We met yesterday morning, Robin and I, with our friends Sakula and Alistair. Sakula is one one of the founders of Portland Friends of the Dhamma, a Buddhist lay community and center with close ties with Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery in Northern California. We were discussing with them our plans of establishing a similar community here in Vancouver.
Along with advice, they shared with us some of the difficulties they’ve had along the way. That’s when Alistair said, “Are you prepared to fail?” An alarming and provocative question, but appropriate too.
A tenet of Buddhism is seeing truth for what it is with dispassion and wisdom. Culture teaches that “Failure is not an option.” We insist on success and measure our own self-worth and the worth of others by it. True enough. Failure is not an option.
Success is not an option either. Success and failure are outcomes. If one does things skillfully (and good intentions are implied here), success is much more likely than if one does things unskillfully. Yet many factors are not under our control. Failure, although not always inevitable, is always possible. From a contemporary standpoint, this is not just heresy, but it’s the kind of thinking that ensures failure. So we are told.
Buddhism, however, runs counter to popular conceptions – regardless of age or era. I don’t mean to imply that Buddhism is passive and that nothing is to be done about anything. If that were the case, no one would accomplish anything. Buddhism is a spiritual way of life, and the ultimate accomplishment is the release from suffering. To be free from suffering requires not being attached to outcomes, because it’s the attachment itself that causes the the suffering in the first place – along the the delusion that attachment to a goal ensures success.
Another central idea of Buddhism is that of striving. To achieve anything, one must strive, that is, one must devote time, energy, and effort into the endeavor. Even striving, though, doesn’t ensure success. Just look at the current political contest. Only one of these very driven candidates will succeed in reaching the goal of presidency. I wonder if any of them has asked the question, “Am I prepared to fail?” Not likely – not openly anyway, because doing so would “send the wrong message to voters.” We can’t have that, can we? The reality is, of course, for all but one of them failure to win this race is is the inescapable outcome.
Most of us householders are not involved in such high-stakes activities. But every day there there is much to do. Our activities include what is necessary for fulfilling personal and family wants and needs and the wants and needs within the greater community. Basic to human nature is the need for accomplishment. But how much of that drive for accomplishment is tied up with the ego and self-identity?
I think Alistair’s point was aimed precisely there. Accomplishment as a means of satisfying the ego and propping up the self leads to dissatisfaction – even if success is the result. Being detached from the outcome, while at the same time taking the necessary steps for achievement ensures success, because success isn’t the goal. Freedom from suffering is.
