Going Beyond Self-Importance

It is not easy to contemplate being held captive by anyone or anything—let alone ego! We may feel panic and resistance at the very suggestion. But we are even now being held captive in samsara by our largely unconscious sense of self-importance. Without keen awareness of our self-importance, we can’t free ourselves, because self-importance shapes our relationship with the world, the spiritual path, and our mind.

Even with great diligence in practice, and with practice experiences as many and varied as wildflowers in the spring, all of our accomplishments will belong to ego if the ground of our practice is the desire to be special. We may think that we’re great practitioners making progress on the path, but actually our self-importance may be getting more solid.

As our mind becomes less pliable, we become more isolated from our teacher and the wisdom of the Dharma. If we don’t get the recognition we feel we deserve, we may lose our appreciation for the teacher altogether. The spiritual path becomes a disappointment. And nothing seems to be working in our favor—particularly on the path of liberation from self-importance.

If we are unwilling to work with ourselves, we may come to believe that we don’t need anyone—no lineage, no Three Jewels, no teacher, no friends. Lacking the confidence to let go of control, we try to fix all of our problems on our own. With such an attitude, no one can get close enough to truly see us, and we certainly don’t want to hear anyone suggest that we may have some faults, even if it’s true. Such suggestions might shake the foundation of our identity and rattle our world. We might have to relearn everything from A to Z! From this sense of uncertainty, we reject the whole thing.

But even if the world were to honor us with everything it had, if people offered us their hearts and lives, it still wouldn’t be enough to ease our pain inside. Why is this? It’s because self-importance has no interest in how ego works. It has no interest in looking in the mirror and seeing its true face.

Even when self-importance doesn’t manifest as arrogance or pride, when it has the look of total humility and selflessness, it still has no real interest in self-reflection. So we continue to operate in the habitual ways that cause us tremendous pain. We may feel some renunciation toward the pain; even animals and newborn children feel renunciation toward pain. What we need, however, is renunciation toward the cause of pain, which is self-importance.

- Dzigar Kongtrül

Boulder public radio station KGNU interviewed Dzigar Kongtrül recently, click here to listen