How do we shift from "Me" to "We"?
Posted on Mar 27th, 2008
by 
Rob
Rob
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for March 27, 2008:
It all starts with me.
Here's why:
Let's take the emergency services feild for example. We have a basic rule there, and it's look out for number one. Because if I don't, I will be a patient or victim myself, and then no good to anyone as far as services goes. Well, except the undertaker. So if I go into a building on a Rapid Intervention Team, my first priority is me. My second priority is my team member, and the third priority is the fallen fire fighter we went in to rescue.
This same rule applies to Buddhism as well. There are many statements in sutras about looking after my own practice and discipline first, because if I don't, then my efforts to help others are a joke.
If I don't do anything about my own consciousness, which is the only one I can affect, then my outpouring to others is simply ego. And who needs my ego? Even i don't!
So getting beyond me means I need to first concentrate on my own issues, and begin raisning my own consciuosness, and making sure that what I have to give others comes from a compassion that is only found in awareness. Awareness has no end. It never burns out, runs out of supply or ideas, or needs strokes to keep going.
One might think that we are too grossly "me" oriented. I disagree. Obesity is not the same as "me" orientation. it's about a lot of other things like fear, insecurity, and legitimate physical issues. Addiction is an emotional di-ease, not emotional rest or peace. Add the physically disabling aspects of alcohol and opiates, and you get a double whammy.
In other words, if people had self-respect, and believed in themselves, and were aware of themselves, they wouldn't abuse themselves physically or emotionally. They wouldn't live their live vicariously through media characters, or through sports teams. They would live their own lives in joy.
Just recently a fellow carpenter stated he wasn't sleeping well, because something is nagging at him. Turns out he's worried about the direction things are headed in the US, the land of plenty relatively speaking. Young guy, soon to marry, just bought a house, is employed and saving money. The American dream right? And yet he has inexplicable worry that is starting to keep him awake.
And that's because he isn't awake to his own consciousness.
It all starts with you.
I am counting on it. Please don't let me down.
Because I need you.
Here's why:
Let's take the emergency services feild for example. We have a basic rule there, and it's look out for number one. Because if I don't, I will be a patient or victim myself, and then no good to anyone as far as services goes. Well, except the undertaker. So if I go into a building on a Rapid Intervention Team, my first priority is me. My second priority is my team member, and the third priority is the fallen fire fighter we went in to rescue.
This same rule applies to Buddhism as well. There are many statements in sutras about looking after my own practice and discipline first, because if I don't, then my efforts to help others are a joke.
If I don't do anything about my own consciousness, which is the only one I can affect, then my outpouring to others is simply ego. And who needs my ego? Even i don't!
So getting beyond me means I need to first concentrate on my own issues, and begin raisning my own consciuosness, and making sure that what I have to give others comes from a compassion that is only found in awareness. Awareness has no end. It never burns out, runs out of supply or ideas, or needs strokes to keep going.
One might think that we are too grossly "me" oriented. I disagree. Obesity is not the same as "me" orientation. it's about a lot of other things like fear, insecurity, and legitimate physical issues. Addiction is an emotional di-ease, not emotional rest or peace. Add the physically disabling aspects of alcohol and opiates, and you get a double whammy.
In other words, if people had self-respect, and believed in themselves, and were aware of themselves, they wouldn't abuse themselves physically or emotionally. They wouldn't live their live vicariously through media characters, or through sports teams. They would live their own lives in joy.
Just recently a fellow carpenter stated he wasn't sleeping well, because something is nagging at him. Turns out he's worried about the direction things are headed in the US, the land of plenty relatively speaking. Young guy, soon to marry, just bought a house, is employed and saving money. The American dream right? And yet he has inexplicable worry that is starting to keep him awake.
And that's because he isn't awake to his own consciousness.
It all starts with you.
I am counting on it. Please don't let me down.
Because I need you.
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August 2008 
Agree!
And as our mothers always say, “There is a reason why on the airplane they tell you that in case of emergency, always put the oxygen on yourself first, and then assist your seat mate with theirs”.
A dead 'rescuer' is just dead.
Yes. This is what I try to teach my clients when they say they don't have time to take care of themselves because they have to take care of their families, their bosses, their volunteer committees, etc., etc., etc.
And Ruth, that's the analogy I use, too. Thank you Rob, now I have another one.