Dignity = Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?
The Dignity Diaries 1st unanswered question ...
As we celebrate independence on this 4th of July, I’m thinking about freedom, revolution, and, ultimately, how to be a better ancestor. What would it take to be truly independent? Liberated? Free? Equal rights for all humans? Are we ready for this?
To meet the challenges of our current times, and in theory, if we want to be truly free, we can’t keep doing things the same way. I don’t think freedom will ever be possible where there is hate and fear because as long as there is, there is a drive for control, for power.
Dignity has been top of my mind since I attended Tibetan Buddhist Phakchok Rimpoche’s inspiring talk on the subject this winter in Jackson, and I have since gobbled up his new book Awaking Dignity: A Guide to Living a Life of Deep Fulfillment. Dignity (so important I’m capitalizing it from now on) is NOT, for purposes of this argument, rank, station, honor, social status, uniqueness, beauty, poise, gravitas, integrity, or respect.
Instead, Phakchok Rinpoche lines out how religious and philosophical thinkers have envisioned Dignity as something far beyond respect throughout history. In medieval times, Catholic Thomas Aquinas regarded Dignity as the intrinsic value attributed to God’s creation; Italian Renaissance scholar Giovanni Pico della Mirandola reasoned that because we were made in God’s image, we become Dignified when we raise ourselves up to God. The eighteenth-century philosopher Emmanual Kant gave a secular argument in the Metaphysics of Morals that all persons have an inherent value, or Dignity, in virtue of their rational autonomy. It’s this basic worth or status that belongs to all persons equally and which grounds Western “democracies” purport to support fundamental human rights.
In Western culture, there is still a debate, though, whether Dignity is within us and reflected in our actions or something outside us that must be granted by others. In the Buddhist tradition, these two ideas are intimately related. Phakchok Rimpoche’s writings are based on the simple guiding principle of the human condition that to “change the world, we must first change ourselves.” We must first realize our own Dignity through an unwavering trust in our inherent goodness, our pure nature, and our noble heart. Only through this practice (I’m paraphrasing here) can we see the same in others and, in theory, allow them the freedom also to realize their Dignity.
Contrast that with religious and philosophical beliefs that humans are inherently bad and that life is all about redemption from sin and pleasing someone or something outside ourselves. God. The Father. Our fathers. On top of that is a serious human complication based on the belief that God or fate, or some other force outside of ourselves, is responsible for our condition rather than taking full responsibility for living our lives as well as we can (or not). Then there’s a mindset that one must force God’s (or one’s own political, spiritual, philosophical, or economic) will on others and that one’s personal sense of morality way is best for the collective. Weaponized by fear and hate, this drive for power over others is the ultimate antithesis of Dignity, Freedom, and Liberty.
By no means do I mean to point fingers at any one particular religious or political group – every religious person, every agnostic, every atheist, people across the political spectrum has the choice to grasp for power over others or leave them to their Dignity.
Interestingly, here in the US Constitution, while Dignity is a constitutional value, it is not a constitutional right in and of itself. However, Dignity is the cornerstone of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris in 1948. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, it stands out as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.
If “evolution” implies the gradual development or changes in something over time, we need a REvolution, a turnaround, a sudden, complete, or radical change. How will we muster the collective will to transform and become the best ancestors we can be? Can we heal the worst in us, bring forth the best in us, and never look back?
In this House
As most of you know, I live with my 88-year-old father, aka Gramp. We diverge widely in our worldviews, and as frustrating and furious as I feel sometimes, I’m constantly reminding myself that dying with dignity is perhaps the most important gift. Balancing my dignity with his is a tricky balancing act (especially with kids watching my every move), but it is essential to being a good ancestor.
In this house, we are a flurried conflict of
vibrations,
frequencies,
wavelengths,
infared, ultraviolet, gamma, x-rays.
Are we breaking through the cracks in the fifth dimension?
Or will we become the dirt dug for our grave?