Humility/Guilt/Intention

I found myself distracted during meditation today by guilt over blogging about helping a woman with her broken arm. I tend to over analyze these things, but I do know that I tend to seek acknowledgment. I was praised much as a child by my parents, and this unfortunately interferes with my self esteem. I'm aware of this tendency and I often feel guilty if I recount a good deed, even if my intention was to illustrate something else, as I think was the case yesterday.

I think it's important to be of service whenever we can. I think it is also important to encourage others to do the same. I think, though, that it is important to do service to do service, not to serve some need to prove "I am a good person."

I learned tonight of "Taking the Precepts," kind of a pledge that you do when becoming a Zen Buddhist. This led me to this dharma talk on the precepts by Sensei Robert Aitkin. In it he discusses the 7th precept: I take up the way of not praising myself while abusing others.

He gives the reason for this precept:
"The reason I praise myself and abuse others is that I seek to justify and defend myself as a certain kind of rather superior being."

And the appropriate understanding:

"Actually, I am not superior or inferior. My actions and words are appropriate or inappropriate to the needs of people, animals, plants and things, including myself. If I am authoritarian and put myself up and others down, then I am not meeting their need to grow and mature or my own to listen and learn. The Buddha Dharma is obscured. The world suffers."

This is my intention and my labor.

Another aspect of this that I still haven't figured out is how to avoid visiting this behavior on my children. Children do need encouragement, but too much praise is poisonous. It would be best to instill in them their own motivation to right action and passionate living. If anyone has good techniques here, I'd love to hear them.