OPINIONS

Most of us think opinions are really important. They define who we are, who our friends are, what political party is the best, how the country should be run. But how important are they really?

There's an old story that goes like this:

The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbours as one living a pure life.

A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.

This made her parents angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.

In great anger the parent went to the master. "Is that so?" was all he would say.

After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbours and everything else he needed.

A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth - the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.

The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back.

Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: "Is that so?"

I'm really not qualified to comment on this story, but I think it applies to a recent conversation I had on another blog (see my December 6 post if you're really interested, but I wouldn't bother if I were you). So this is just my take on the story, for what that's worth. My opinion, heh heh.

Why doesn't old Master Hakuin seem to care about his reputation? Well, my guess is that he had a very wide perspective.

When you think the ego is who you really are, opinions are everything. Your opinions are really, really important, and anyone who contradicts your opinions must be your enemy, because their opinions contradict yours, and they must think their opinions are really important too, so now you get into a fight over who's right and who's wrong. But when you realize that your ego (your opinions, thoughts, ideas, etc.) is just the tiniest fraction of who you are, those opinions don't seem anywhere near as important anymore. Master Hakuin knew his real being was a love and oneness with others, much larger than his ego. He knew that his reputation just wasn't very important in the big picture. He had perspective.

That's not to say opinions and reputation aren't important at all. I was watching Dr. Wayne Dyer's "The Power of Intention" on PBS last night. He said something like "The ego is the source of all our problems, and every spiritual tradition says we have to get rid of it." I'm paraphrasing, but it was something close to that. There are a lot of other "gurus" who say the same thing, talk about "ego dissolution" or "ego destruction." There was a lot of other weird contradictory stuff on that show, but I don't want to go into all of it here.

It's true that most of our problems come directly from the misplaced importance we place on our egos, but in my opinion :-), trying to get rid of it is misguided, and impossible anyway.

Opinions are important, we really do need our egos.

You can't make the simplest decision without an ego. But when you have a wide perspective, and you really open your heart and care about other people, you see that opinions aren't nearly as important as we usually think they are. A lot of the time, it's better to turn the other cheek, even if you're in the right. Sometimes you have to let the other person "win," just because your relationship with them is more important than convincing them that your opinion is right.

What's more important: being right, or being loved?

Recognizing that your opinions aren't really important doesn't mean you turn into a doormat either, because your opinions still matter exactly as much as anyone else's opinions. Respect others, and expect them to respect you. But if they're disrespectful, it means you don't have to get all worked up about it, because you know their opinion of you doesn't really matter much in the big picture. We're all human beings, we're all in this together, and we need to learn to find respectful ways of reconciling our differences. Or better yet, take a close look at whether this particular difference needs to be reconciled at all.

Is that so?