Question

How can we become less dependent on positive feedback, praise or fame from other people to motivate our inward growth?

Answer

With Compassion and Right Understanding. Again, it comes back to Right View and Right Intention, and the understanding of Kamma. If a person praises us, then they get the Kamma of praise, but if they praise us for something that is not worthy of praise, it may encourage us do something again that will make bad Kamma for ourselves. We have to look at our intention and learn to praise ourselves when our action is based in a beneficial intention.

As to fame - I had an interesting experience when I first came here of Steve getting the praise for everything I did. It seems to have tipped the other way now, so I am busy saying, "No, Steve did that, not me." In the beginning, Steve kept on saying, "Rosemary did that, not me." In the beginning, I had some difficulty with this until I realized that it actually did not matter whether people knew that I did the action or not, because they couldn't take away my good Kamma. I still get my good Kamma even if nobody knows about it. And, then, I don't have to deal with the possibility that I get attached to that fame.

So it was great to learn how to depend on my own good Kamma rather than the attention and praise of others. Sometimes we learn from Dukkha. I became less dependent on other people's praise or attention and learned how to say to myself, "What you are doing is fine." I had to learn how to look at my own intention and see if it was based in Compassion and some Right Understanding. Then, I had to learn to reflect on my good Kamma and feel Joy, Sympathetic Joy, with myself.

It's also helpful to learn to like obscurity. Liking obscurity is actually not too difficult for me, but sometimes, when we are really wanting some feedback, it turns into wanting fame. This is the thing about the eight worldly dhammas. Sometimes we say we like obscurity, but when we are wanting fame, it becomes completely different. By looking into the eight worldly dhammas, we become less attached to praise and fame to motivate our inward growth. When we actually start to see the power of Right Intention within ourselves and see it lessens the suffering in ourselves, Compassion for ourselves motivates us to grow because we see that we are walking out of Dukkha.

Then we become less and less dependent on other people for our happiness, and more dependent on our inner Wisdom and Compassion. Then when we see that we are seeking this praise and this fame from others, we see the possibility of this dissatisfaction to arise. Even when we do something good, we see the dangers of being attached to praise and fame for our sense of energy and motivation. We more and more depend on our Compassionate intention and take Joy in the fact that what we do helps others, whether people know about it or not. Taking Joy in our good intention, also protects us from the opposite of praise and fame - blame and obscurity. After all, there is no one in the world who is not blamed; speaking a lot one is blamed; speaking little one is blamed; speaking not at all one is blamed; there is no one in the world unblamed.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.