Ever since learning about narcissism, the whole thing has felt abhorrent. Various Christian thinkers pointed to this not as something that only a few would deal with in terms of a diagnosis. Rather, they assessed it as the fundamental human problem.

The idea felt abhorrent because it felt as though this assessment was true. If it was true, then who wants to be stuck looking at thoughts, reflections, eventually drowning in them, while in the meantime life as it is actually happening is flying past. And moreso: the life that is missed out on, is actually turning into an echo of what could have been. That is to say: it is done injustice to. This is because is the freedoms between the and the larger meshworks of society and nature dependently co-arise.

It seemed vital to find anything to overcome such a condition. Allthough such a thing is never fully possible, it is possible to make very significant changes. Practicing in allignment with the teachings of Carveth, who taught conscience over superego, this someone got into jhana’s. In an interview with my meditation teacher, Leigh Brasington, I ask him about the possibility of these states. And I ask him what he feels, looking around and what people do to each other, knowing the availability of these states, and he basically shrugs his shoulders saying he does the best he can.

The Buddha understood he could only teach few people, finding himself continuously between those he knew would drown and yet there is nothing that can be done. There is an implicit requirement in moral discourse to legitimize action on the basis of it being able to fulfill a promise of helping the world, but an important lesson is the inherently problematic nature of this world. The world of the six sense bases get entangled within itself and drowns within the echos of what could have been.

On the other side, what the myth also is about is the myth of doing this ‘alone’. Even the Buddha had to have parents, teachers who taught him the jhana’s, companions to discuss with and people to get food from. When he was able to make unprecedented historical progress in seclusion, he disinclined to teach understanding the limited perspective to uphold such intentions. It was only after the anagami Sahampati persuaded him that he started trying, and then still faced difficulties.

It is not enough for the idea ‘to help’ to be there. It is a good motivation. It is not enough for a discussion to be had on what right action actually looks like. It is some right thinking.

What is needed is an immense amount of supportive factors. If someone has intentions for compassionate action, but there is no perspective that can support the growth of that in some world, there cannot be the speech and action that is required. If there is no speech or action, there can be no effort to sustain it, no mindfulness to defend it, and it doesn’t coalesce or work together with anything, withering away like echo. If there are supportive factors, echo can turn out to be the person who showed a way to be loving in a way that was not comprehended at a time. And those persons tend to be the ones who are called teachers.

The story of Narcissus reminds of the Cave-octet sutta. It is reminiscent because there is an enchantment and infatuation with what is thought of as self. Yet it only leads to despair and loss of what is actually happening.

Craving to control the image, life escapes its grip or dies.
Craving to destroy the image, the repressed comes back stronger.
Craving to proliferate the image, there is becoming otherwise.

The translation is based on the version of Laurence Khantipalo Mills, a monk who counseled and supported Ayya Khema.

4:2  The Cave Octet

The person trapped in their body-cave
Clouded by many moods, and in delusion sunk,
Hard it is for that one, far from detachment,
To abandon sensual pleasures in the world.

Bound by worldly pleasures of the past,
And hard to liberate are they from future ones,
From others they’re also not free, not liberated—
For those ones are attached to past and the future too.

Those who are wasteful, who chase after pleasures,
infatuated they are, all their things—they lose all
Subjected to pain they lament their losses—
For how can all this be taken away, they wail

Therefore should a person train,
Seeing the roughness of the world,
To take not to a wicked way,
For the wise say, life is short

I see here trembling, fearful in the world,
These people gone under the sway of craving for births—
People floundering in the jaws of death,
Not free from craving for existence.

Look at them trembling in their egotistic selfishness,
Like fish in a stream fast drying up,
Seeing it so, fare unselfish in this life,
And cease worrying on different states of being.

No longer longing towards existence or non-existence
Having understood touch, together with letting go,
One should do what others will praise and not blame,
A wise one is not stained by what is seen and heard.

The sage has known perception and crossed the flood,
So with nothing tainted, nothing wrapped around,
They fare on in diligence with the the dart plucked out,
Neither longing for this world nor for another.