More than a decade ago, a friend who was also a kind of spiritual mentor assigned me with the task of asking people what their definition of “humility” is. The stipulations were that these people had to be someone I admired and also that I did not personally know. In its own way, the actual exercise is based on humility as I was admitting to someone that I don’t know all the answers.
Prior to making some healthy and deliberate life changes during that time, I was full of answers and definitions that never seemed to resolve much of my problems. I was looking to the same brain that created the problem to provide all of the solutions.
My view of humility then was one of groveling, a painting featuring lowly farmers (who, for some reason always appeared vaguely 19th-century Russian) clawing through the soil, tearing root vegetables out of the earth. Thankfully, and only through evidence and experience, that view has changed.
Humility is sometimes only witnessed by the whooshing sound of the pendulum that swings between my capricious arrogance and an inviolable self-hatred that feels sourced to the marrow. Both views leave me in an ersatz consciousness of either superiority or inferiority, opposite of humility.
Through email cold-calls and also opportunity of working as an arts-and-music journalist, I asked a group of people whom I admire about their personal definition and experiences with humility. I’m indebted to them all for their time, generosity and candor. Hopefully I am not in some way violating their confidence in posting their replies, but I doubt this would an issue. Listed below in alphabetical order, I have left all of their responses and punctuation, verbatim.
• Krishna Das; musician and spiritual teacher; follower of Neem Karoli Baba; author of the excellent memoir, Chants of a Lifetime (2010). •
Hey Dan, Good to hear from you.
Humility, Huh? Well I can certainly tell you about that as I am the most humble person that I have ever met!!!
Humility is so simple. Just look around and it’s easy to tell that other people just don’t understand. They think that they know more than we do. Amazing.
OK. OK….
Real humility, in the Spiritual tradition is very simple…. but very difficult to realize.
We actually don’t exist as separate beings from “God”, the “One.” We only THINK we do… and so, around the planet of “ME” all our bullshit orbits.
This is something that has to be realized directly and is not an intellectual exercise or game.
However, in the “real” world of daily life, humility is being open-minded/open-hearted and non-judgmental of others.
It means to see that everyone suffers just like we do and can’t help but hurt themselves and others.
In our recognition of our helplessness lies our strength.
We are no different than anyone out there…everyone wants to be happy and no one knows how. Humility and real compassion (for ourselves and others) are best friends.
Love,
KD
• Kevin Griffin; musician, author, longtime Buddhist practitioner and member of the 12-Step community; author of several books including One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps (2004) and Living Kindness: Metta Practice for the Whole of Our Lives (2022); pioneering leader in the mindfulness- recovery movement and co-founder of the Buddhist Recovery Network. •
Dan,
Humility:
human
human-sized
right-sized
teachable
beginner’s mind
I’ve never been big on the word, but a friend helped me recently to get a better idea of its meaning. Who do I think I am? Do I think I know it all? Are my ears still open? How do I take criticism? Am I still trying to grow or do I think I’ve arrived?
If I hate myself, I’m not humble.
Kevin
• Professor Stephan A. Hoeller; author and scholar of Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and Jungian psychology; works include The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead (1982) and Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing (2002); ordained priest of The American Catholic Church; Regionary Bishop of The Ecclesia Gnostica.•
[Professor Hoeller surprised me by responding to my email with a five-page handwritten letter sent via the US Post. As I did with my email to Dr. Pagels, when I wrote to Dr. Hoeller I also described, in great length, the mystical occurrence I had experienced a few years earlier. Like Dr. Pagels before him, with much explanation and specific examples, he put my experience in a historical-spiritual context; ultimately viewing what happened to me as a “textbook Gnostic awakening.” Needless to say, I’m not transcribing that entire exchange. But within that letter, he also offered his succinct definition of humility. This might be my favorite of all of the answers I received]:
“Humility is when the Soul defers to the directives of the Spirit.”
• Gary Lachman; author of several insightful and recommendable books on consciousness, mysticism, occultism, the Western esoteric traditions; also the bassist for Blondie from 1975-1977. •
“I would say humility for me is realizing that I don’t know everything and that I live in a fascinating, beautiful universe that could get along just fine if I wasn’t here. It is having a sense of obligation to do what I can to show that I appreciate my existence and that I do not take things for granted. It is recognizing that there are higher powers at work and that the world is full of deeper meanings and that I am usually too absorbed in my own wants and complaints to grasp this. It is recognizing the simple truth that the world doesn’t revolve around me and that if I can get out of my own way I, and those around me, would have a much better time of it.”
• Stephen and Ondrea Levine; authors and meditation teachers; credited with being key to the Western Dharma movement in helping popularizing Theravada Buddhism and Vipassana meditation in America; pioneers in grief counseling, as well as the hospice and Conscious Dying movements. •
WE ARE ALL ONE
A HUMBLE BEING IS AN OPEN SPACE
THIS IS OUR DEFINITION FOR HUMBLENESS
TREASURE YOURSELF
LOVE,
STEPHEN AND ONDREA
• David Lynch; filmmaker, visual artist, actor, rogue meteorologist, and Transcendental Meditation advocate. •
DEAR DAN,
YOU REALLY WRITE A GREAT LETTER, AND I’M REALLY HAPPY FOR YOU. IT SOUNDS LIKE THINGS ARE GOING REALLY WELL. YOU MADE ME STOP AND THINK WHEN YOU ASKED ABOUT HUMILITY. IT SEEMS THAT A HUMBLE PERSON WOULD FEEL AND SAY THE FOLLOWING: “IT SEEMS TO ME LIKE EVERYTHING IS A GIFT – LIFE ITSELF IS A GIFT. IT’S NOT REALLY ME THAT DOES THE THINGS, IT’S THE GIFTS THAT DO IT, AND I CAN’T REALLY TAKE CREDIT FOR IT. AND THEREFORE, IT MAKES ME ALSO FEEL VERY THANKFUL AND THAT I AM JUST A FELLOW HUMAN BEING WITH ALL OTHER HUMAN BEINGS.” THIS IS THE BEST I CAN COME UP WITH RIGHT NOW. MEANWHILE, I’M WISHING YOU ALL THE VERY BEST.
YOUR FRIEND,
-DAVID
• John McLaughlin; jazz guitarist; including Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Elvin Jones and as leader of his own group, Mahavishnu Orchestra. •
“Well, I had an experience of it [humility] in 1969 with Miles. The other thing is, before I get to that, when you start to learn an instrument and you want to improvise, you quickly learn how stupid you are; and incompetent and just useless. This really establishes a kind of tempering; it really tempers your spirit. Because the music is saying, ‘what are you gonna give me? Are you just going to be superficial or are you really going to do something?’ And that is the question we all get.
The experience I had with Miles was on my first live gig with him; it would be very early ’69. I think we were in Michigan somewhere. We played the first set and I was so…enamored by him and so in awe. But I’d been in awe of him since I was 15 years old. And he played so amazingly; he was just incredible. We finished the first set and we were playing in a gym; I think it was a university. And I was sitting in a bench in the locker room, waiting for the second set, in an ecstatic state and Miles just came over and sat next to me. And he had that whispery voice, he didn’t have a voice; and he turned to me and he said, ‘Aw John, I didn’t play shit.’ [Laughs] And this blew my mind. This was a man who so clearly was a genius, and brutally honest with himself, that I was just floored. This was the greatest experience – it marked me for life.
But the thing is, as you grow older you realize how much you don’t know. And how it’s a natural human imbalance: ‘Knowing too much.’ It’s a natural egocentrism and how sneaky it all is. So it’s a question of realizing…I mean, I speak personally. I’m full of faults. But at the same time, I have to accept myself the way I am and the way through life is, to quote Don Juan, “The way of perfection.” The way of impeccability, and you just do the best you can all the time. You just have to read it in the bible. What did Jesus say? I’m not a Christian; I’m not anything. I don’t have a label. But Christ said, “Whatever your hand is doing, do it with all your might.” He was saying be of peace and do the best you can. And that’s it. There’s nothing more.”
• Dr. Elaine Pagels; religious historian and the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University; foremost scholar on Gnosticism and early Christianity, including The Gnostic Gospels (1979) and The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics (1995)•
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