Inner Authorities

People often speak of the inner critic as if there were only one. Actually, there are many. We’ve picked up voices from who knows where. They all have different values, which is one of the things that drives you crazy about inner criticism. You try to obey one critic, and another critic comes in from another angle and says, “No, you’re wrong.” You feel like you can’t win.

A large part of the practice is learning how to pare down those critics to one you can rely on. Learn how to give prominence to that one, make that one authoritative. We’ve encountered so many authorities in our lives: our parents, teachers, voices in the media. We gather them up, and they rattle around in our heads. We learn to think of them as being part of us, that we believe these things. I know in my own case, when I was over in Thailand, my first year, I spent a lot of time alone on a mountain. Ajaan Fuang was at the foot of the mountain. It was good to have somebody who I could learn to trust, to help sort out all the different voices in my head.

I found one of the best approaches was to try to identify: Where did that idea come from? Where did this idea come from? Whose voice is this? Whose voice is that? You can ask two questions. One, when you can identify a voice, you can ask: Does that person have your best interest in mind? Or better: At heart? Especially with the media, you never really know. Why do they want you to believe what they’re telling you? That’s a good question to ask every time you read the media or listen to the media. Who wants you to believe that? Why? Learn to question the authority.

The next question is: What do these people know? Even people who mean you well may be pretty ignorant. How many voices in your mind take into consideration the fact that maybe the big event in human history is the Buddha’s awakening?

This is one of the reasons why conviction in that awakening is such an important part of the practice. I was having a conversation one time with someone whose background was in Christianity and Zen. He said, “Really, you Theravadins, what do you have faith in?” He added, “It has to be something specific, not something general like the Dhamma.” I said, “I have faith in the Buddha’s awakening—that he really was awakened through his own efforts, and that he was able to explain how he gained that awakening in a way that other people can gain awakening too.” Think about that. That’s a big event. The awakening involved total cessation of suffering. It came from training the mind.

Think about the Buddha himself, how many voices he had to sort through. People told him that the path that he was following was an impossible one. He had sought out the teachers who were most authoritative in that time, and found their teachings lacking. He had to pull himself out of their training. And how did he finally know who was right and who was wrong? He found a path that led to something that was deathless, a knowledge that didn’t involve the aggregates at all.

We sometimes think that you listen to Buddhist teachings, you finally get to a point where they make sense, it really hits home that what he says is true—and that that, somehow, is awakening. That’s not awakening. That’s just conviction. The real proof is when you find the deathless inside.

Think about that image of the elephant hunter looking for a big bull elephant. He goes into the forest and he sees some big tracks. Now, because he’s an experienced elephant hunter, he doesn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that this must be the big elephant he wants. After all, there are dwarf females with big feet. The tracks could be theirs. But they look likely, so he follows them along. He sees scratch marks up in the trees. And again, he doesn’t come to the conclusion that these must be scratch marks of a big bull elephant, because there are tall females with tusks. The scratch marks might be theirs. But they look likely, so he follows them.

Finally, he comes to the big bull elephant itself, either in a clearing or under a tree. That’s when he knows, “This is the big bull elephant I want.”

In the same way, you follow the path and get the mind in a good states of concentration. Those are footprints. You gain psychic powers. Those are scratch marks. But then, in the words of that particular sutta, you arrive at completion. In other words, you’ve seen the deathless. It’s a knowledge that has nothing to do with form, feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, or sensory consciousness. That’s when you know you’ve found something genuine.

Up until that point, you’re going on conviction. But think about it: Isn’t that a good measuring stick for how to sort through the voices in your mind? Which ones know about the possibility of the deathless? Which ones know about how you can train yourself to do all the things required by the path? The voices that are aware of that take that into consideration: Those are the ones you want to assume authority in your mind. As for the other voices, you can question them from the perspective these more knowledgeable ones. What happiness do they propose? What duties do they propose?

The media like to tell us that we have to be responsible citizens and pay attention to what the media have to say—basically telling us that we have to be indoctrinated, and it’s our duty to be indoctrinated. Why do we let them have sway over our minds? They’re telling us that the important things in the world are the things that other people are doing someplace else. Whereas the Buddha’s message is that the important things in the world are what you’re doing right now. That’s a message that gives you power. The message of the media makes you powerless, makes you feel inadequate. Why are you duty-bound to accept their indoctrination?

If you’re going to adopt views that you’ll take as working hypotheses, try the four noble truths and the duties they entail. Instead of being duty-bound to keep in touch with the news, you’re duty-bound to comprehend your suffering, to see that suffering is in the clinging; to abandon the cause; to realize cessation, which means that you develop dispassion for the causes of suffering. Then you do that by developing the path. Those are duties with your best interests in mind. They’re duties that tell you that you have the power in your hands to make a difference in your life. A really big difference. Those are the voices you want to listen to. Those are the ones who should have authority inside.

So, sort through your inner voices. When an idea comes to your mind, where did it come from? The Buddha calls this “guarding the truth.” Where did you get the idea? And why would you believe it? The basis of reason? The basis of obligation? The mind has so many ways of making itself obligated to do unskillful things. Learn how to see through those false obligations. Remember, the duties that the Buddha gives you are not imposed on you. He doesn’t say you have to follow them, but he does say that if you do follow these duties, they’ll lead to the ultimate happiness. What pushes you to adopt those duties, of course, is the fact that you’re suffering and your recognition that something’s got to be done.

There’s that misquote from the Buddha, saying that he said he teaches one thing and one thing only, suffering and the end of suffering. Many people have pointed out that that’s two things, unless you decide that accepting suffering is the end of suffering. But the Buddha never said, “one thing and one thing only.” What he said was, “All I teach is suffering and the end of suffering.” Two things. So, we have a choice. Which do you want? Do you want to keep on suffering, or do you want to put it to an end?

The duties that come from the media, the duties that come from other voices inside, are on the side of continuing suffering. The voices that take the Buddha’s awakening into consideration are on the side of not suffering. Learn how to make that clear distinction and use it as your sorting principle inside as to which voices should have authority and which voices should just be left to float by. It’s in this way that you can straighten out that committee inside. After all, we do have to have that inner critic. You want to make it one and that it’s on the side of the Dhamma.

The Buddha said the self should be its own prosecutor. This is what he meant: You need to be your own inner critic. Without that inner critic observing you, telling you, for your own good, when you’ve done something wrong, you’re lost. Make sure you have the voices of the noble ones inside, because when they criticize you, they’re criticizing you out of compassion. We should be grateful for their criticism. Those are the people who should have authority inside. Learn how to trust them. They really do mean you well, and they really do know what they’re talking about. You won’t know that, of course, until you’ve had a direct experience of the bull elephant.

But this is a good working hypothesis to follow—because where do other hypotheses take you? Do they know where they’re taking you? As the Buddha said, there are many different paths in life. And a lot of people don’t know which path they’re on. Some of the paths go to some pretty bad places. They may not look bad themselves, but they take you down. Other paths take you up. The path that the Buddha lays out has had a lot of people to certify that, yes, it’s the best, and it’s true. So take them as your inner authorities. You’ll always be glad you did.