Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Subtlety, Intimacy, Motivation XIV

Unflagging certainty in oneself. In Chogyam Trungpa's words:

The key to warriorship and the first principle of Shambhala vision (Trungpa's version of enlightened society) is not being afraid of who you are. Shambhala vision teaches that, in the face of the world's problems, we can be heroic and kind at the same time. Shambhala vision is the opposite of selfishness (Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior).


The certainty is important, even if we speak about it in somewhat different terms; courage counts. Muhammad called conquering oneself the "greater jihad", and a similar motivation is expressed in the Bhagavad Gita. In Mahamudra and other forms of Buddhism, they speak about how analysis and insight based in tranquility can be counted on while analysis and insight that does not have a base in tranquility will tend towards delusion and further troubles. The one-pointed focus of tranquility and certainty are not far from one another.

People often get confused around courage, fear, fanaticism, and selfishness. It's easy to lose a sense of directed motivation if we only value a selflessness that lacks character. In other words, some people want to avoid selfishness rather than overcoming it. There's a root of fear involved with all avoidance. Eventually, wisdom or equanimity or something like that may end up addressing any fear, but it initially takes courage to face our fears. Courage is ego-based even if something like faith and altruism are involved. Courage would be meaningless if it did not need one's decision to act in a certain way. In the same sense, character would be a meaningless concept without ego, so I am not unconditionally all for selflessness. There is a selflessness that avoids character and courage and a selflessness that is basic to and/or goes beyond character and courage.

Fanaticism, besides including resentment and fear, also involves a physical, psychological, or spiritual materialism. We can enjoy a certain fanatic devotion to a favorite sports team without feeling much connection between that devotion and righteousness. But most people prefer their fanaticism with righteousness. Not only do they want their team to win, but they want to believe that God or destiny or the moral right is also a fan for their team. Fanaticism is craziness. A little craziness with sports fits fine, but fanaticism as a political agenda and social program is unsustainable. Or rather, the human propensity towards fanaticism may be a constant potential, but each brand of fanaticism is bound to fade away. Fearlessness and fanaticism cannot exist in the same place at the same time because fanaticism involves fear. That might be somewhat titillating when we fear horror movies or when we fear our team may lose the championship game, but when fed into political extremism, that need to rely on extremism shows a lack of courage as well as a lack of vision. Conceptually, it may be impossible for us to settle on a clear and applicable definition of fanaticism that everyone can agree on, but the feeling is clear. Being unable to admit fanaticism in oneself when it occurs also displays a lack of courage. Fanaticism, though, can be seen from the outside (by others) by its eventually materialistic agenda.

Certainty can never be fully accomplished when selfishness is involved--the best we can do with selfishness is to develop a stubborn narcissism. When that narcissism is broken through, the ego usually appears quite fragile. Sustained courage, on the other hand, comes along with allying oneself to goals deemed bigger than oneself. Fanaticism propagandizes personal grandiosity in one form or another.

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