Pride Vs. Proud

I would like to try and differentiate between pride and proud. The dictionary is not much help in separating these two, as they seem to be thought of as aspects of each other. But I think there is enough in the definition of ‘Pride’ to get us started. Webster’s Dictionary lists ‘Pride’ as: The quality or state of being proud as either inordinate self-esteem or a reasonable or justifiable self-respect. So I will try to discover what makes our pride or proud feeling either, ‘justifiable’ or ‘inappropriate’. For the sake of this paper, I will call ‘inordinate self-esteem’ ‘Pride’ and ‘reasonable or justifiable self respect’, I will call ‘Proud’

A friend of mine said, ‘Pride is a mold that grows over shame.’ Pride comes from a sense that things aren’t right. Inside we feel like something is very wrong with ourselves. There is something there we don’t want to face or acknowledge. Pride arises from this feeling. We want to protect ourselves from this feeling; we want to believe that we are different, that we are strong. We don’t believe in ourselves. Pride projects ourselves as something that we wish to be, and hides our small selves from the world. Doing this long enough, we actually hide from ourselves. We pretend to be how we want other people to see us. I think this makes us feel very isolated. We feel isolated because we have successfully hidden ourselves with our pride. No one can touch us. We even attempt to keep the master from seeing us clearly, so how can we be helped? This manages only to protect this feeling that something is wrong. Pride is very complicated, it is fighting against ourselves as we naturally are. It causes great suffering.

Pride comes into play when we feel like we would like to have more than we have currently. It comes from dissatisfaction with ourselves spiritually, physically, and emotionally. It is a feeling of poverty. We want to be a great practitioner – to be free from our suffering. We feel always poor, always like we are not enough and so we start to emulate that which we covet. People might even respond to this emulation, we might get a promotion or friends or fame from the display – but we will not be satisfied. Inside we still feel like something is very wrong and we will worry that we might be discovered – that people might find out just how poor we are.

Pride makes us hold on to our opinions. Our opinions prevent us from truly helping the people around us. We disagree with everything. We want to protect ourselves from everything and everyone so that nobody sees us as weak or incorrect – so that we don’t see ourselves that way. We maintain our opinions so that we can appear strong. We want to appear strong to ourselves so that we don’t feel insubstantial, impermanent, indistinct, discontinuous, and undefined. Pride attempts to protect ourselves from feeling this way. We think our opinions are more important than harmony with our family and our community. We need our opinions to maintain a sense of pride. We don’t want to lose in some war. We think that to put down our pride and our opinions will make us weak. Pride says my way is better than yours, different from yours. In this way, pride makes war. This pride is a practice based in an incorrect way of wanting the world to be different than it is.

To be proud, on the other hand, means to be natural and to do what is correct in any given situation. If we do what is correct then we are proud - automatically. All of Rinpoche’s teachings, I believe, are intended to help us be proud, to be natural. For humans, being natural means to be helpful – truly helpful. As Rinpoche says, ‘we did not come here to cause trouble’, and if we believe this, then we must be helpful. Being proud comes automatically from mindfulness of our situation and bringing happiness and confidence to other people. It comes automatically from loving and helping others. This is called ‘Belonging to your proper position’; it is called, ‘Finding your natural way’. To find your natural way, you should do as Rinpoche said at this Saturday’s patience workshop: “Don’t make a big deal about good things, don’t make a big deal about bad things, and don’t make a big deal about not making a big deal.”

Being proud, comes from a feeling of richness, of satisfaction. When we are proud we have nothing to gain, nothing to hope for, we are satisfied in the moment with what and who we are. To be satisfied with what and who we are we must be satisfied with our world. To be satisfied in the world, we must help and love other sentient beings. Helping is the only thing that is satisfying and nothing stands in the way of us doing that. Immediately, suddenly, as we are, we can become proud. The master and the disciple dance under the moonlight.

When we are proud, we appreciate other people’s achievements. We rejoice in the merit of both ordinary and noble beings. Proud does not require that you take any action. You feel proud for other people’s accomplishments. If you do this, you will stand straight. You will speak with confidence. Pride and giving are inseparable. You do things for others, this is your true self - if you find this true self then you are proud. If you are proud you are generous. You don’t need to feel proud, it comes automatically. If someone is hungry, feed them, if they are thirsty, give them water - then everyone will see you are a proud person. You have found your natural place. Helping others is what we are here to do; we did not want to cause problems.

So pride is a feeling that comes from actions taken to benefit only oneself and to solidify one’s feeling of permanence in a transitory reality. This pride causes suffering to oneself and to others. Being proud comes from actions taken to benefit others and to alleviate suffering. It comes from being at peace with ourselves right here, right now, in the moment. A world in peace is a proud world.

If we discover our nature as truly insubstantial, impermanent, indistinct, discontinuous, and undefined, if we discover this nature and we take full refuge in the forever opening experience of these qualities, then we become proud – automatically.