You do not have to be perfect to be noble ࿇ Some abide in tranquility; some pant with lust; some bellow with rage ࿇ How to know decisively that your heart is noble, regardless
Many people consider fantasy fiction escapist entertainment for children and the feeble-minded. I believe that, in some cases, we can take from it wisdom not available elsewhere.
Often, that comes from an author’s study of myths from bygone eras, when nobility was a numinous quality still:
Sam: It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. I know now folk in those ancient tales had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there’s some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.
My nobility arc includes this post, and many related ones. There are more to come!
The Lord of the Rings is fascinating for the diverse nobility of its main characters. Samwise, Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn, and Éowyn are each noble in quite different ways. Entering into the story, we learn possibilities of nobility for ourselves: not as a matter of conceptual imagination, but through feeling what it is like to be each of them. Sam exemplifies loyalty and steadfast persistence; Frodo, wonder and mature responsibility; Gandalf, sorcery and self-sacrifice; Aragorn, kingship and devotion to lineage; Éowyn, the courage to defy restrictive social conventions.
Likewise, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Obi-wan Kenobi, and Han Solo are each noble differently. And in “Seeing like a Good King,” I described Megan Whalen Turner’s Thief novels as “a meditation on nobility in its manifold manifestations.” The central character of the first book in the series is a whiny scoundrel, and noble. The second’s is a cruel tyrant, and noble. Then there is a noble insubordinate soldier, a noble loyal servant of the arch-villain, and so on.
This variety implies that we do not have to be someone special, nor perfect, to be noble. We can each be noble in whatever way is natural for us, rather than trying to conform to some fixed idea of what nobility requires. And again, we are not wizards. We are not princesses, except imaginatively. And therefore, we cannot manifest nobility in quite the same way that fictional characters can. But we can be inspired, and find qualities worthy of emulation. We might make a deliberate practice of that.
That is rather like the practice of self-arising yidam in Vajrayana Buddhism. A “yidam” is an imaginary enlightened person. That is, roughly speaking, a god; so the practice is also called “deity yoga.” Yoga literally means “joining.” In the self-arising practice, you merge your mind with that of a yidam. You experience yourself as the yidam. In a sense, you become the yidam: a symbolic personification of a particular way of being.
There are thousands of yidams, and they too are extremely diverse. Some are gorgeous; some are hideous. Some abide in tranquility; some pant with lust; some bellow with rage. Some are naked; some wear monks’ robes; some royal finery; some full battle armor. Some have wings; some ride on dragons; sunbeams carry some through the sky.
All yidams are noble. Each yidam rules a mandala, a kingdom, with wisdom and compassion.
In practicing deity yoga, you develop vajra pride. Vajra pride is the recognition that you are the yidam. This is not a religious belief, or any sort of belief. It’s knowledge: in the sense of knowing you have two thumbs, not in the sense of knowing that the melting point of bismuth is 271.5° Celsius.
When I speak of dignity, I refer to the power that comes from knowing decisively that our heart is noble, our nature is inherently pure. We are whole and complete. It is the opposite of feeling that we are not enough. Dignity is not a passing state; it is an unwavering trust.1
In “Ofermōd,” I explained that some experts believe Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings primarily as an exploration of the meaning of nobility. Despite the diversity of his heroes and heroines, they all fit his theory of nobility: the union of pagan heroism with Christian humility. They are devoid of pride.
Tolkien was a devout Catholic. Catholic doctrine considers spiritual pride the gravest of the seven deadly sins. All other sins proceed from pride. Humility is its opposing virtue; its antidote. Sinful pride—“ofermōd” in Old English—is feeling that one has excellence of one’s own, self-created, rather than appreciating it as a gift from God. Then you are liable to resent God for thinking He’s the source of all that is good; for refusing to recognize your own exceptional effort or intrinsic personal merit. This was the error of Satan.
It may seem, then, that vajra pride is Satanism. You might suppose that, through your own strenuous efforts, you have made yourself into a god. Now you are superior to mere humans; you have gone beyond good and evil; you delight in the carnal pleasures and cruel satisfactions of your personal heaven.
And Vajrayana’s rejection of mainstream Buddhism’s self-denial might be mistaken for Satanism’s rejection of Christianity’s self-denial—its “slave morality,” in Nietzsche’s terms.
Deity yoga is traditionally considered risky. This is its main risk: confusing ofermōd—arrogance—with vajra pride. That is Satanic, nearly enough. But it is a confusion.
Vajra pride rejects self-denial, but it also rejects self-glorification. Vajra pride is impersonal. It is non-comparative. You always were the yidam. You didn’t change anything. You just uncovered an aspect of your intrinsic nature—one that you share with everyone and everything everywhere. Everyone is the yidam. There is no possibility for arrogance in that.
Yidams are diverse because people are diverse. We each have distinctive patterns of unenlightenment, of churlishness, of falling away from wisdom and compassion. The diversity of yidams shows that, in whatever ways you feel messed-up, misanthropic, or morose—nevertheless: clarity, affection, and joy are still always available.
When “vajra” combines with the word for a negative emotion, the compound is the positive, impersonal manifestation of the same energy:
Vajra greed is for everyone to possess whatever they want
Vajra anger is the intention to destroy all obstacles to everyone’s creativity, enjoyment, and understanding
Vajra lust is compassionate, appreciative attraction to everyone and everything, without neediness or aggression
Vajra anxiety is effortless all-accomplishing activity
Vajra idiocy is non-conceptual recognition of actuality
And so, vajra pride is confidence in the intrinsic wisdom and compassion of all sentient beings.
These are noble qualities. They are qualities of every yidam—although particular yidams display some more obviously than others. They are qualities also of every human being.
You.
Phakchok Rinpoche, Awakening Dignity.
I did a lot of inner work on developing the capacity for embodying identities that do not necessarily contain what one would call "me, in the here and now; the person who is living this life, in this body, in this mind", i.e. a normal, conventional identity.
So, as is typical for spiritual practices I spent time to center the experience of my identity in other humans (and animals; and inanimate objects; and in concepts), or in other versions of myself, or in my future self, or in "humanity 1000 years from now", or the planet, or whatever. An enlightening (and freeing) experience.
I also did extensive meditations on the deadly sins, how they manifest in different personality types, and so on.
However, it never occured to me to connect these sins with a kind of global identity, and by that have them turn into a more positive version of themselves: "[Vajra] greed is for everyone to possess whatever they want" is an AMAZING idea! I can't believe this never occured to me (prideful of me to assume that any good idea would already have occured to me, eh? :D ). The same with the other qualities you listed there.
The whole article was interesting. I enjoy reading about your concept of nobility. And I never considered LOTR from this lens, so that was valuable as well.
But especially that last part is giving me literal (as literal as it can be in the cognitive realm) food for thought. Thank you for that. :)
This discussion of vajra pride is so “right place, right time, right audience.” Pennies from heaven dropping right and left. Ngak’chang Rinpoche’s evocation of “playing air guitar “ as a a common yidam practice lit up anew, with added wattage. Remembering how as a bookish child, I went around in a book’s mandala for awhile before reinhabiting the quotidian.
And that last little gem about “vajra idiocy”— TOTALLY relatable for this space cadet, and grateful tears for NCR’s baffling repeated assertions that he is a “moron,” which served as a koan for all this time.