Expert: Laurie McLauglin - 9/23/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hi,
I'm writing a paper where the issue is "Does Buddhism honor the individual and address the journey to Self, or simply offer a path to enlightenment?"
From what I've researched to far, it seems that Buddhism essentially promotes uniformity and the destruction of the individual (By "the individual" I mean one's personality, one's defining values and characteristics, etc.). The Four Noble Truths seem to say that suffering is caused by desire and attempting to define ourselves/prove our existence. Then the fourth noble truth goes on to say that the goal is to eliminate suffering, which means the goal is to end attempting to define who we are. In other words, the thought process seems to be:
Suffering exists --> Suffering is caused by attempting to define self --> Suffering can be ended (defining self is unnecessary) --> The path to end the cause of suffering is meditation/being mindful/etc (The path to end cause of suffering is by destroying our attempts to define ourselves)

I'm wondering what your opinion on this is, and, specifically, how Buddhism addresses the honoring of the individual and the journey to Self.

Thanks for your time,
Johan

ANSWER: Hello Johan

Thanks for letting me answer your question.  It's a good one.

I will do my best to answer it based on what I have learned so far.  

I will start with your statement "Does Buddhism honor the individual and address the journey to Self, or simply offer a path to enlightenment?"; especially the "or simply offer a path to enlightenment" part.

As a Mahyana Buddhist, that is the penultimate goal, so to say it "simply offers a path to enlightenment" that's the whole point of why we do what we do.

According to the Buddhists, it is the self that gets us into trouble. Not the self specifically, for there is nothing wrong with having a self and liking the self and understanding the self,and honoring that self conventionally. We must exist in this world so we must know ourselves as much as possible in order for us to be of most use in this world.

However, Buddhists would probably say that we have what we call "self grasping" we take the self and we embellish it.  We think it is the most important, most wonderful, most beautiful thing. When we do that, we tend to do things which create negative karma in order to make sure that our self gets everything it wants and thinks it needs.

We learn that the self does not exist inherently as we have been taught it does.  For example, we may think of ourselves as very smart, and that we are inherently smart and no one can take that away from us and when they insult our intelligence we get angry. But if we were inherently smart then everyone who saw us would see "smart" when they see us as it would be an inherent characteristic of who we are.  But there are probably a few people who do not think we are smart or who think they are smarter. So, because people view us as having different quantities of intelligence, then being smart cannot be an inherent quality of who we are.  We have simply labeled ourself as smart based on our own beliefs.

One can do that same experiment with all our traits, our looks, our talents; all our qualities which go to make up what we usually think of as an inherently existent self are merely labeled by us on us.  So, where is self?

When we realize that there is no inherently existent self then we can let go of the suffering we put ourselves through when we cling to an identity of self and are hurt (and often retaliate, causing more suffering) when we perceive that self to be harmed.

The road to enlightenment is the study of coming to terms with the idea of no self. When we have no inherently existent self to be hurt, then we can begin to put other people first and develop a wish to help them stop suffering instead of being wrapped up in our "self".

We do not promote uniformity as such. We don't want everyone to be the same. We want everyone to be happy and to find ways to end the suffering in their lives. Buddhists recognize that all people are different.  The Buddha himself taught 84,000 different teachings because he recognized that everyone is at a different level on their journey and so he taught each person at the level they could understand.

From how I understand the Four Nobel Truths, it is that suffering exists, suffering can be stopped, it then teaches how to stop it and finally how to keep it away through using the Reinhold path.

Suffering comes because we grasp at things as if they have an inherent existence and when our beliefs about that thing get called into question, we suffer.

Things do exist conventionally.  We all exist conventionally or I would be writing to no one. But you as Johan exist because you are merely labeled based on the sum of your parts. But when you grasp onto Johan as an individual who must exist as he sees himself at all costs, then we automatically create suffering. For the first time someone says something no matter how slight that contradicts your belief in your inherent individualistic self, you will become unhappy.

Buddha simply taught that the way we see the world currently creates nothing but suffering and perpetuation of karma which ties us to rebirth after rebirth of suffering.

I hope that makes sense. Please don't hesitate to ask any follow up questions wish.  I wish you much success on your paper.

Namaste - Laurie


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you very much for your detailed answer, it all makes a lot more sense now. But I would like you to expand on how you think Buddhism addresses the issue of honoring the individual. From what I gathered from your response, it seems that Buddhism simply does not honor the individual at all, but instead honors all "individuals" as one (similar to the "all is one, one is all" idea), which destroys any perception of individuality. What do you think?

Answer
Thank you for your follow up question

From what I have learned so far in studying, Buddhism does not really teach about honoring one's unique individuality if that's what you mean.  We do honor individuals and do not strive to make them all think the same or be the same. We honor each person where they are at in their spiritual journey and do not attempt to take they where they are not ready to go. Buddhism encourages each and every person to think for themselves and decide on their own how best to apply the principals of the Buddhist path in their own lives.

We can conventionally honor individuality as long as we don't see the individuality as inherently existent.  Individuality exists based on causes and conditions and karma. It is not an inherent feature of a person. It is not something to be grasped at like a prize. Our karmic imprints from our past lives naturally make each person a separate individual from another. It is why identical twins have individual personalities.  So we recognize the individuality of each person and honor it.

But what we are not supposed to do that most western cultures do is celebrate it in a way that harms or causes suffering. There would be no need to try to make ourselves different by emphasizing our individuality. We simply are different based on karma and dependant arising.

When we try to celebrate our individuality, we usually get our egos involved and that is what we try to avoid in Buddhism.  Ego puts me first and you second and that always causes suffering either for us or for the other person or both.  What Mahayana Buddhists try to do is to create within themselves Boddhichita, the desire to cherish all sentient beings above ones self and to let go of an ego that seeks individuality at any cost.

Does that make sense?

And yes - from my side, one could take Buddha's teachings and use them to see the concept of "one is all" and "all is one"

If I can answer any other question for you, don't hesitate to ask.

Namaste - Laurie