Into Great Silence

This is not a review of Philip Gröning’s work: to ‘review’ such a film would be as presumptuous as a book review of the Old Testament. But I will share with you here what I saw and felt in this film in order that you might wish to see and feel it also.

The Monastery of the Grande Chartreuse is considered to be one of the most ascetic monasteries in the world. In 1984, I asked them for permission to film on location. It was said that it was too early. Maybe in 10, 13 years. 16 years later I received a call from the Chartreuse. They were now ready.  – Philip Gröning

‘Into Great Silence’ is a fly on the wall’s view of monastic life in the Grande Chartreuse. It is a film like nothing you have ever seen before because what it sets out to do is make visible and palpable the invisible and the impalpable. And in this it succeeds like no other film you will ever see. How do you tell the story of a life devoted to the invisible Spirit, spent largely in silent communion with God, in menial tasks performed gratefully with a pure heart?

The Lord passed by. Then a great wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord,

But He was not in the wind.

After that there was an earthquake,

But the Lord was not in the earthquake.

After that came a fire,

But the Lord was not in the fire.

After the fire came a gentle whisper.  – Kings 19, 11-13

This is the first of several quotations from the Bible that occur like milestones or guiding stars along the journey of the film. And we are immediately seized by the power and poetry of those words. This feeling stays with us as their meaning is given form in the daily life of the monks. 

One of the earliest scenes shows a monk preparing vegetables in the kitchen. 30 seconds of watching a monk cutting the leaves off celery. One might begin to think to oneself that the director is setting the scene, preparing us for the action to come. But, with great courage, Gröning continues to show us the monk cutting the celery. There is no action to come. This is the action. The smallest of tasks are given their due place in life. It is borne in on us that all our daily tasks are noble and a meditation if performed in the right spirit. We need to slow down and pay attention to our lives.

In my opinion there is absolutely no doubt Gröning was divinely inspired and guided throughout the making of this film. Can you imagine that all the monks’ prayers - the whole monastery’s most earnest prayers - for a happy outcome to their film project would go unanswered? Think about it. Even I feel the breath of an angel over my shoulder as I write about it.

Gröning slows us down in every successive scene and makes more and more obvious the complete disconnection between our frenzied superficial world and this timeless, peaceful world of the Spirit. At first we may feel uncomfortable. Those afraid to be alone, afraid of the void, afraid to think, or afraid to be away from their cell phones for more than 5 minutes, may feel very uncomfortable. But after a while we begin to think that this quiet life is the real life and that other frenzied life is uncomfortable.

Interspersed with the scenes of daily tasks and prayer and silent communion with God are scenes of nature, time lapses of the stars at night, camera angles of the play of shadows on the wooden floor boards, dust specks floating in the light. Scenes that ordinarily might go unnoticed are now presented to us in their own right to make us look at the visible beauty of the world and how it suggests the invisible beauty of the Spirit that created it.

Anyone who does not give up all he has cannot be my disciple.

We try to imagine what it must be to give up all we have and become a monk, a disciple. We fail. These words are old but for these monks they are new and imperative. We look on with a kind of awe. Gröning has no qualms presenting us with several series of 30-second full-face shots of the monks. Humility, kindness, simplicity, forgiveness: all manner of virtues are to be read on their faces as they look us benevolently right in the eye. One might even say God looks us right in the eye.

The ‘aha’ moments are many in this film, although they are no doubt somewhat different for each individual. I found the following quotation particularly poignant. It perhaps sums up the whole meaning of Christianity and the spiritual imperative in its two lines:

Behold I am become human. If you should not want to join me in becoming God, you would do me wrong.

‘Join me in becoming God’: that is what the monks wish to do with all their heart. And their journey, revealed to us by the inspired hand of Gröning, is very poignant and uplifting. Poignant because a life devoted to the Spirit is what we are born to and what we would desire above all things if we only knew it, but we don’t know it. Uplifting because these monks, although only men like us, have been able to choose this path and to follow where it leads.

You shall seek me and you shall find me. Because you seek me with all your heart, I will let myself be found.

I hope I have encouraged you to see this important film. I am sure it will change the way you look on your own life - perhaps at first in small, imperceptible ways - as it has changed the way I look on mine.

I will leave you with the following clip that shows many of the aspects I have discussed and has an excerpt of the beautiful Night Office at the end. (Unfortunately the presentation of the opening quotation has been modified but do not mind it: the rest is worth it).

We who merely happen to be walking around

Here is another interesting video for you. It’s an amazingly high quality film of the view from a streetcar travelling down Market Street in San Francisco in 1905. What I found so unusual in this film is that there is nothing… unusual. It must be that we are so used to seeing bad quality films of this period that we begin to think that all people walked like Charlie Chaplin or something, or that they were in some way quaint or inferior to us. In this film we see clearly that the people are like us. The policeman gives us his universal policeman stare, people gingerly cross the street avoiding the tracks as we would do, the fellow on the bicycle rides like anyone you would see today, the boy running could be the neighbour’s son.

From there it is easy to see that two hundred years ago or even a thousand years ago, apart from the props, people were basically the same. Just because we live in an era that is technologically, politically and socially more ‘advanced’ (so to speak), it does not necessarily mean we are better or even different than people who came before us. To me, the film illustrates clearly our alikeness, our solidarity with our ancestors. We, like they, are merely living in the ‘now’ of the present moment. We go about our business, thinking - as they probably did - that we are in some way more privileged, more intelligent, more everything than those who came before. But this is not true. I am reminded of a quote from G.K. Chesterton about the importance of tradition:

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

Patrick O'Brian - the greatest historical novelist of all time

Who would you say is the greatest historical novelist of all time? Novels have not been around that long: a thousand years or so if you think of the Tale of Genji, more if you include sagas and traditional tales like Homer’s Illiad. But the title is still enormous, considering the great flowering of literature in the last thousand years. The title was given by The Times to Patrick O’Brian.
Who the heck is Patrick O’Brian you say? And until 4 years ago I would have said the same thing. I have now read what insiders call the ‘Aubrey-Maturin series’ of 20 books four times. I am just starting the fifth time. (That is why I was glad to learn that there are two English translations of The Tale of Genji – if I wish I can at least re-read it with a different translation and a different nuance).

Patrick O’Brian’s serial masterpiece is set in the heyday of the age of fighting sail in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Britain is fighting a war for her survival against Napoleon’s France and foremost in the struggle is the Royal Navy of the period. The heroes are Jack Aubrey, whose career we follow from lieutenant to master and commander to frigate captain and finally to admiral, and his ‘particular friend’ Doctor Stephen Maturin, physician, naturalist, and spy, who sails with him on most of his adventures.
Now, this is a subject (naval life) and a period (Napoleonic) that I did not feel particularly attracted to. But I am here to tell you that such is O’Brian’s genius that I could not put the books down until I had read the whole series, which took me about 5 months, a book a week. And even more, when I had finished, it wasn’t long before I felt withdrawal symptoms. More on this later.
What is O’Brian’s magic?

These novels are neither Forester nor Marryat, though O’Brian pays the respect due to both. There is adventure and there are battles. The historic furniture and vernacular you can trust absolutely because O’Brian is so steeped in his period but there is also something of his heroine, Jane Austen. He writes with her irony, humour and moral toughness, almost as she might have written of the adventures of her naval brothers. Above all, they are accessible novels, so well written that you settle into each as into a warm bath, knowing you are in good, considerate hands. In evoking so vividly what it was like to be alive then, O’Brian shows by reflection elements of what it is to be alive now, and of how we should live. He achieves that simultaneous dislocation and bridging that is the essence of all imaginative art, and is what distinguishes it from everything else.
From Alan Judd’s review ‘The Winning Post at Last’

From the first opening paragraphs of the first book, you know you are in the hands of a master. The themes are immediately evident: you know there will be authenticity and scholarship, elegance and adventure. You know there will be honour, duty, courage, and friendship. But what strikes you as the guiding light of these themes is O’Brian’s projection of the humanity of his characters in the way he uses humour. Humour is never far away, even in the midst of battle. Never a sarcastic, cynical, negative humour. Always the delightful humour of the portrayal of the characters’ sense of what is right and what is wrong, for the morality of the time. The very fact that they care what is right and what is wrong is endearing and nostalgic to us today, in our age of ‘my way or the highway,’ instant gratification, moral and philosophical poverty.

Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin’s initial meeting almost leads to a duel and the death of one of them. They are attending a musical evening and happen to be seated together. At the end of the first movement Jack turns to his neighbour with a smile:

The words ‘Very finely played, sir, I believe’ were formed in his gullet if not quite in his mouth when he caught the cold and indeed inimical look and heard the whisper, ‘If you really must beat the measure, sir, let me entreat you to do so in time, and not a half beat ahead’.
Jack Aubrey’s face instantly changed from friendly ingenuous communicative pleasure to an expression of somewhat baffled hostility: he could not but acknowledge he had been beating the time; and although he had certainly done so with perfect accuracy, in itself the thing was wrong. His colour mounted, he fixed his neighbour’s pale eye for a moment, said, ‘I trust…’, and the opening notes of the slow movement cut him short.

We are in the hands of a master but the scholarship and the authenticity never intrude, are always subordinated to the background. The flow of the action and the richness of the characters are ever in the forefront of our mind. We are in the hands of a master but the narrator never intrudes, never do we see his craft - oh here is a bit of character description, oh here we are setting up some tension with an antagonist, oh here is a bit of scholarly research. The narrator is forgotten, as if we are listening to an old, old friend, wise and true, knowledgeable and discerning, in whose presence we relax completely.

As we get to know the characters and life aboard ship, we settle into the surroundings and escape into this other world. That is the only way to describe the feeling, as insiders will agree. The captain’s cabin of HMS Surprise is for us almost a second home, a refuge that we can find when our real home becomes too wearing on the spirit.
It is a world closer to nature, before the industrial devolution. Ships were built by hand of wood and cordage and they were managed by hand and eye, always in a spirit of humility with regard to wind and tide. Great practical skill and knowledge of the sea and the weather were essential. The enemy could always be seen, was never anonymous, and had no great technological advantage. Skill, courage, and fortitude decided the day. And honour. Prisoners were taken and released on parole that they would not take part in the war again until exchanged with the enemies’ prisoners. They were not tortured. A man’s word of honour was everything, and so such practices were possible.

We see, indeed we almost participate in, the great friendship that develops between the main characters, a friendship based on shared hardships and dangers. They would risk their lives for each other and sometimes do. This feeling of comradeship is absent in my life at least, I don’t know about yours, and is another reason why I find a refuge in this old world, in their company.

I hope I have given you a taste of the books. There is such a wealth of beauty and delight to discover in them. I can only warn you of one thing: like all good things, they come to an end.

Image: cover of the second book of the series, a painting by Geoff Hunt

Humility - Lessons from the Past

One of the financial blogs I visit regularly is Juggling Dynamite by Danielle Park. Danielle is the advisor I spoke about in my post The Ethical Financial Advisor. I encourage you to visit her blog also if you want to keep abreast of what is happening and where we are at in today’s turbulent financial arena. I say arena in the sense of gladiatorial arena where you can lose a financial arm and a leg if you’re not careful. I was struck by her recent post ‘Bouncing away’ which you can read in full here. In it Danielle talks about the recent rally since the March 9 low. But what I would like to share with you here is Danielle’s observations on her recent visit to Malta.

This will be a baby steps recovery. It will take time and real work. But it will be a healthy wake up call. The tiny Island of Malta is one of many examples of this phenomenon. Malta was one of the most bombed countries of the Second World War. It was pummelled to rubble. A German blockade brought the people to the verge of starvation just days before the British navy came to their rescue.
When I was visiting Malta recently, I asked the local people about how the world credit crunch and downturn is affecting them and their economy. They noted that tourism was somewhat slower. But they said Maltese people had generally not been caught up in over-consumption and credit abuse the past few years, so they were not suffering the consequences of deleveraging now. When I asked why, they explained that the older generation in Malta had lived through the utter decimation of their Island in the war. They had lived through the life-altering experience of losing one’s wealth, property and loved ones. They had worked for the past 60 years rebuilding their country brick by brick. They had taught their children the importance of not wasting and not taking more than they need. They own houses, but not mansions and no one has a three-car garage. They have no fresh water on the island. They developed the expensive process of desalination and now properly value clean water as the source of their life. They tend to walk and ride bikes, they drive smaller cars. Adversity brought a humility and wisdom to the Maltese people that has served them now for 2 generations.

With adversity comes humility and ‘with humility comes wisdom’. The adversity the Maltese people went through, though painful, had the seeds of something good in it. Likewise, the adversity America and the world is going through today is perhaps a necessary purging, a necessary winter to kill off the swamp plants that were growing to excess. And hopefully it too will have the seeds of something good in it, as Danielle says:

Some of the solutions to coming problems have yet to be designed. But there is now great effort focused on getting the world back to growth and in the end, we will succeed. That said, those looking for a resumption of reckless consumer spending and bubble-like prices will no doubt be frustrated and disappointed, at least for some time. Dark as many now feel, there is strength in this experience and we will bounce.

The Sword of Sincerity

History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is the worth of all this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fate may play, we march always in the ranks of honour. Winston Churchill

The shield of rectitude and sincerity: what a fine image! I am reminded of some other fine images of a martial nature:

Remember that it is in perfect gentleness that your soul will find the strongest defence, the only armour without a flaw. Remember the words of the Master: ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’ J.-M. Sylvain, Entretiens spirituels, P. 117

(The Taoist ideal of non-combat or non-competitiveness) disposes always of an invincible weapon: love, and a shield against which break the most furious assaults of men and destiny: sacrifice. Le Livre du Tao et de sa Vertu

We have seen that many other virtues can be considered a shield. Humility is a shield: the only sure protection against humiliation. Patience is a shield: the greatest fortitude against the evils of hatred and anger. I am sure you can think of others.
But if I may, I will disagree with my most esteemed compatriot Winston Churchill (and I think he would forgive me) by saying that I believe sincerity more closely resembles a sword than a shield. For with sincerity we can not merely defend ourselves: we can attack, we can pierce through men’s defences and win them to our cause. With sincerity as our sword and rectitude as our shield, we conquer men and destiny. Who could stand against us? Now, isn’t that a fine image?

Sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic. Thomas Carlyle

The true measure of life is not length, but honesty. John Lily

Weak persons cannot be sincere. François Duc de la Rochefoucauld

Sincerity may be humble, but she cannot be servile. Thomas Carlyle

He who is sincere hath the easiest task in the world, for, truth being always consistent with itself, he is put to no trouble about his words and actions; it is like traveling in a plain road, which is sure to bring you to your journey's end better than byways in which many lose themselves. John Tillotson

Sincerity is the face of the soul, as dissimulation is the mask. Joseph Sanial-Dubay

Sincerity is not only effective and honourable, it is also much less difficult than is commonly supposed. George H. Lewes

Never apologize for showing feeling. My friend, remember that when you do so you apologize for truth. Benjamin Disraeli

Sincerity is an openness of heart; it is found in a very few people, and that which we see commonly is not it, but a subtle dissimulation, to gain the confidence of others. François Duc de la Rochefoucauld

The happy talent of pleasing either those above or below you seems to be wholly owing to the opinion they have of your sincerity… There need be no more said in honour of it than that it is what forces the approbation of your opponents. Sir Richard Steele

You can play a shoestring if you're sincere. John Coltrane

It is best to be yourself, imperial, plain and true. Robert Browning

.

Photo from Wikimedia: King Leonidas of Sparta

Gratitude - the most complete prayer

Many if not all virtues are interrelated, the lines between them blurred. Aristotle believed that no virtue was found in isolation. I remember using the following quote in my post Humility - accepting suffering with joy:

The truly patient man does not examine who is testing him, whether it is his superior, his equal or his inferior, a good man or a bad man. But, treating all indiscriminately, he receives from God’s hand, gratefully, and as often as He likes, everything contrary that happens to him, and considers it a great benefit.
(‘Imitation de N.S. Jésus Christ’)

My point was that the humble man does not rebel against what is happening to him, as if it should not be happening to him because he is superior. He accepts it willingly. In the Tao Te Ching we read that the man who follows the Tao accepts, like water, the lowly places that no one else wants.
I later used the same quote in my post Patience – the greatest prayer. My point was then that the humble man is necessarily patient: not putting his own interests forward, not feeling unjustly dealt with, but accepting whatever comes his way with faith and philosophy.
And now I have quoted it again in this post on gratitude. For as you have read, our truly patient, humble man receives gratefully everything contrary that happens to him and counts it a great blessing. Humility, patience, gratitude. Who can say where one leaves off and the other begins?

A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves. Henry Ward Beecher

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation. Brian Tracy

There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

The difficulties, hardships and trials of life, the obstacles… are positive blessings. They knit the muscles more firmly, and teach self-reliance. William Mathews

I remember how we saw that humility is the root of all good, the foundation of all virtues. If humility is the root, patience is the tree and gratitude the branches. We saw also in Humility - accepting suffering with joy how the Rabbi, in his gratitude for all that God gave him, could not understand why he should know something of suffering.

Remember that not to be happy is not to be grateful. Elizabeth Carter

In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy. Albert Clarke

Whenever we are appreciative, we are filled with a sense of well-being and swept up by the feeling of joy. M.J. Ryan

There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy. Ralph H. Blum

There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward satisfaction that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance. Joseph Addison

Gratitude is our most direct line to God and the angels. If we take the time, no matter how crazy and troubled we feel, we can find something to be thankful for. The more we seek gratitude, the more reason the angels will give us for gratitude and joy to exist in our lives. Terry Lynn Taylor

To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven. Johannes A. Gaertner

A simple grateful thought toward Heaven is the most complete prayer. Gotthold Lessing

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was thank you that would suffice. Meister Eckhart

Gratitude is heaven itself. William Blake

Gratitude - everything is a miracle

If we stop for a moment and think about it (a strange thing to do, I know) everything around us is a gift. Our life is a gift, our body is a gift, the air we breathe is a very welcome gift from the universe…

In his book ‘Hara – the Vital Centre of Man’ Karlfried Graf Durkheim states:

Man, as a living being, is not rooted in himself. Rather he is nourished, sustained and held in order by Nature whose laws operate without his knowledge and assistance.

To paraphrase another source that escapes me*, we walk without knowing what it is that moves us; we stop without knowing what it is that stops us. We assimilate what we eat without knowing how we assimilate it. How can we presume to appropriate anything to ourselves?
It is folly and pride not to be awed by the miracle of life. But we so easily get caught up in the petty game of striving to get what we want that we forget to appreciate and enjoy what we do have. The game is only a game, and it is not even our own playing board.
But we can step back from the game and change our perspective and our attitude. Gratitude changes the rules of the game immediately. It becomes a delight to play instead of a struggle. And, best of all, we never seem to lose…

Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy - because we will always want to have something else or something more. Brother David Steindl-Rast

If a fellow isn't thankful for what he's got, he isn't likely to be thankful for what he's going to get. Frank A. Clark

You cannot bring anything new into your life until you are grateful for what you have now. Dr. Michael Beckwith

Who does not thank for little will not thank for much. Estonian Proverb

If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily. Gerald Good

The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings! Henry Ward Beecher

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings. Eric Hoffer

When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude. Elie Wiesel

Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend... when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present - love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure - the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth. Sarah Ban Breathnac

Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value in your life. Christiane Northrup

You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you. Sarah Ban Breathnach

There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. Albert Einstein

* 21 January 2009, I have found the reference: Chuang Tzu.
'Your destiny, your activity form an intergral part of the transformation of beings under the action of heaven and earth... You advance in life without knowing what pushes you, you stop without knowing what it is that stops you, you eat without knowing how you assimilate, the powerful but unknowable action of heaven and earth moving you in everything; and you claim to appropriate something to yourself?'

Gratitude - the forgotten virtue

Have you ever been puzzling over a problem and then come face to face with a sign that seemed to give you the answer? (See my post, A trip to the sea). The other day I was feeling vaguely irritated and I saw a T-shirt with the words ‘Control will be maintained for we will have order’. I smiled. Obviously the T-shirt’s message was tongue-in-cheek. But it made me realize I was lacking some order in my life. Then of course my eye caught another quote ‘Good order makes men bold, and confusion, cowards’ by Machiavelli. Perhaps it was a case of being receptive to change, a case of ‘when the pupil is ready the master appears’.
Last week, I happened to ask a colleague, who is always cheerful, where he thought the market was going. He surprised me by saying, with a smile, that wherever the market was going was alright with him because in any case he was a lot better off than most people in the world. He carried on in this vein, looking me straight in the eye with total sincerity and compassion and good cheer: we have a roof over our heads, we have a good job, we have money in the bank; we are really fortunate in this part of the world to have all that. We should count our blessings… be grateful… be happy. This reply was so unexpected that it almost seemed to me to come, not from my colleague, but from ‘upstairs’ via the medium of my colleague. Of course I agreed with him, a little half-heartedly, but the message had been delivered. I had mail. I had been told what was important and what was not.
Gratitude, along with humility, is a very unfashionable, almost forgotten virtue these days. And I am afraid to say that I must count myself among the forgetters. But it is one that we can't do without, as we shall see.
I did some research on what others have had to say on the subject and the importance of gratitude was further brought home to me. I will be posting a selection shortly. Here is one to meditate on for now. By the way, thank you Robert.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. Melodie Beattie

*********************************************************************************

Rehab International - drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs

Feel like you are the student and now you are ready?  Drug rehab programs could be your path to finding the master.

Humility quotations

Humility is the only true wisdom by which we prepare our minds for all the possible changes of life. George Arliss

We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility. Rabindranath Tagore

Humility is the solid foundation of all the virtues. Confucius

Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues, hence in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance. Saint Augustine

Humility is the root, mother, nurse, foundation, and bond of all virtue. Saint John Chrysostom

Even if you be otherwise perfect, you fail without humility. The Talmud

When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. The Bible

Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real. Thomas Merton

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility. William Shakespeare

It is always the secure who are humble. Gilbert Keith Chesterton

True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes. Edward Frederick Halifax

Modest humility is beauty's crown. Johann Christoff Friedrich von Schiller

Humility is eldest-born of Virtue, and claims the birthright at the throne of heaven. Arthur Murphy

Humility mainly becometh the converse of man with his Maker. Martin Farquhar Tupper

Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights. Henry David Thoreau

Humility (3) - accepting suffering with joy

No matter what we may think we know, we show our true selves, our real level of spiritual development, by our reaction to the bad things that happen to us. Often we rebel. Why is this happening? Why now? Why me? (I admit that my own level of spiritual development by this standard is often on a par with a potato. I’m working on it). We forget that a) this is happening because we made it happen or b) this is happening because it is a part of life and c) this happens to everyone at some point and is happening at this very moment to hundreds or thousands of other people, so why are we so special? And then of course we forget the all-important d): this is happening for a reason so we can learn from it and improve and move on to the next level.
The humble person does not waste any emotional energy rebelling and bemoaning his fate. He accepts that this is happening now and what is the best thing to do, or to be? What if we were to welcome obstacles instead of resisting them? The following is my translation of a passage from Imitation de Notre Seigneur Jesus Christ:

The truly patient man does not examine who is testing him, whether it is his superior, his equal or his inferior, a good man or a bad man. But, treating all indiscriminately, he receives from God’s hand, gratefully, and as often as He likes, everything contrary that happens to him, and considers it a great benefit.

The great thing about uplifting our attitude to obstacles in this way is that we cease being victims. Whatever happens to us we can transcend through humility and patient attention. By our very nature we are equipped by God, the Tao or whatever power we recognise, to handle everything that comes our way. We managed so far didn’t we?
I like the following story I came across in ‘The Discovery of Happiness’ edited by Stuart McCready:

The disciples of the Hasidic leader Rabbi Dov Ber (d.1772) were discussing the Talmudic statement that one should accept suffering with joy. “How is this possible?” they asked. Rabbi Dov Ber advised them to visit another of his disciples, Rabbi Zusya, who lived some distance away. He would explain to them how to accept suffering with joy.
The disciples were pleased with this advice. All knew that Rabbi Zusya lived a life of poverty, illness, and suffering. He would surely be able to explain.
When they reached the hovel in which he lived he jumped up with joy to greet them. They explained why they had come: “Our teacher told us to enquire from you how to accept suffering with joy.”
Rabbi Zusya looked puzzled. “Why did he send you to me?” he asked. “God is good and sends me all I need – I have never known suffering at all. So how can I help you?”

Humility (2) - the root of all good

Humility protects us from the fall that usually comes with the ‘hubris’ that follows success:

Therefore a good general effects his purpose and stops.
He dares not rely upon the strength of arms;
Effects his purpose and does not glory in it;
Effects his purpose and does not boast of it;
Effects his purpose and does not take pride in it;
Effects his purpose as a regrettable necessity;
Effects his purpose but does not love violence.
(For) things age after reaching their prime.
That (violence) would be against the Tao.
And he who is against the Tao perishes young. (Tao Te Ching)

Humility is the hallmark of the man or woman, leader or not, who has matured in wisdom enough to realise these things. He is secure in himself and feels no need to put himself forward, to take credit, or to ‘blow his own trumpet’. He sees himself as only a part of a larger design and knows that every person in that design has an equally important role to play. He is content to play the role that falls naturally to him.

What each person does is never insignificant. The blade of grass needs all its energy to draw subsistence from its roots, simply to grow there, where it is, in the grass; it doesn’t strive vainly to be a banyan tree; and thus the earth obtains its charming green carpet. (Rabindranath Tagore)

Humility makes us approachable by others and we are not afraid of appearing weak by saying ‘I don’t know’ or by asking questions. We have no inflated ego to protect. Sincerity, truth and openness are the order of the day and we receive all the benefits that come with them.
Not only the Tao Te Ching but all philosophies and religions espouse the merits of humility. Meister Eckhart, a famous thirteenth-century German preacher, even went this far:

If you become humble, God descends from his home and flows into you.
… Therefore humility is the root of all good and all that comes with it.
… All things must necessarily be accomplished in the truly humble man. He does not need to ask God, he can command God, because the height of divinity is nothing less than the depth of humility…
The humble man and God are one; the humble man is master of God as well as himself, and everything possessed by angels is in the nature of the humble man; what God does, the humble man does also, and what God is he is: one life and one being; that is why our Lord has said: “Learn from me that I am gentle and humble in spirit”. (Mathew XI-29).

A piece of humble pie anyone?

Humility (1) - flying below the radar

Humility has a bad reputation in today’s society. It has associations with timidity, lack of confidence, weakness. Who needs that? But if you will stop to consider more deeply, you will realise that humility has nothing to do with weakness and everything to do with wisdom.
Humility is not ‘believing oneself to be less important than others’. Humility is knowing that however good, talented, wise or rich we are, it does not make us more important than anyone else. And if we are not those things it does not make us any less important.
The Buddhists believe that the chance of being born in human form is like surfacing on a vast ocean and one’s head finding the centre of the only life belt floating on the surface. Therefore each human life is equally rare, equally precious and equally deserving of respect.
But if this is not enough reason for us, we can think of all the times our judgment about a person was wrong. We can think of that person we disregarded until we found out he spoke 7 languages, or was a black belt in karate, or worked 5 years in Africa as a volunteer. Everyone we meet is better than us in some way, even if only in their humility.
Humility is also one of the qualities of a special kind of leader. Think of the great men or women you admire and the chances are they possess the quality of humility as I describe it here. Take my favourite actor, Tom Hanks for example. Listening to him talking about the making of a film, you might be listening to the neighbour talking about coaching a kid’s baseball team. In fact, the neighbour would probably sound more like he was starring in a big-budget film.
Competence, confidence, and strength do not preclude humility. They are enhanced by it. We are attracted to capable leaders who, instead of taking all the credit, are self-effacing and rightly point to all the people who contributed to the success. We follow them willingly; we outdo ourselves for them willingly. This is aptly described in the Tao Te Ching (translation by Lin Yutang):

Therefore in order to be the chief among the people,
One must speak like their inferiors.
In order to be foremost among the people,
One must walk behind them.
Thus it is that the Sage stays above,
And the people do not feel his weight;
Walks in front,
And the people do not wish him harm.
Then the people of the world are glad to uphold him forever.
Because he does not contend,
No one in the world can contend against him.

More to come in part 2.