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By Ven. Chönyi Taylor
My brain loves playing with words which is why, one day, I read “self-infatuation” as “self-inflatuation.” Only a small change, but what possibilities my new word held. What a wonderful combination: flatulence and infatuation. Actually, I was reading about the Dalai Lama as reported by his cat.1 Now this cat may have misheard what His Holiness said, but I like the idea of self-inflatuation and it fits our Buddhist teachings very well.
Infatuation is “a foolish, unreasoning or extravagant passion or attraction.” That sounds very like our Buddhist definition of attachment and is closely related to addiction. It derives from the Latin infatuatus, meaning “to make a fool of.” An infatuated lover will do anything for the person they are attracted to and will regard this as dedication, passionate love, being totally for the other and without thought for oneself. Many women in abusive relationships stay there, they say, through the depth of their love. Hidden in this love is the thought, “I cannot leave this person because I am determined to hang on to the belief that he will, eventually, give me all I want.” We, looking from outside, know they are deluded, infatuated. They are out of touch with the reality of their predicament.
Self-infatuation is quite insidious. We also call it narcissism, a total absorption in an unrealistic and foolish view of oneself. We may be obsessed with a positive view, which means self-inflation or with a negative view, self-deflation. One child, when she was told she would get an award from school said, “But it can’t be me. I think they have made a mistake.” Often this self-infatuation is a belief about ourselves that we believe is absolutely true. I must be perfect, but I am not. I am clumsy. I can get my way through fighting. I am the brightest student in the class. My parents won’t love me if I don’t get a sports award. The belief is one thing. Obsessing about this belief is another.
In Buddhist terms, self-infatuation is ego-grasping – attachment – and attachment overvalues the wanted aspects of an object and ignores the unwanted aspects. Self-infatuation bloats our overriding self-importance. It is a view of self that goes well beyond the boundaries of reality. In the end, self-infatuation comes from the root ignorance behind all our suffering, believing we have an inherent existence. We are not immune from self-infatuation until we reach enlightenment.
In the film version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,2 when Charlie and his grandfather become inflated and have a merry time floating around, they have to burp to deflate themselves. Of course the other alternative, politely called “passing wind,” is not appropriate for a children’s book or film. Mind you, I think children would have a lot of fun with the alternative, but that is another story. We all know what flatulence is. How very picturesque this is: greed leads to an overfull digestive system which emerges in a very anti-social and smelly burst of wind. Self-inflation may feel like that, but is not quite the same, and it is very difficult to let it go. It is much more likely that it feels so good that we want more and more or it. We forget about its inevitable emergence in burps and farts.
In its extreme form, self-inflation is the manic part of bipolar depression. It can also be called arrogance, pomposity, the pride of thinking one is better than others when that in fact is not so. It demands to be fed but is never satisfied. No matter how many fawning acolytes one has collected, no matter how much wealth and power one has accumulated, it is never enough. It becomes dangerous and violent when the need for this pride to be fed dominates one’s whole mind. Compassion is seen as weakness. Nothing matters unless it feeds this voracious and expanding appetite. We can quickly create a list of people like this. They are among our politicians, media moguls, mining magnates, banking bullies, and cult leaders, found even in our tennis clubs and Dharma centers. Self-inflation is a damaging pride in which we think we are better than others when that is not true. Its dynamics we find in the Tibetan Wheel of Life when we look at the links of craving, grasping and attachment (addiction).
Of course, we think, this only applies to others. I do not believe I am Jesus Christ or Buddha. I do not believe that I am perfect.
Self-inflation can also mask as guru devotion. “I do more for my guru than anyone else, therefore I am more important.” Or, “I will be seen as being a better student than the others because I sit up straighter, meditate longer, know the details of ritual, donate more money or time (or whatever else you might add here) than any other student. And finally, “I, and I alone, am the backbone of this center.”
In putting infatuation and inflation together to create “self-inflatuation,” I mean a sense of self that is both bloated and obsessive. Self-inflatuated people can be the pillars of our communities, including our Dharma communities. They work SO hard. It is not what they do that causes problems, but the motivation behind it, puffing up the self, relying on the eight wordly dharmas.3 They delude themselves with the belief that the center exists through them and them alone and no one else is capable of keeping it together. They may not be the appointed director, but the appointed director absolutely must take their advice.
And if, perchance, you think that self-inflatuation would never apply to you, then think again. It is so easy to slip from a positive motivation into a self-inflatuated one. If you ever find yourself being upset because the work you have done was not recognized, or because your teacher seems to favor other students, or because you are upset about where you happen to sit in the teachings, then you have been caught up in self-inflatuation. In fact, any time we experience a negative emotion it is a sign of self-flatuation. As good Buddhists, we give ourselves a different title: I am being the best volunteer, or the biggest donor, or the smartest student, or the stickler for rules through my guru devotion, my dedication, and my passion for the teachings, never through my pride. I would be surprised if there was any Dharma student around who does not suffer from this blown-up state, at least sometimes, and that includes me. Since the definitive cure is enlightenment, we’d better get on with taking our medicine, the Buddhist path.
Ven. Chönyi Taylor is a registered Foundational Buddhism FPMT teacher and an elder for the Discovering Buddhism at Home Course. She is the author of Enough! A Buddhist Approach to Working with Addictive Patterns (Snow Lion, 2010) and has been published in Mandala, Buddhadharma, Dharma Vision and Sangha Magazine. She is a founding member and member of the training committee of the Australian Association of Buddhist Counsellors and Psychotherapists and an Honorary Lecturer in the Discipline of Psychiatry at Sydney University.
1. Michie, David (2012) Dalai Lama’s Cat, Hay House Visions
2. Dahl, Roald (1964) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc
3. Being motivated by craving, pleasure, wealth, fame or praise on the one hand, or being terrified of pain, loss, disgrace, or blame on the other hand.
