I was a little depressed yesterday and could not for the life of me figure out why. Last week was extremely stressful and it should have been a relief to have it over, and it was. But I was not at all pleased nonetheless. I really had to dig deep and use all the wiles I have been taught by the Dharma to figure out what was wrong.
Nothing was wrong.
But over the past month I have been "the man" at work. No matter what the problem, they were turning to Reid, and more often than not I had the answer. I got praise from every corner for what a great job I was doing. The clinic held together in difficult times and I had something to do with that. I felt like I glowed in the dark.
The problem, then? I had become addicted to that feeling, to being praised, admired, acknowledged. The situation was coming to an end and my role would change and all of that would go away. I was suffering from the vicissitude of praise.
In English the word vicissitude means (at least according to one dictionary) "a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant". Since I don't read Pali, I am uncertain if this is a good translation of the original or not, but I have always felt that something more familiar like "mishaps" or "difficulties" or "misfortunes" might be a better choice. But reading this dictionary definition, I realize how accurate the word may well be, because a vicissitude is not necessarily a bad thing; it's just something different, a change of circumstance.
In the Buddhist cosmology there are eight vicissitudes: gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. No distinction is made between the ones we deem positive and those we think of as negative. What the Buddha taught is that each of these can cause as much suffering as the others. In the words of one translation of his teachings on the vicissitudes, he says the unskillful action is that we "weclome the gain and rebel against the loss, welcome the fame and rebel against the disrepute, welcome the praise and rebel against the blame, welcome the pleasure and rebel against the pain." In our welcoming of these pleasant states, we grasp at them, seek to make them stay and grow. And our rebellion against those we find unpleasant is a grasping of its own, a seeking of the opposite or some other pleasant state, rather than an openhearted acceptance of the situation as it is.
I recognized that what was causing me to suffer was the fact that I wanted to cling to praise, to gain, to fame, to feeling good about myself, to being the Man of the Hour. And it became clear to me once again that the Buddha's teachings are not about what I should or should not do or be. He was not really a prescriber, but a describer. He told it like it is. He was telling me, over those 2000 years distance, that I was suffering because I was grasping, and that the solution was to let go of my grasping and relax into the present moment. And it worked.
I am not completely recovered from my bout of praise-sickness, but I'm getting there. The wonderful thing about the Dharma is that just the realization has the seed of freedom in it. There is nothing I need to do; I need to do nothing. Above all, I need to return to work without any grasping for a replication of the positive things I experienced last week. For one thing, stress at that level would probably kill me if sustained over weeks or months.
I am so grateful that I have the teachings to guide me and help me realize what is causing me to suffer. It is not always obvious, but I know that above all I want to be free. I am willing to give up any amount of pleasant sensation if freedom is the end result.
Nothing was wrong.
But over the past month I have been "the man" at work. No matter what the problem, they were turning to Reid, and more often than not I had the answer. I got praise from every corner for what a great job I was doing. The clinic held together in difficult times and I had something to do with that. I felt like I glowed in the dark.
The problem, then? I had become addicted to that feeling, to being praised, admired, acknowledged. The situation was coming to an end and my role would change and all of that would go away. I was suffering from the vicissitude of praise.
In English the word vicissitude means (at least according to one dictionary) "a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant". Since I don't read Pali, I am uncertain if this is a good translation of the original or not, but I have always felt that something more familiar like "mishaps" or "difficulties" or "misfortunes" might be a better choice. But reading this dictionary definition, I realize how accurate the word may well be, because a vicissitude is not necessarily a bad thing; it's just something different, a change of circumstance.
In the Buddhist cosmology there are eight vicissitudes: gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. No distinction is made between the ones we deem positive and those we think of as negative. What the Buddha taught is that each of these can cause as much suffering as the others. In the words of one translation of his teachings on the vicissitudes, he says the unskillful action is that we "weclome the gain and rebel against the loss, welcome the fame and rebel against the disrepute, welcome the praise and rebel against the blame, welcome the pleasure and rebel against the pain." In our welcoming of these pleasant states, we grasp at them, seek to make them stay and grow. And our rebellion against those we find unpleasant is a grasping of its own, a seeking of the opposite or some other pleasant state, rather than an openhearted acceptance of the situation as it is.
I recognized that what was causing me to suffer was the fact that I wanted to cling to praise, to gain, to fame, to feeling good about myself, to being the Man of the Hour. And it became clear to me once again that the Buddha's teachings are not about what I should or should not do or be. He was not really a prescriber, but a describer. He told it like it is. He was telling me, over those 2000 years distance, that I was suffering because I was grasping, and that the solution was to let go of my grasping and relax into the present moment. And it worked.
I am not completely recovered from my bout of praise-sickness, but I'm getting there. The wonderful thing about the Dharma is that just the realization has the seed of freedom in it. There is nothing I need to do; I need to do nothing. Above all, I need to return to work without any grasping for a replication of the positive things I experienced last week. For one thing, stress at that level would probably kill me if sustained over weeks or months.
I am so grateful that I have the teachings to guide me and help me realize what is causing me to suffer. It is not always obvious, but I know that above all I want to be free. I am willing to give up any amount of pleasant sensation if freedom is the end result.
This is also so true for me !
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