The Absolute Truth: Being vs. Doing
From my pamphlet
Buddhism and the Enneagram
We hope that if we can be the star of the
show, shining and wonderful and efficient, we can have such
an admiring audience that we won't have to feel anything.
(Charlotte Joko Beck, "The Cocoon of Pain" from
Nothing Special: Living Zen).
The word persona originally referred
to ancient drama masks and was adopted by Carl Jung for the
roles we play as we adapt to external reality. As children we
responded so completely to others' expectations, while
developing our sense of self, that our own persona has become a
source of self deception. In our so-called reality we tend to
forget we're not who we think we are. We come to believe we are the masks we wear.
I discovered this quite profoundly for myself
some years ago, as I experienced burn-out and, through fatigue
with my work, realized how much vanity and self-deceit had
driven my coaching career. I'd gauged my success by extensive
travel, designer suits, reveling in my value to clients, working
with important people. I remember a
Three client who said
he had "a room full of empty trophies." Exactly. The development
path of truthfulness, then, refers to the enlightened
ability to speak and act from the ways things really are; not
through our personality needs.
The key personality need of people with the
Three worldview is self-deception, driven by vanity
- a compulsion to see themselves and be seen by others as
successful – which they consciously experience as a drive to
achieve results. All of us manifest aspects of vanity. It may be
reflected in the clothes we wear, in a drive to seek status,
wanting to be around important people, and competitiveness of
all varieties (being the "best" athlete, having the "best"
house, achieving the top organizational position).
My client, Sandy, was a workaholic totally
dedicated to efficiency and results, no matter what the human
cost. She was a loner who didn't connect with her co-workers,
focusing only on accomplishments (Threes are the least in touch
with their feelings). One day Sandy said to me, "You know how I
am." And I replied, "Actually, I don't. I suspect you tell me
what you think I want to hear. This is the quality of
withholding that leads others not to trust you."
Sandy learned to observe both her compulsion
to promote herself and her avoidance of failure. She noticed how
often she told people what she wanted them to hear (or what she
thought they wanted to hear). She also discovered she often
failed to connect with others. Instead of really listening she’d
say, "Yes, we need to do that," when she already had her mind
made up.
Even as she acknowledged these failures to
me, however, Sandy began to kick into her vanity overdrive (I've
emphasized key words in blue): "I think my opportunities for
development are better than
they were when we first started because I have more time to
focus on 'What's the best way for me to do this? How can I do that
better?'" Sandy's underlying pattern was now driving her
to seek results in a process designed to release herself from
her compulsion to seek results!
The spiritual path of truthfulness means
being true to the moment instead of focusing on doing, on
achieving results.
You must accept yourself as you are,
instead of as you would like to be, which means giving up
self-deception and wishful thinking. As long as you regard
yourself or any part of your experience as "the dream come
true," then you are involved in self-deception. If we really
want to learn and see the experience of truth, we have to be
where we are (from Cutting Through Spiritual
Materialism, by Chogyam Trungpa).
The revelation for Sandy when she began to
see and accept herself in the present was: "Time out! I've
worked 15-hour days as long as I can remember," and for the
first time she began to spend entire weekends away from work and
with her family. What was revealed to me – when I let go of my
drive to look good to clients – was the opportunity to capture
what I've learned from them and share it with others through
writing.
Buddhism and the Enneagram
