aspect of practice is to engage in discovering a way not to harm ourselves. One of the ways we harm ourselves is through clinging: the contraction and tightness of holding on tight. One of the things we hold on to is self-identity—our self-ideas, concepts of conceit, needing to be better than others, worse than others, or equal to others. We want to assert our selves in situations in life. It's not necessarily wrong to do that, but if there's an "ouch," a sting in this "selfing," if it limits us, then it's unfortunate. Clinging to self is a way we harm ourselves.

So first, we don't want to harm others, and I like to put that first. Second is not harming ourselves. Which one should be first is a wonderful topic of conversation and exploration. Do you put the oxygen mask on yourself first, or on the person sitting next to you? Perhaps there's no final answer, because the two are closely connected. When we harm ourselves, it often perpetuates the hurt of self-harm—clinging, resisting, and closing down—and that somehow has a genesis in something we are doing. What we are responsible for can be the source from which harming others arises. Conversely, harming others is often the source for a certain kind of harming of ourselves. It's a chicken-and-egg situation.

The third aspect of practice is using our attention to be in the present moment in a higher-quality way than usual. It is being in the present moment so we're not caught up in our thoughts or in self-preoccupation. We practice mindfulness. We want our mindfulness to be strong enough that we see where the clinging is, where the sting is, and what we're doing, so that we can realistically find a way beyond that.

Forgetting the Self

In engaging in this practice, we trust that process more than we trust our self-concerns. This isn't because we're unimportant or unconcerned with ourselves; we are so concerned with ourselves that we devote ourselves to the practice. In certain situations, like in meditation or other activities where we give ourselves fully and mindfully to the activity, there can be a delightful sense of forgetting the self.

We see this in sports, doing a craft, playing games, reading a novel, or even in conversation with certain friends. We are so fully involved that part of the pleasure is a kind of self-forgetting. There's a complete forgetting of self that feels like a relief. The spiral of getting wound up in self is no longer going on.

It's a great thing to watch someone highly skilled—a dancer, an athlete—embody an activity so fully that their "self" kind of disappears. If someone playing a championship game suddenly starts having thoughts like, "Why am I here? What's the purpose of my life? Are people appreciating me? Should I stand up straighter so people like me more?"—as soon as they start thinking that way, the athlete will begin tripping over themselves and will no longer be absorbed in what's happening.

Sometimes in meditation, it is the same way. When we're completely involved in the practice of mindfulness—really present with breathing or our loving-kindness practice—there's a delightful forgetting of self. Part of the pleasure is freedom from self-concern and identity. Some identities we have are natural and appropriate, but it's the preoccupation with them that causes trouble. It is so good to have that drop away for a while, just to be alive, to breathe, and to be fully present without that self-reflective movement of self-preoccupation. That self-forgetting, to whatever degree it happens, is a reference point that helps us become more sensitive to when the self is operating.

Taking Care of Ourselves Mindfully

In many circumstances, self-concern is an important part of life. We have to take care of ourselves. Recently, I had surgery for my eye, and I had to remember to do these eye drops multiple times throughout the day. I couldn't expect someone else to do that for me. I had to be self-aware and self-caring enough. This was not the time to be so absorbed in other activities that I wouldn't notice it was time to take my medication. It was appropriate to have the presence of mind to take care of myself.

But as we learn what it is to forget the self, and learn to track ourselves and be mindful, we start noticing a difference. We can see the difference between just putting the eye drops in and caring for ourselves, versus needing to be the very best eye-dropping person in the world. We notice the difference between simply doing the task and wanting all our friends to recognize how great we are at it, placing ourselves in public view so everyone can see, or being afraid to let anyone see us do it awkwardly because we feel it must be done perfectly.

We start noticing all the little extras that go on—the proving, defending, and hiding of ourselves in relationship to the world. We see the "ouch" of it, the sting of it. And we choose not to add more stings.

If anything, when practice becomes more important than ourselves, seeing this self-preoccupation doesn't have to dismay us. If we see it clearly enough, it can even give birth to a certain degree of humor. We can smile and say, "There it is again." Or, if it hurts a lot, it can give birth to compassion, love, and forgiveness for ourselves.

Refuge in the Dharma

The reference point, the place we trust, is the practice—not the self. Practice involves a shift in the locus of trust, switching from self to being mindful. It is safe to do that because we're not totally abandoning ourselves. In being mindful, there is actually a heightened sensitivity and awareness of our thinking, feelings, emotions, where we suffer, where the stings are, and where the freedom is.

We can figure out how to take care of ourselves in conventional ways, but that care comes from a different place than selfish care. It comes from a place of selflessness—a place of just trusting the practice, trusting how it supports, unfolds, and develops us. To take refuge in the practice is what some people call taking refuge in the Dharma^[2]. We take refuge in the Dharma more than we would in the conventional self, which is based on self-concern and ideas.

This is a very unconventional idea in our society. For some of you, it might be challenging to hear. Maybe you've taken a long time in your life to find a confident, strong, self-caring self to navigate through the world, and that's a good thing. But there are people who find that maintaining a strong sense of self is tiring. It's extra work. It limits the greater possibility of real freedom. Real freedom doesn't have a tight, contracted, bounded locus working at the center. It is an effortless, free, unbounded location of life.

I'm not sure how articulate I can be, or how well this works for you in your own language. I ask you to consider what I'm saying and see if there is a different way of framing it that works for you. Is there a distinction for you between self-involvement and a way of being where that kind of "self" is put to rest? Whether you call it trusting the Dharma, or trusting practice, or something else entirely, that distinction holds a place. It's a place where self-forgetting has an opportunity to operate, where there's a possibility of holding things lightly, with humor or freedom, instead of taking things personally in unhelpful ways.

The Greatest Benefit

I say again that each of us is important. You are all important, valuable, appreciable, and lovable. No doubt about it. All of you are worthy of being appreciated and loved by yourselves. I hope you will take yourself as being important. But with the sense of that importance, appreciate that there is something more important. That is the practice. It is the movement that takes us beyond the limited ways we get caught in self.

I delight in the idea that we are so important that we want to trust something else besides that small self. Trust the practice. Trust mindfulness. Trust navigating through the world dedicated to not causing harm to others or ourselves. Trust awareness of the present moment.

I hope that each of you will have, from time to time, some experience of forgetting yourself in a healthy and wonderful way. Not because you are thoroughly distracted, but because you are so thoroughly involved and fully present with what's here that self-concern, self-consciousness, and selfishness drop away. Delight in that. Let it become a reference point for you to move in that direction more and more. Provide yourself with the greatest joy, freedom, and good a human being can experience. Let go of the self to experience a profound care for self and others.

Thank you very much. I appreciate you all. I think this path of the Dharma teaches us how to see something in everyone that is appreciable. Everyone can be loved. Everyone is important. May it be that as we see ourselves as important, our ability to see each person we meet as important supports us in meeting others without the barriers of self. Selfing and othering are unfortunate ways we create separation. May we be free of that. May we bring ourselves the greatest benefit. Thank you.