I was emailing a friend this week and they told me they were observing Yom Kippur. I remembered I had read a book on Judaism recently and I was interested to know more about Yom Kippur, and in particular what to say to people who observe Yom Kippur. This Friday I came across this excellent piece by Matthew Rozsa called “Yom Kippur is a reminder to Americans that humility is good for your health.”
In the piece Rozsa talks about cultural humility and how Americans can learn a lot about humility from Yom Kippur. According to Rozsa, Yom Kippur involves fasting, praying and focusing entirely on religious observance, and “for the spiritually vigilant, this process requires authentic humility, a quality described by the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides as the middle path between pride and shiflut, or “self-abasement.” He says that this process is profoundly spiritual for many Jews observing the religious holiday, but researchers show that being humble has many psychological and mental health benefits. He cites Joshua Hook, author of “Cultural Humility,” who says that when someone is culturally humble, they are more aware of their limitations when it comes to their own cultural perspective and worldview. People who are culturally humble understand that their perspective is just one way of viewing the world, and that it may not be the only right way and that there are many other ways of viewing the world. People who lack cultural humility, however, tend to be rigid in their perspectives and any info that doesn’t work with those perspectives, they tune out.
He also cites Noelany Pelc, who wrote an academic article on psychology and cultural humility, and according to Pelc, “people who embody humility feel more at peace and satisfied with their own sense of self and identity, and are not as motivated to look for approval or admiration from others around them. In other words, humility allows people to remove themselves from harmful social competition and a fragile sense of self-worth or esteem.” When people are humble, they admit that they’re not always right, and in so doing they tend to focus less on themselves and listen to others, and when the situation calls for them to speak up they have the confidence to do so. According to Pelc, “in general, acknowledging that there is much in the world that we simply don’t know, allows us to be open to experiences that are different from our own.”
He also says that, according to David Reiss, the best way to distinguish between confidence and lacking humility is that if you’re confident, you know you’ve obtained the right information and that you’ve examined the situation as objectively as possible. However, humility takes that to another level because the humble person knows that all information is subject to biased viewpoints and that new information may come out that challenges their previously held perspective. Rozsa also recognizes that in some situations, being humble may not be the best thing to be, especially if someone is a situation where they are being abused or disrespected in any way, particularly if they are women or people of color being assertive and standing up for themselves, not being humble, might be the best action to take. Rozsa concludes by saying that humility is particularly helpful in today’s contexts because many people are divided about COVID-19 vaccines, climate change and racial justice, and can’t seem to find anything to agree about. The late John McCain said that “Among its other virtues, humility makes for more productive politics. If it vanishes entirely, we will tear our society apart.” People who are humble care about others even if there’s no immediate benefit to us or even if others aren’t telling us to care about others.
Rozsa concludes that “true humility requires both self-respect, so you can be healthy and happy, and self-awareness, so you will remember your obligations to society and to defer when necessary to people more knowledgeable or skilled. Judaism teaches that every person is collectively responsible for all of humanity’s sins, that the most virtuous person and the most vile share some level of responsibility for one another. While science does not offer moral arguments of any kind, the existing body of knowledge strongly suggests that this attitude toward humility is actually the healthiest one for everyone.” (Rozsa)
Honestly, I needed to read this article because for the past year I had not been the most culturally humble person. I thought my perspectives were the only valid ones, and I remember in particular one time made me realize, Wow, I need to be more humble. I was sitting with my music instructor and I really wanted them to chant nam-myoho-renge-kyo, but they were not comfortable with chanting and wanted to stick with their faith in Christianity. I got so upset because all I wanted them to do was convert to my religion rather than respect their wishes. So I arrogantly asked them, ” well do you think your prayer has any power?” And they paused and told me “yes.” I spent the rest of the lesson sulking because they preferred to not chant. Up to this point I had been reading this Nichiren Buddhist text called The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin and in the book Nichiren is remonstrating against the government because people and the government were propagating Buddhist sutras other than the Lotus Sutra, which taught that everyone has a Buddha nature inside of them and can bring it out just as they are, and that each person is respectworthy because they have the Buddha nature. However, I took this to mean that Buddhist sutras meant other religions instead of remembering the historical context in which Nichiren wrote it.
A year has passed and I can honestly say I appreciate my teacher for having that conversation with me, because I really had to reflect on my own faith. It became a teaching moment where I realized that this person is a Buddha and in the Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, slandering a Buddha is slandering the Lotus Sutra, so by disrespecting this person’s wish to not chant and questioning whether their religion had any power, even when they were respectful to me whenever I talked about Buddhism, I was slandering their Buddha nature. It became an opportunity where the law of cause and effect turned around and asked me, “You asked them if their prayer has power, but you need to actually ask yourself that question. Do you think your own prayer has power? You might need to self-reflect.” So I chanted and I studied the writings of philosopher Daisaku Ikeda, and I found reading his dialogues helpful in understanding how to have better dialogues about religion with people, dialogues in which I could respect the other person’s Buddhahood and embrace their viewpoints on religion and have a heart to heart dialogue rather than try to win them over to my side. Whenever Ikeda has conducted dialogues with people from various religious backgrounds, he talks with them in a respectful way, he comes into the dialogue with an open mind and a willingness to listen and learn. His goal is to foster friendships and have heart-to-heart human dialogues with other people. Ikeda has taught me that I just need to be myself when I have interfaith dialogues with other people, and that everyone, regardless of their religious background, has a role to play in fostering a more peaceful society, one based on the vow for kosen-rufu, or world peace.
Reflecting on this essay made me want to be more culturally humble, and it made me ask myself, What kind of Buddhist do I want to be? I want to be a more open minded Buddhist, someone who can be their most authentic self and feel comfortable having honest dialogues about life and philosophy with others. It also helped me in terms of my audition preparation because I was able to tell myself to stop assuming what the judges want to hear because well, I can’t read minds and so I don’t know what the judges want. It also reminded me that I don’t have to pretend like I know everything, which I sometimes put pressure on myself to do a lot of times. I really want to read the book Cultural Humility because I really want to be a more humble person. I thought being humble meant putting myself down, but it actually means learning from different perspectives while also reflecting on myself and just doing my best as my most authentic self.
The Arts Are Life 