Vanity Strikes Again!
But It’s Okay; Turns out it’s Only Because I’m Human
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An Inspiring Read
Satya Robyn, author of the mindfulness-themed Substack newsletter Going Gently, recently published an article in the print magazine, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, called “On Wanting to Sound Good: How My Dog Checked My Ego.”*
In this piece, Satya humbly explains how one afternoon, with her dog’s help, she realized she had gotten caught up in a somewhat vain pursuit. She’d been struggling to find the “perfect quote” for a talk she’d been invited to give. After hours of searching through her library of spiritual texts, and a series of interruptions by her dog’s demands to go outside, to come back inside, and to wrestle with her on the carpet, she turned to her books for one final look, and her eye immediately landed on a poem that included these lines:
“I lack even small love and small compassion/And yet, for fame and profit, enjoy teaching others.”
And Satya realized that she wasn’t so much looking for a clever quote as she was a quote that would make her look clever.
The article goes on to discuss the imperfect and self-centered nature of being human, Pure Land Buddhism, and waking up to the opportunities that self-awareness can bring—a wonderful article—but it was Satya’s personal admission that inspired me to consider more deeply the intersection of human vanity and self-reflection.
An Admission of My Own
I, like Satya, practice Buddhist mindfulness and meditation (though not adhering to any one school of teachings) and as a result have become more willing to see and acknowledge my own human fallibility. For the most part, I can now observe my weaknesses without the characteristic feelings of guilt and resistance that tend to compound the problems rather than solve them.
One of the human tendencies I have been noticing in myself lately is vanity. It can show up in the most subtle ways, ways that might not even be recognized by one who hasn’t been paying close attention to the functioning of their mind. I would describe my personality as more insecure than vain, but I am beginning to understand that these two traits are closely related, and in fact, stem from the same place: the hunger for validation.
Last week I attended a meeting of my meditation group, where we always sit in a circle, facing one another. After a thirty-minute silent sitting period and a tea break, the heart-shaped “dana box” was passed around for donations (dana is a Pali word meaning “generosity”). After five or ten minutes, while a Dharma discussion took place, I noticed that the box had completed its circumnavigation, and one member of the group held it in her hands. She was looking around, wondering what to do with it.
I recently volunteered to take over as treasurer for our non-profit group, and am therefore responsible for, along with bank deposits, treasury reports, and the like—the dana box. I stood, and, with a split-second to decide whether to cross the center of the circle to retrieve the box or go behind and around the ring of occupied chairs, I went ahead and crossed over.
Now, I am generally rather reserved and modest, averse to becoming the center of attention. Yet, as I took the five or six steps across what now felt like a stage with footlights, I couldn’t help but experience a sensation that, if put into words, might sound something like this: “Now everyone can see how important I am.”
Thoughts like this can arrive and disappear so quickly. As Satya writes in her Tricycle piece, “We’re often driven by forces that we’re hardly aware of.” But it is important to notice even our most delicate and understated thoughts and feelings because that type of clear seeing is going to help us to understand why we behave as we do. And as a consequence of a deeper understanding of self, we gain a deeper understanding of others.
If I recognize that I want the members of my meditation group to see that I am important, that that is a hidden motivation of mine, a vanity that exists inside me, just as Satya discerns her desire to sound clever and wise when she gives a Dharma talk, then I can as well understand others whom I come into contact with: the friend who brags about her accomplishments, the nephew who spends so much money on tattoos, the driver who leans on his horn, offended because I am slowing him down. All are motivated by a need to be someone who matters, to be seen, acknowledged, validated. A need that I see and understand better now because I’ve seen and understood it in myself, not just in my vanity, but in the many of my own mistakes and imperfections.
But Don’t Be Too Hard on Yourself
The key to all this self-examination, however, is to keep it objective, to remember that the point is not self-denigration, nor even self-improvement, the implication of which is that we are not good enough and must strive to be better. As the Buddhist teacher, Ajahn Sumedho, writes, “There is a limit to how good things can be for a human being; to know our limitations is what we call human wisdom.” (This is not to say, however, that we are excused from bad behavior on the grounds that it’s “human nature.”)
We don’t practice awareness to “get” something, but simply to pull ourselves out of undisciplined thoughts and emotions, which often lead to suffering, and into the here and now, where life is actually taking place. To gain a clearer view of ourselves, our minds, and the world around us; of “how things are.”
The Upshot
I think the predominant lesson is one of forgiveness. First, for ourselves. When we understand that vanity, or any human weakness, does not mean that we are bad, that we’ve failed, that we are inferior to others, but simply means we are human, we are less apt to agonize and brood, less likely to “get in a tangle,” as Satya puts it (must be a British thing lol). We can look at a mistake, an unwholesome act or thought, and chuckle: There it is again, that human fallibility; I see that I am still susceptible to it, even after all these years of meditation and study. And we can release attachment to self-judgment, remorse, or shame, and move on with our lives in a more harmonious way.
And secondly, forgiveness for others, which is now easier to do because, by opening some reflective space in the mind, we’ve come to understand that others operate on the same motivations and desires, fears and illusions and emotional needs as we do.
And that’s a bit of wisdom right there.
We’re Only Human
Of course, since I am a human being, I am not always going to remember this lesson of forgiveness and understanding the moment I need it. I will forget; I will snap at someone I love, judge someone else, suffer from fears of scarcity or loss, dismiss someone’s input because I think I know best. But I will remember the lesson eventually because I have practiced and prepared, meditated and reflected, and the result will be that, instead of adding to the suffering in this world, I will subtract from it, bit by little bit.
I am grateful for Satya’s willingness to be vulnerable; I have seen it across much of her writing. I don’t have a dog to teach me life lessons, to alert me when I’m forgetting to pay attention, but I do have a cat. Maggie is a stereotypical cat—Love me/Leave me alone; I’m hungry/Do you expect me to eat this?; Where are you? (scratch, scratch at the bathroom door!). Her erratic ways remind me that everyone deals with a mix of psychological forces that they may or may not understand themselves. The best we can do is be patient and kind, because we understand this much at least: it isn’t easy to be human.
*Satya Robyn is a Buddhist teacher, psychotherapist, and Substack blogger whose newsletter is Going Gently.
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All photos by Don Boivin unless otherwise credited. The dogs are not mine but each is a personal friend. Maggie is mine. 🙂
Bonus pic:
So often I wonder how we come across to our pets. Does my dog think it's strange that I come and go at the same times everyday? Does your cat wonder why you're playing around with strange things like clothes. And if I pick up a guitar and play wonderfully or I play awful the animals seem to take either in stride.
How strange to sit in a circle for a while. Why not pile up all together as the dogs do? or Stare at each other across a room like cats. Or find a likely log and line up like the birds on a powerline. I don't know but I do like a circle. Maybe that enough.
I feel a bit of vanity every time I publish a new piece on Wanderlife. I love the writing part, but then it feels uncomfortable to me to put it out as if others might care what I’m thinking/writing about, as if I have something interesting to offer in a world of too-muchness and so many other great writers. But I’m pushing through. There’s a relationship between vanity, confidence, and a self-empowered boldness to just do what feels good and hope that it will carry the integrity and humility of my intentions. Thanks again for some thought-provoking ideas Don!