This, if left to develop, can seep into everything, destroying relationships and sapping confidence. Low self-esteem can lead to destructive behaviours, addictions and unhappiness, perhaps even to economic hardship and shortened lives.
 |
| Cartoon from www.jattdisite.com/scraps/cartoon/ |
Others may throw themselves into work, achieving success at great cost to their personal lives.
But what if you saw that something you’d been struggling with all your life didn’t exist after all? What if you could actually act on the principle that, once we realise something isn't real, it becomes possible to forget about it?
This applies to self-image as much as anything. The ego is the cause of much human suffering. If we could just let it go we would naturally become much happier. Wouldn't we?
The Buddhist concept of ‘no-self’ or anatta holds that nothing, including our selves, has inherent existence but is, rather, the result of combination of factors. Anatta is one of the ‘three marks of existence’, the others being anicca (impermanence) and dukkha (suffering).
The idea is that, because nothing lasts or has substance, we suffer as a result of our desire to hold on to things, such as self-image or ego.
If we can stop holding on and live as though we are simply, beautifully, the product of dynamic processes, the problem is solved. We liberate ourselves from dukkha, suffering.
Those with low self-esteem know all about suffering. Their interactions with other people are often wary and anxious and there’s often a background of fear and stress.
There are brief moments of freedom, but these are backlit with a giddiness that sets others on their heels. This just increases the negative feedback to the anxious person, ratcheting up their anxiety.
So the suggestion is that perhaps a person with low self-esteem might more readily accept anatta, precisely because they 'get' dukkha.
A confident and successful person may well be generous and sensitive. They might even accept the Buddhist idea that life is marked by suffering, but this acceptance is often an intellectual one.
It doesn't mean that worldly 'success' and anatta can't go hand in hand. But it may be harder to see anatta, because perhaps the suffering isn’t felt by the confident person as much as it is by the person who struggles with themselves and who wants to turn away from others.
This urge to retreat, to hide, may be legitimised by many Buddhist and Zen suttas (scriptures), where the dialectic (dialogue) is often highly negative in tone.
Anatta is a concept that is completely at odds with the direction of travel of Western, individualistic, positivistic society. And some negativity is needed in order to destroy any lingering attachment to the self.
This negativity can turn many people off, but it may be more attractive to those who feel that they have little value. Perhaps too attractive.
Without some sense of self-worth, the danger is that you can oversubscribe to the idea of anatta. You let yourself become a walkover. You put yourself in harm’s way because you’re not important. Or so you think.
Anatta does sound negative, does seem ‘contra’. Yet there is a positive purpose behind it, one that is easy to mis-read.
The ultimate message of anatta is not nihilism (negativity, nothingness) but communion. In losing a small sense of self we open to a greater sense of belonging.
To put it another way, the great ‘No’ of Buddhism becomes the great ‘Yes’ of Zen. Renunciation turns in on itself and begins to open to, rather than to turn away from, the world.
Most of us don’t live in monasteries – we still have to make choices. There’s a need to see through the surface of things, but also a need to act at that surface, without getting caught up in it or mistaking it for reality.
Imagine you’re walking along a country road, drinking in the beauty of the fields and hedgerows around you. If you were to hear a car approaching around a blind corner, you’d naturally get out of the way, while still enjoying the sights and smells around you.
Zen does not, as some might fear, so blind us that we let ourselves be hit by the car. It allows you to act naturally, without ego – without focusing so much either on your footsteps or the approaching car that you don’t take in what is around you.
The truth is that you hold two truths in mind. You learn to see both anatta and daily life at the same time.
If you can do so, a sense of self-worth, based now on action and interaction with the people around you, rather than on the shifting sands of self-image, becomes more realistic, more grounded.
The shadows begin to disappear and the light of natural wisdom starts to predominate. You begin to feel more confident; a more authentic, ‘bigger’ self starts to come to the fore.