But while being oneself is all good and nice we certainly need to exercise some discretion as to which part of ourselves we want to be. There are some who take the idea of being oneself as a license to set loose all their defilements. “Aren't they (i.e. the defilements) part of me?” they might justify. It does not take much to figure out that this isn't exactly what being oneself really means. It is in fact an abuse of a very wonderful idea, and moreover, for Buddhist, it is not in accordance with the principles of the Dhamma. For the Buddha had always praised the restraint of the defilements through the practice of sīla, samādhi, and paññā (virtue, concentration, and insight).
“Good is restraint in the body; good is restraint in speech; good is restraint in thought. Restraint everywhere is good. The monk restrained in every way is freed from all suffering.”
~ Dhammapada 360-361
All of us, unless we are arahants, have two sides to our personality or nature: The good side and the not so good. In Dhamma parlance we can call these the wholesome and the unwholesome, or the skilful and unskilful side. These two sides of our personality or nature inform all the three modes of our actions: bodily, verbal, and mental. Wholesome actions, i.e. actions that are motivated by generosity, magnanimity, love, compassion, and wise discernment, are called sucarita (good-conduct), while unwholesome actions, i.e. actions motivated by lust, greed, aversion, ill-will, anger, and delusion, are called duccarita (bad-conduct). All of us have both these noble and ignoble nature in us.
“There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
The practice of the Dhamma is a gradual process of cultivating and developing more and more sucarita and of restraining and dispelling all duccarita. This is in accordance with the basic Buddhas' teaching of doing good, avoiding evil and purifying the mind. This is also right-effort which, as we know, is fourfold: Effort to prevent unwholesome states not yet arisen from arising, to dispel unwholesome states already arisen, to arouse wholesome states not yet arisen, and to develop further wholesome states already arisen.
So while being oneself is wonderful, as Buddhist we should do so in accordance with the principles of Dhamma. This means being our-noble-self and not our-ignoble-self. It means that we encourage the wholesome part of our personality, our noble nature to shine forth more and more in our actions, and we try to develop it further, making it strong and firm until it become the dominant part of our nature. But as for the unwholesome part of our personality, our ignoble nature, we must make effort to restrain and gradually weaken its influence over our actions through cultivating virtue, concentration, and deep insight.
Again, while the idea of being oneself also means that we do not place too much importance on how others perceive us, that we feel comfortable in expressing ourselves as we are, it does not mean that we must totally ignore the perception of others. We may ignore the perception of those who are not wise, those who are foolish. But in teaching the Dhamma the Buddha always set great store by the opinion of the wise people. In the Kālāma Sutta (Aṅguttara-Nikāya, the Book of the Threes, Sutta 66) one of the criteria that the Buddha gave for judging whether an action should be abandon or taken up is whether it is censured or praised by the wise (the other criteria are whether it is wholesome or unwholesome, blameable or blameless, lead to harm and suffering or welfare and happiness). So we must not be so foolish as to ignore the opinion and advice of the wise and learned people who give good advice and guidance.
“Should one find a man who points out faults and who reproves, let him follow such a wise and sagacious person as one would a guide to hidden treasure. It is always better, and never worse, to cultivate such an association.
“Let him admonish, instruct and shield one from wrong; he, indeed, is dear to the good and detestable to the evil.
“Do not associate with evil companions; do not seek the fellowship of the vile. Associate with the good friends; seek the fellowship of noble men.”
~ Dhammapada 76-78
We should also not ignore the voice of wisdom that is within us. In all of us there is this voice of wisdom or reason. It is present whenever we are mindful. Some people are more in touch with this voice while others simply ignore or even suppress it. They do so at their own risk. We should all try to be more in touch with this voice within us. It is this voice that hints to us the right and proper thing to do under the situation we are in. It also tells us when we are about to do something foolish. This voice is also the voice of our conscience. This is where hiri and ottappa (shame and fear of wrong doing) come in. Being ourselves also means that we learn to listen to this voice of wisdom and reason within us, our conscience, hiri and ottappa. They are part of our noble nature. Listening to them will help us to bring out more and more the noble part of our nature.
What about the ignoble part of our nature? Does restraining the ignoble part of our nature entails that we suppressed it? To a certain extent it does. We do suppress it but in a wholesome way and not in a violent and forceful manner. The unwholesome or ignoble part of our personality or nature is part of us and as long as it is there it will inevitably manifest itself given the right conditions.
But in practicing the Dhamma we make effort to establish mindfulness in order to prevent it from arising. As long as wholesome mindfulness is intact it cannot arise. But mindfulness is only perfect in an arahant. So no matter how much we try to make mindfulness continuous, all it takes is a single moment of lapse of mindfulness and our ignoble nature will seize the opportunity to return. But when it returns we do not deny its existence nor do we reject it and try to push it away forcefully. We acknowledge, with mindfulness and clear-comprehension, that it has arisen and accept that it is still part of us. We do not try to pretend that it is not there and that we are pure.
One of the worst things we can do to ourselves as Dhamma practitioner is to not acknowledge that we still have defilements and to think or even pretend that we are already pure when we are still not. Worse than this would be a person who thinks or pretends himself pure when he is not and then looks down on and denigrates others for being impure. When we do not acknowledge our own defilements and fall into the delusion that we are already pure, then our Dhamma practice will stop right there. Thinking that we are already pure we will not put in further effort to develop ourselves. Or we put in effort in the wrong way to maintain the delusion of purity. We will first stagnate in our practice and then begin to degenerate. This is not being oneself.
Sometimes there are those who cannot acknowledge their defilements because they cling on tightly to the ideal purity that the Dhamma taught. There is nothing wrong with this ideal because when this ideal purity is rightly pursued and attained it brings about liberation from suffering. The problem arise when one becomes too attached to this ideal to the extent that one clings on to it and become averse to or dejected by any manifestation of impurities such as sense desire or aversion for example. Because these defilements are still part of one's nature when one is averse to it and rejects it one is actually rejecting part of oneself and this may give rise to some psychological conflict.
Take the case of sense-desire for example. On the one hand one likes the ideal of purity too much. On the other hand one still has this strong desire to enjoy certain things. These two desires conflicts with one another. When the tension caused by this internal conflict grows unbearable some actually tries to resolve this conflict by finding ways (usually lamely justified ways) to satisfy this sense-desire while still maintaining a semblance of purity.
And so we have for example recluses whose ideal of recluse-ship prevents them from handling money and thus restricts their access to material luxuries. Yet these very same recluses are able to provide themselves with many luxuries which most laities don't or cannot even provide themselves with. And this provision is cleverly effected in a way that is “proper” and does not violate the letter of the rules of their recluse-ship (the same cannot be said of the spirit of these rules), courtesy of their lay attendants and supporters who are oftentimes faithfully and willingly inconvenienced. And while doing this there are some of them who will hide their own defilements by “advertising” or making a show of their own purity and at the same time casting doubts on others' purity. If one has true purity that is in accordance with the Dhamma one do not pursue purity in such an incongruent manner which are in conflict with the spirit of the Dhamma. This is also not what being oneself is all about.
So when the defilements arise and our ignoble nature shows itself, instead of being put off by them and becoming dejected, instead of rejecting and pushing them away with aversion, we acknowledge them by being mindful of them and clearly comprehending their nature. When we can do this, and especially when mindfulness is firm, we find that the defilements that arise will naturally loosen their grip on the mind on their own accord. We need not do anything special to dispel them but to simply be clearly mindful of them as and when they arise. When we simply watch the defilements with wholesome mindfulness and let them be, we cease to supply the defilements with further fuel to carry one. And so in the presence of wholesome mindfulness the unwholesome defilements will die a natural death. We need not forcefully kill off the defilements. This is one way in which mindfulness can help to restrain the defilements.
When we have mindfulness also we do not give rise to aversion towards the defilements that arise. In this way we do not struggle and fight with the defilements but simply observe and let them be. This prevents psychological conflict from arising in the mind. With mindfulness we can acknowledge and accept our defilements as they are. And with clear-comprehension we learn about the true nature of our defilements. We learn about the conditioned nature of the defilements and how they conditioned and affect the mind giving rise to stress and strain in the mind. When we see them passing away we experience the ease and peace, the comfort and happiness of a mind that is freed from the fires of defilements.
When we see the drawbacks of the defilements when they are present, how they prevent happiness and cause suffering, and when we see the advantages of the absence of defilements from the mind, how the mind is happier, cool, not burdened and more at ease, we become more inclined towards wholesome states of mind and less inclined towards the defilements. And so we will be more eager to perform wholesome actions such as dāna (acts of generosity), sīla (virtuous conduct) and bhāvana (wholesome mental culture). This inclination towards the wholesome and away from the unwholesome is only possible if we have mindfulness. This is another way in which mindfulness helps to restrain the defilements.
Through the practice of Satipaṭṭhāna Vipassanā bhāvana or insight meditation, mindfulness is brought to bear onto the contemplation of the nature of our experience of mental and physical phenomena arising at the sense-doors. This brings about clear-comprehension of the true nature of these mental and physical phenomena. One develops insights and comes to understand their nature of impermanence, suffering, and non-self. At each moment of insight, of mindfulness and clear-comprehension into the true nature of these conditioned phenomena, any latent defilement which may have arisen in the absence of mindfulness and clear-comprehension, loses their potential to arise. In this way too mindfulness helps to restrain the defilements.
At the culmination of the practice of insight meditation the insight knowledge becomes fully developed and matured bringing about a breakthrough into the Dhamma. At that moment the supramundane noble Eightfold Path arise. One of the factors of this Path is right mindfulness which together with the other path factors uproots the defilements completely so that they may never arise again in the mind continuum. This is the best way in which mindfulness helps to restrain the defilements.
And as we practice Dhamma and cultivate and develop mindfulness in all these various degrees, mindfulness helps to bring out more and more of our noble nature, helps to bring out more and more wholesome noble qualities in our mind, lets them shine, makes them strong and firm until they become the dominant part of our nature. At the same time mindfulness will also help to restrain the unwholesome and ignoble part of our nature by restraining the defilements in all the various ways mentioned above. It helps to weaken the hold and influence of these defilements over our mind. The end result of this is a very beautiful person, or as one teacher puts it, a beautiful mind. So mindfulness is the best way to be oneself, i.e. our-noble-self.
And to complete the transformation of your nature just make sure that you move from being yourself to non-self. For this you will need to develop vipassanā or insight through the practice of Satipaṭṭhāna.
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