Grounding in Humility

Fading light, Black Earth WI

Recently, a friend visited who is very well versed in Classic Latin and Greek. During one of our many amazing conversations, he mentioned that the word humility, which comes from the Latin humilitas, comes from the same source as ground, humus. Upon further research, the Wikipedia article even goes so far as to associate it with egolessness. Grounding in egolessness. Sounds paradoxical, doesn't it?

Only it isn't.

There's nothing like a good (seeming) paradox to get me to pay attention. Because one of my favorite teachers once told me to go toward paradox, since it indicates some concepts coming head-to-head inside our own mind instead of an opposition in the world, I draw them near and sit them down for breakfast. Humility, I have to say, I mostly associate with humiliation - and not to the more basal associated adjective "humble."

What happens if I think of humility as associated with humble instead of humiliation?
It feels very grounded indeed.

Egolessness is grounded because it is grounded in what is - the fact of everything co-existing without needing self-reference. That is what ego is, by the way, self-reference. The "self that doesn't exist" is that self-referential self, which is quite the opposite of humble. And, in fact, usually when I "get humiliated" it is a big pop to my ego bubble. I don't get humiliated if I am being humble - grounded - present - egoless. Humiliation is a return to the ground, if we let go of the shame and embarrassment that can arise out of it.

A reminder, sometimes a fierce or unwelcome one, to come back to what actually is happening. As jarring as that can be, it is the actual ground of what is. A good place to be, return to, exist.

Playful Humility

Today, the calendar year comes to an end.

This is no longer my New Year's. I have become too familiar with other traditions to see the end of this calendar as the end of my year. Naturally, fall feels most the end of the year for me, but according to the Tibetan Buddhist Calendar, my "calendar of faith" it comes in the beginning of March, which also feels pretty right. February is what we call "Mamo" season - a time when the tough stuff gets toughest, which is especially true to my experience having lived in Wisconsin my whole life. That's what is my real New Year's, now, in practice.

That having been said, for some reason New Year's Eve can be hard for me - I have always thought it was because of a pressure to perform - to enjoy parties, kind of like Halloween and St. Patty's Day, which don't trigger me but which I also mostly avoid. Maybe it's because it's the end of a tough time - the natural grieving period of the end-of-year holidays.

But this year I feel a slight change. A release in pressure, a chance to take it easy, and a desire to turn over to a new calendar. This quote was in my box today, from a weekly service sent out from a Shambhala teacher, and it hit the right chord (to join the mailing list or see the blog, click here).

PLAYFUL HUMILITY Humility in the Shambhala tradition involves playfulness, or a sense of humour. In many religious traditions, you feel humble because of a fear of punishment, pain, and sin. In the Shambhala world, you feel full of it. You feel healthy and good. In fact, you feel proud. Therefore, you feel humble. That’s one of the Shambhala contradictions, or we could say, dichotomies. Real humility is genuineness.
-Chogyam Trunpga Adopted from "Discipline in the Four Seasons," in GREAT EASTERN SUN: The Wisdom of Shambhala, page 63.

I hear that. I feel that. A humility that comes not because one is humiliated or trying to be "not humiliated (ie puffed up pride)" but a sense of wonder, of awe, and of course, of humor.

Here's to 2011, whatever you are, and my increasing sense of humble awareness, which, as it increases, I work to be even more humble about. There's nothing like the Dharma to be both awfully profound and ass-kickingly ironic at the same time.