I Vow To Be Unmoved By Praise and Blame

ghost fart originally uploaded by banjo d

One of my girlfriends would say that a statement like that "takes some ovarios."

This is a new vow. It's a big one, taking on two of the eight worldly conditions. It's one of those Lifetime Vows. It's like the precepts; impossible to follow perfectly, but worthy of honest efforts.

I have previously posted about my addiction to praise here.

I'm afraid our culture continues to inadvertently create armies of praise junkies.

Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford, has done research on children and praise. In one study, she gave a group of kids a test, upon which they all did well, but then they got divided into two groups:

Group 1 gets praise for their intellect. Ostensibly fixed traits. You kids did so well because you are smart.

Group 2 gets praise for their efforts. The process. You kids did so well because you tried hard.

Some time later, the kids get a choice: Take the same simple test over again, or take a harder test that you might learn something from. The you're-so-smart kids tend to take the simple test. 90% of the "effort-praised" kids chose the harder test. And they enjoyed it! Because for them, it's not about the outcome. Or protecting their identity as smart. In fact, the smart kids begin to feel that effort actually threatens their identities as smart kids. Because this stuff should be easy for them. Because they're so smart!

Protecting identity. How much energy have I spent on this?

A few years ago I began to ask myself how much my actions were motivated by fear and not love. One of my preamble vows is "to be motivated by wisdom and compassion." This vow clarifies things even further. And requires a letting go of this assumption that I am some fixed trait, but rather a process.

And here is one of my very favorite Zen stories about praise and blame from pureinsight.org. On this website, Min Xu writes about Su Dongpo, a Chinese calligrapher, poet, and general Renaissance man back in the Song Dynasty.

Su Dongpo wrote a poem. It was an incredible poem. It was a poem about attaining a level of enlightenment so high that the eight worldly conditions (praise, blame, loss, gain, pleasure, pain, fame, ill-fame) no longer affected him:

I bow my head to the heaven within heaven
Hairline rays illuminating the universe
The eight winds cannot move me
Sitting still upon the purple golden lotus

Su Dongpo impressed himself with this poem so much, he had to make sure his Zen Master friend Foyin read it. Su Dongpo

"sent a servant to hand-carry this poem to Foyin. He felt certain that his friend would be just as impressed.

When Foyin read the poem, the Zen master wrote "fart" on the manuscript and had it returned to Su Dongpo.

Su Dongpo was shocked when he saw what the Zen master had written. He hit the roof: "How dare he insult me like this? Why that lousy old monk! He's got a lot of explaining to do!"

Full of indignation, Su Dongpo ordered a boat to ferry him to the other shore as quickly as possible. Once there, he jumped off and charged into the temple. He wanted to find Foyin and demand an apology. He found Foyin's door closed. On the door was a piece of paper, with the following two lines:

The eight winds cannot move me
One fart blows me across the river

This stopped Su Dongpo cold. Foyin had anticipated this hotheaded visit.

Su Dongpo's anger suddenly drained away as he understood his friend's meaning. If he really was a man of spiritual refinement, completely unaffected by the eight winds, then how could he be so easily provoked?

Ashamed but wiser, Su Dongpo departed quietly. We have no way to know what level Sun Dongpo was finally able to achieve in his cultivation. But we can imagine that after that episode, he advanced further in cultivation and made improvements in hisxinxing (mind nature)."