On Doing One's Best (And Not Knowing What that Is, Exactly)

   During the 1 day meditation retreat today, Venerable Chang Zhai had shared with the group how the concept of no-self is applied to daily life. She was talking about how people often believe that what happens to them is coming from a single self. If I am very successful in a certain area of life, this success is often imputed to something like one's own hard work or initiative, or genius.  But from the perspectives of impermanence and no self, there isn't really said to be a single self that is responsible for all that  happens. In fact, all that we do is conditioned by many factors, and not all of it is one's own personal responsibility. The upshot of this approach is that although we work hard in the understanding that we can create new conditions, we don't have this idea that working hard will create a 'good person' or a fixed, permanent situation of good. The reality is that things are changing all the time, so the best that people can do is build good habits so that they can benefit others the most in all situations.
    The attitude that Venerable ChangZhai described tonight is certainly one that reduces pride. For me it also illuminates the damage that pride (particularly pride in a sense of self) can do to a person. Just after the retreat, the Venerable was explaining to me some things I was doing incorrectly in the 8 fold moving meditation. At first, I felt a lot of vexation, thinking that I will never get things right, and I am not a good timekeeper for making these kinds of mistakes. But after a while, I have considered: what is the true source of the suffering I am experiencing from this situation? It seems that the suffering doesn't arise from being pointed out a mistake, since people continually make mistakes in different areas of life. I think the source of suffering came from my attachment to the role I am playing within the group. If I continue to think that my sense of self-worth depends on fulfilling a certain role perfectly, where does that attitude land me? It becomes a kind of all-or-nothing mentality, where I think I am either fulfilling my duties perfectly or am not worthy of having a certain role to play within a group.
    From the perspective of cause and conditions, is there ever such a thing as a 'perfected self"? Not really, for two reasons. One is that cause and conditions are always changing. The other reason is that the notion of 'perfection' is never an absolute, but depends on the perspectives of different people. One person's perfection will not look or feel the same as another's perfection. But even if there isn't such a thing (and never could be, for that matter), is  this any reason to throw in the towel and give up on all roles? Not exactly, because fulfilling social roles is a part of one's responsibility to one's community. If I use the notion of impermanence to conclude that I am 'nothing to no one', I am really not acknowledging my connections with the society and community. But once I do acknowledge both the necessity of social interaction and the shifting nature of our roles, I start to adopt a more flexible approach to role play. Rather than becoming one's fixed identity, roles can assume the nature of social functions.
     The scary implication of not having fixed identities in a community is that one never knows exactly what 'doing one's best' could mean, since the concept of 'one's best' becomes amorphous in a pluralistic community. One group's 'best' may clash with the views of another group's 'best', so which 'best' is 'best'? I think there is an opportunity there to question and re-think what we mean when we declare that something is  a 'best practice' and whether there is an ultimate 'best' anywhere. Though I cannot say  what 'my best' is, I can rest in the notion that I am planting good seeds for the future if I act wholeheartedly from a spirit of wisdom and compassion.