Chapter 3: Do I Deserve It

There is a sentence few people say aloud, but many live by it all their lives: I have to be good enough to deserve to be here.

It has many forms. I have to be useful, or I’m superfluous. I have to be needed to count. I have to achieve something, or this life will have been wasted. I have to be a bit better than others, or at least no worse. I have to satisfy people, or I’ll be dropped.

No one ever taught these sentences to our faces. But they come very early. You score ninety, and the grown-ups ask where the other ten went; you do a good deed, get one word of praise, and glow all day; you are left out once, and turn it over and over, wondering what is wrong with you. Grown up, they change their look but don’t leave: whether the work is good, whether the pay is good, whether you have married, whether the children have turned out well, whether anyone listens when you speak in a group. Each is like an exam paper, and a person spends a lifetime handing them in.

In daily life this sentence has grown into many shapes.

A CV, revised till two in the morning. Not correcting typos, but making every small thing you did sound bigger, finding some way to fill every gap. As you revise, something feels hollow: what if they see through it and find I’m not really that good?

After the meal everyone gets up, and one person rushes to clear the bowls: let me, let me. Visiting someone’s home, he looks for work the moment he walks in. At the office he takes everything on, works himself half to death, never says no. Not because he loves work. There is a very small voice inside him: if I don’t do something, I have no reason to be here.

Some people run themselves down before they speak: I don’t really know, I’m just saying, this idea is probably stupid. Before anyone says he’s no good, he says it first. Said first, there’s no fear of being told; put yourself low first, and no one can push you down from a height.

Some people apologize a great deal. Bumped into on the street, he says sorry first; asking someone for a small favor, he says “sorry to trouble you” five times over. As if his being here at all took up someone else’s space and left him owing something.

Some people dare not refuse. They didn’t want to go, and went; they couldn’t finish, and took it on anyway. The moment they refuse, panic: will he be unhappy, will he never call me again, will no one want me anymore?

In love, lying awake at night, going over it again and again: he is so good, do I deserve him? Will he sooner or later find out I’m not good enough, and leave?

Ill, unable to get out of bed, needing the family to bring water and food, what hurts most is often not the illness but the sentence: I’ve become a burden. I’m useless now.

A birthday, the phone quiet all day; in the evening only a greeting from the bank. Something sinks: so nobody remembered. Whether I am or not matters to no one.

These shapes all differ; some are politeness, some real consideration. But very often the same thing lies under them: the fear of being dropped.

Deep down, people assume being is something earned. Earn enough, and you are given a place; fall short, and you will be squeezed out, replaced, forgotten. So you have to keep handing in papers without stopping, keep proving: I am useful, I am good enough, I am not taking up this space for nothing. Rushing to clear the bowls is handing in a paper; revising the CV at midnight is handing in a paper; running yourself down first is marking your own paper low before anyone else can.

This fear has its origin. As small children we really did depend on others to live: unfed, we would starve; unheld, we would be cold. A child learns very early to read grown-ups’ faces: a smile is safe; a frown is a little dangerous. Be a bit better behaved, a bit more sensible, score a bit higher, and the grown-ups will be pleased and won’t abandon me. This calculation is something a child learns in order to survive, and there is nothing shameful in it. Only, when we grow up, it keeps running inside, treating every person and every thing as that grown-up who might not want me.

At the very bottom of this fear is: my being was given by others, and others can take it back.

But is being earned?

A newborn child has done nothing. He cannot talk, cannot walk, has no use, can only cry, only be hungry, only keep the grown-ups up night after night. Does he deserve it? Nobody asks. He is there, not a bit less: crying himself red in the face, gripping a finger and not letting go, sleeping as soon as he is full, sprawled every which way. Not one bit of his being was earned.

A blade of grass grows from a crack in the wall. No one planted it, no one approved it, and it did not first prove itself a good blade of grass. It pushes out of the crack between bricks, grows a few leaves, opens one tiny flower, sets a few seeds, and withers in autumn. It was there a whole summer, perfectly well.

Now look at the day you felt least deserving. You were let go. That afternoon you came out of the office building with a cardboard box in your arms: a mug, a small pothos, a few books. Standing at the roadside waiting for a bus, the wind a bit strong, your hair blown about, your chest tightening again and again.

That day really was missing things: a job, next month’s pay, a single “you did well.” These lacks were real; the next day you had to set about making them up.

But was being missing that day?

Did that afternoon only count as a whole afternoon once you later found a new job? Only once you had come to terms with it and calmed down? Only when, many years later, you looked back and said “that wasn’t such a bad thing after all,” did it get acknowledged? The moment your chest tightened, was. The bit of weight of the box on your arm, was. The wind, was. The bus came, you squeezed on, the box was jostled crooked and you caught it quickly; that catch was too. That afternoon was not a piece short because you had just lost a job.

Being was not given by others, so others cannot take it back. Letting someone go takes back a job; no one can take back the afternoon he stood at the roadside waiting for a bus.

There is a distinction here: days can lack things; being does not.

Days really do lack things. Money, work that puts food on the table, someone to talk to, good strength. These lacks are real; made up, the days really do get a little easier, and that is not to be taken lightly. But people easily tangle the two together: when a piece is missing from the days, they think a piece is missing from their being; when their days are not as good as others’, they feel they do not deserve to be here.

In this matter there is no “enough” and “not enough.”

“Enough” is measured with a ruler: of scores, of money, of ability, of how others see you. The ruler is man-made and useful, but what it measures is always something in the days; it cannot reach being itself. A newborn child, an old person lying in a hospital bed unable to do anything, someone who was splendid all his life: in being, none is more by a bit, none less by a bit.

Why can it not reach? A ruler measuring things first needs a standard; the standard on one side, the thing measured on the other, set side by side and compared: this wage is less than that one, this person is shorter than that one. Lacking means falling short of something fuller. Another afternoon really might have been better: no job lost, no panic, next month’s pay still in hand. Better and worse can be compared, and those lacks are real. But at this point what is being measured is the days, not being. That afternoon, standing in the wind with a cardboard box, has already happened moment by moment. To say it was harder than another afternoon is true; to say it was therefore less by a bit—less by which moment? The moment the chest tightened, or the moment of catching the box? The ruler can measure what the days lack; it cannot measure how much this occurrence still falls short of happening. The moment of measuring with the ruler is too; the moment it measures “not enough” is too. The ruler itself is on the side of what is measured.

Every occurrence of being is full.

This “full” is not a bowl filled with water, sitting there quietly. It is this moment happening, lacking nothing: while a note sounds, it is one full note, not half a song; the moment a candle has burned halfway, it is the full burning of this moment, not a candle minus half. Fullness is a moving fullness. The next moment comes and it is a full next moment; it does not depend on savings from the last, and owes the next nothing.

So being cannot be taken away, nor can it collapse. What can be taken away are things in the days: money, reputation, health, a person. What can collapse are things people build: a career, a story, a home. Being is not one of these things; it is the very happening of these things. When something is taken away, the moment of its being taken is; when something collapses, the moment of collapse is too; a person standing dazed on the ruins, that moment of being dazed is still fully there.

The one lying in a hospital bed saying “I’ve become a burden”: he is. The day he can do nothing at all, the leaves outside the window move, he watches, his eyes move with them, and that day is fully there. When his family bring him water, he is not taking up a place for nothing; he is this place, on this day, being in the shape of a sick man. He does not need to be useful first to deserve a glass of water.

Look one layer deeper: in “do I deserve it,” who is asking whom?

The one asking has first set up, inside, a qualified me: capable, useful, needed, presentable. This is the one he accepts. Then he looks back at himself now: ill, unemployed, having achieved nothing, sitting at the dinner table not knowing what to do with his hands. This one he does not accept. When he asks “do I deserve it,” it is really the accepted me sitting in judgment on the unaccepted me: are you qualified to be me?

The moment he asks, there are two: one in the judge’s seat, one standing below. The one below can’t answer rightly whatever he says; the one above is never satisfied whatever he sees. The heaviness of night after night sits between these two.

But where is the one in the judge’s seat? That qualified me has never once been here, now. It was picked out of a few best days in the past, or borrowed from what one hopes to become, and patched together with other people’s eyes. What is really here now is only the one below: this one who is ill, this one who is out of work, this one with sweating palms. He is not waiting to be approved as you; he is already wholly you. When you are ill, the one who is ill is you; the useless day, that useless day is you; it is not that the real you is out and has left an unqualified stand-in minding the door.

So “do I deserve it” cannot be asked through. Deserving needs two things: an empty place, and someone to be put into it. But this place has never had an empty seat waiting for a qualified person to sit in it; whatever this moment is like, that is what it is, and it owes no qualified person a claim. The capable one is you; the one who cannot get out of bed is you too, not a bit less, not a bit more. As long as even a trace of “a me like this doesn’t count” remains, the judge’s seat remains, and someone still stands below being judged. Without that seat there is no one being judged; what remains is only this one now, fully itself.

“Do I deserve it” has another very common shape that is hard to put into words: I’m not at ease.

At a dinner full of strangers, you don’t know where to put your hands; standing up to speak, dozens of eyes turn to you, and suddenly your voice sounds strange, and you don’t know how to stand on your own two legs. At that moment you wish you weren’t there.

At that moment, are you not there, or not a bit less?

At ordinary meals you never think of having hands; that night you are all hands. The heat in the face, the patch of shirt sticking to the back, the sweat in the palms, where each finger rests: all perfectly clear. Seldom are you as clearly aware of every part of yourself as at that moment. Not being at ease is not being being less; it is being being seen, seen in every part.

The trouble lies in the “seeing.” People have something very particular in them: it can turn round and look at itself. Turning round, it seems there are two: this living face, these hands, and the eyes staring at them. The one staring holds exactly that ruler: am I sitting right, is my smile natural, what will others think, do I deserve to sit here. The one stared at was being perfectly well; once measured, it fails everywhere.

Those staring eyes are actually on the side of what is measured too. They also came up just now, rising with the blush, seeping out with the sweat in the palms; they did not get outside; they are part of this one occurrence of being. What measures and what is measured are happening together. Saying this won’t make the discomfort a bit less; that evening you will blush all the same. Only the verdict laid on top of the blush, “I’ve failed again,” turns out to have been added afterward too. When you blush, the blush is you; when the verdict comes, the verdict is you too; there is no third person behind them taking the beating.

Sometimes those eyes loosen on their own. At a dinner someone spills soup on his shirt, the whole table looks over, he blushes, and then suddenly laughs first, and everyone laughs with him; after that laugh he eats the second half of the meal more easily than the first. The eyes that stared to make sure he made no mistake met one big mistake and had nothing left to stare at. He made a fool of himself, and he was still sitting there, still putting food in his bowl; he found that making a fool of himself had not got him thrown out.

Wildflowers never ask “do I deserve it.”

In spring, out in the countryside, small flowers bloom in patches across the fields, yellow, purple, white, many whose names you don’t know. Not one is comparing itself with the next for size or truer color, and not one, growing in the shade and a little smaller, lowers its head first. The big ones bloom, the small ones bloom, and the one trodden on before it finished had bloomed before it was trodden on.

An old dog, lame, teeth gone, no longer able to guard the gate or chase cats. Every afternoon it shuffles to the sunny spot in the yard, lies down, narrows its eyes, basks until the sun moves, then shuffles over a little. It does not know it is useless, and has not a trace of shame. That afternoon it basks to the full.

A nest of newly hatched birds, naked, eyes not yet open, only able to open their beaks and cry. They have done nothing, can do nothing; the parent flies back again and again with insects and stuffs them into the widest-open mouths. Not one fledgling proved itself first before being fed.

These beings share one look: they were not fetched from elsewhere. The flower does not bloom because someone approved it, the dog is not in the sun because it earned enough, the fledgling did not pass a test before opening its mouth. The moment they are, it is they themselves being, borrowing from nowhere, owing nothing.

That is what benzai means. Ben, “original,” does not mean there is an untouched foundation lying underneath all along; ben means not coming from elsewhere. Being was not handed out by anyone, so no one can take it back. It is moment by moment, and each moment arises from itself; to say it is “originally there” means just this: each time, it does not wait for anyone to give it first.

People were like this too. Only people grew a ruler, grew eyes that turn back to look at themselves, grew the string of “I have to be good enough.” Ruler and eyes are useful, but they cannot reach this layer: a person being here and that little flower in the field being there are alike in not coming from elsewhere.

Asked to the end, “do I deserve it” reaches the place one least dares to ask: if I’m not enough at anything, if I can’t do anything, should I still be here?

This question often comes at night. Lying in bed, counting one’s shortcomings one by one: this not done well, that not achieved, at this age and still nothing. The more you count, the heavier it gets, as if there were ground at the bottom of the heart giving way piece by piece, until at last there is nothing under your feet.

“I have nothing to stand on,” people say. The ground is what you can stand on underfoot. People spend their lives finding ground for themselves: saving some money, buying a flat, finding someone reliable, building up some skill they can show. All of these change, so the ground keeps getting thicker, and the trace of panic never leaves.

How does a person actually stay upright? Look at walking. Take a step, the body leans forward, which is falling forward; the moment you are about to fall, the other foot comes out and catches you. Fall again, catch again. Walking is a string of falls that never quite happen. No step stops on a point held still; held really still, you could not walk.

Being stands like this too. No unmoving ground holds it up, and it needs no one to vouch for it. It is moment by moment, each moment full; the next moment comes, a new one; and even if the next does not come, this one has already been. No moment has fallen outside being.

There was never any ground in the heart to begin with; there is only one moment after another. The night of panic is one moment, the night of counting shortcomings is one moment, and next morning waking up, someone outside the window sweeping, is another. These moments, one after another, need not first be deserving before their turn comes.

Do I deserve it?

The question itself is too. The moment of asking already is; it asks very painfully, but it has not asked its way outside being. Being has never checked anyone’s qualifications; it has not left out even this question.

After the meal the bowls still have to be cleared. Sometimes he still rushes to say “let me, let me”; sometimes he doesn’t, just sits and talks a while longer with everyone. The one who rushes is him; the one who sits is him too.