The Koan of Humility
As to pursuing our own will we are warned against that when scripture says to us: Turn away from your desires; and in the Lord’s Prayer itself we pray that his will may be brought to fulfillment in us.
In this section Benedict cautions us to turn away from our own desires, as a way to bring God’s will to fulfillment. This is very Buddhist. Following our own desires causes suffering every time. The problem is the me; the self trying to be in charge, to run the show. Let me give an example of this from a Buddhist view.
For the past fifty-seven years I have off-and-on worked on what I call “The Nun’s Story” koan. A koan is a paradoxical story that cannot be understood using logical reasoning. It is used in Buddhist practice to help a student break-free from conditioned thinking. A koan is not something that can be thought out. One might say, working with a koan is to invite an experience of seeing clearly.
My koan arose from seeing the movie the Nun’s Story. There is a scene that is the heart of the koan. Sister Luke, Audrey Hepburn, is studying at what looks like a lab table. She is studying for a test on tropical diseases. The nun who gets the highest score will be sent to nurse at a hospital in the Belgian Congo. As Sr. Luke studies a nun, senior to her, comes and says to her: “As a practice of humility, you should fail the exam.” In addition Sr. Luke is told that if she fails an older more humble nun will then have the highest score and will be able to return to the Congo.
I play this scene over and over in my mind. I am of course Sr. Luke. My ego has tried for years to “understand” the scene. I challenge the assertion that failing a test is an act of humility. In my role as Sr. Luke I’ve tried over and over to work out what is the right thing to do. Is failing really practicing humility? Is it self-pride that makes me want to pass with flying colors? Do I have what it takes to make this humble gesture? Do I put the older nun’s desires before my own? What right does someone have to ask me to fail? In this fantasy I calculate what I might do and play-out the consequences for each of my make-believe decisions. And perhaps what I have been doing is rehearsing for a time in my life where this type of conflict might arise. Will I choose to be humble or will I choose to be proud?
As you can hopefully see my focus on choosing and on their being a right answer is why I made no progress in working with this koan. I was thinking, trying to reason out the best response, ever hopeful that my ego would finally make the right/good/holy/humble choice and I wouldn’t make the wrong/bad/arrogant choice. It was try, try, try again. The on-going debate in my head held me captive but I couldn’t see I was caught.
As I have worked for hours writing and re-writing this reflection something within me broke open. I knew this koan from a different place. The catalyst was remembering a line I had memorized from a Buddhist chant:
May I know in my heart that the results of my actions can’t be avoided and cultivate virtue as I give up delusion.
I picture Sr. Luke saying this chant. What a difference. The focus shifts from her wanting to do the right/good thing to knowing, at that moment, that there are consequences for whatever she does. There are consequences to passing the test and there are consequences for failing the test. At the moment of taking action Sr. Luke does not know what the result of her action will be. Either way she will ride the waves of her karma.
My pretending to be Sr. Luke kept me in a frozen, never taking action delusion; I was trapping myself in an ego-fantasy. When I sat down to write about this koan, I took action; there was split second opening with no words to explain it. I wasn’t a make-believe Sr. Luke any more. The koan was about me, right here, right now sitting at a computer typing words. I knew, really knew that the results of my actions can’t be avoided.
Ok, I had a seeing-through realization with my koan, but what next? Well, go back to Benedict: Turn away from your own desires. How do I or we do this? A first step is to study yourself. Get to know what your ego is up to. Really watch what your ego does do moment by moment all day long. Watch the judging, criticizing, pretending. Watch your emotions. Watch what you are looking at or who you are listening to. As we watch and study ourselves we can to learn to see how our actions stem from our own desires. As we continue to study, (it is life-long) we will be able to catch ourselves and turn away from actions coming from our desire. But, even as we turn away from our desires, we must remember that we do not know what the result of any action will be. This is why we commit to tirelessly studying ourselves; this is practice.
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