The Self-Centered Person

Life is suffering, so warned Buddha some 2500 years ago. Not much has changed since then. Anguish and pain still prevail around the globe today.

Much of it is caused by external factors—war, genocide, big-city crime, unemployment, illness, accidents, and poverty. Yet much pain and suffering is inflected by our own ego.

Take a self-centered person, for example. Such a person is motivated by selfishness and easily falls prey to jealousy, anger and hate. Yet from experience we know that none of these negative traits have ever brought joy or happiness.

The ego of one person may pine for possessions, while that of another may crave attention or power—and the deeper we fall victim to these whims and vices, the more we cause suffering to others as well as to ourselves. Machiavelli’s famous book, The Prince, illustrates a power-seeking person as one who resorts to stirring up anger and discontent among his possible opponents in order to pave his own way. Yet this tactic, Machiavelli warns, can easily backfire.

An extreme example of power-seeking selfishness was Adolf Hitler, a person we hope never to see again; and yet, someone like him could reappear any day and sadly any place.  In his brazen desire to rule the world Hitler trained a group of thugs as his bodyguards, the early SS, and sent them out to stir up riots in the streets.* This gave him the desired pretext to take away the German people’s liberty—all in the name of national security.

After the June 1944 attempt on his life, Hitler mercilessly and most gleefully had some 500 of his best generals, who’d won him enormous victories at a huge price, executed for conspiracy; they and their conspiracy provided him with the urgently needed excuse for the many staggering defeats he and his “invincible” army had suffered that year.

Machiavelli was right, the idea of cooperation for the benefit of others is an unacceptable concept for the power-craving and suffering-causing ego. Have you ever tried to explain to a self-centered person that his way may not be the best approach? Your explanation probably fell on deaf ears. The unbalanced ego sees but one way, and that is its own way, because it needs to be right at all times.

It’s interesting to note that Hitler’s self-righteous, or more accurately, psychopathic actions, brought intense suffering not only upon the German people and the people of Europe and America, but also upon himself.*

It is no secret that a bad seed seldom produces good fruit. But how should one interact with such a potentially malicious person? Preferably as little as possible, and certainly not in kind. If someone is hitting us, we may be tempted to hit back; if someone shouts at us, we may want to raise our voices too. Yet to what avail?  It is better to summon our self-control, yet stand our ground.

The challenge is to rein in our own ego and not fall prey to feelings of retribution and revenge—that would only perpetuate the cycle of pain and suffering. As Buddha’s teachings tell us, our primary goal is to become a better person, which improves our chances for a happier life because the law of cause and effect tends to reward good actions and punishes bad ones. When we succeed in being compassionate and kind to others, we have a good chance that our efforts will bear good fruit in the long run.

Until next time,

Rosi

* The Madman and His Mistress by Roswitha McIntosh, pgs. 29 and 155