Interdependence, Not Independence Part IV
In the modern world, Western culture glorifies the concept of independence. It tells us that we should strive for independence in our life as one of our goals in life. Whether or not one has achieved such independence for themselves is the means by which one is judged to be or not to be a success. We are socialized into this belief so that it becomes ingrained in our consciousness. We are told to seek out our own self fulfillment without any care or concern for those around us. As long as we feel we are independent, as long as we feel we can take care of ourselves without being helped by others, we feel our life is going well. Until we achieve it, anyone who gets in our way, anyone who presents themselves as an obstacle in our path to independence, we resent.
Since it has become, as a part of our culture, what people desire, those who do not achieve such independence often become depressed. When they see that they have not become independent, that they are not self-sufficient, they feel like their life has been a failure. If this is not properly dealt with, such depression leads to despair, making people feel totally lost, without any hope that things can be changed.
While it is important for people to exercise their will and to act in the world to influence the course of events around them, we must realize that no one can have total control over what happens. Everyone should be encouraged, within limits, to seek out their proper place in society, but they must also remember that their existence, their end, should never be seen as one of isolation, and what they do will have an affect upon others. Our cultural outlook might motivate people to do something with their life, so that it will not end up being unproductive. Certainly that is a positive gain, however, there is much which is given up and lost with such a world view – for it leads people to be self-absorbed, selfish individuals who, when their desires are not met, become self-destructive. For all too often do people do only as they see fit, thinking their desires should be the only criteria by which their actions are to be judged, forgetting how those actions affect others, and how others affect their life in return. Independence is an unobtainable goal, and yet the illusion of independence is obtainable. One can feel like they are fully established in life and have no need for others, because of their own living situation – that is, they think they have become so successful that they truly are independent and have no need for others for things to continue as they are. With this, however, they become ignorant of the world around themselves and how their own “independence” is actually being sustained.
There is no way for us to overcome our need for others in our life; our livelihood will always be connected to them in some way. Rather than being independent, those who feel they have become so have become quite dependent upon the goodness of others, and it is this which allows them to continue to live in comfort. They think they have obtained their goal, but, despite all appearances, all that they live upon, all that they use to establish their so-called independence upon, comes from others. Nonetheless, since they feel they have become independent, they feel they have no obligation to others. Indeed, that is part of the goal — to feel like one is able to live by themselves, for themselves, without having to lift a finger to help others. But the only way one can truly think they have attained such an end is by self-deception, to put an illusion over oneself, an illusion of independence which, once entered, becomes difficult to overthrow. While it is a very charming illusion, seductive in its presentation, like the sirens of Greek mythology, it promises pleasures which it can never truly give. The goal given to us by our society, founded upon such ignorance, should not be a goal which we would want to achieve – for what we are ignorant of can and will affect us, and not always for our own well-being. In this way our goal encourages an outlook which would, in the end, go against the goal itself: it is inherently self-contradictory.
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Not a comment but something I just read. From (famous Zen Master) Soko Morinaga’s autobiography “Novice to Master; an ongoing lesson the extent of my own stupidity”.
One morning, after I had prepared the meal and given the call for breakfast, Zuigan Roshi slowly entered the dining room and said, “Hey, go into my room and, from my desk, look towards the alcove.”
(…..) I thought with a start, “Oh no, I bungled the cleaning again!” and immediately rushed to his room. Roshi’s room was small (….) but though I carefully inspected the area, I could not find even so much as a bit of dust or a drop of water left from the swab. I crawled about the room on all fours, but I could not find a problem anywhere.
(….) I resigned myself to being yelled at again and returned to the dining room. “I don’t understand what I did wrong in the cleaning ,” I nervously admitted to Roshi. “Please show me.”
“You fool !”, he came back at me. “Who said you did anything wrong in the cleaning ? This morning I put that single rose of Sharon in the bud vase. It goes well with the scroll and looks so beautiful, so I told you to go take a look at it. You did see the flower, didn’t you ?”
(…)
My oversight was to become grist for my teacher’s lectures. After I made this blunder, Zuigan Roshu was wont to say during talks, “If the heart is caught up, fettered, you cannot see even what you are looking right at. Why, just the other day, that idiot who is sitting right over there….”