One day the Buddha was hanging out with his best buds when a farmer came up to them. “Have you seen my cows?” he asked pleadingly. “All six of them disappeared this morning. And my crops. The insects ate all of them. I think I am going to kill myself.”
Neither the Buddha nor his companions had seen them, so the man left distraught. After that the Buddha told his followers, “Be grateful you have no cows.”
His point was that the more we’re attached to, the more cows we cling to, the more we have to lose. And that’s what drives us crazy.
Jesus had a similar thing to say about wealth. “And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich person to enter The Kingdom of God.” For those of you who aren’t Christian or religious, you might think of The Kingdom of God as a state of mental freedom.
Now my point here is not about wealth, but about attachment to anything that causes you suffering. In the case of the farmer, because he felt the need to kill himself, because his reaction was so intense, I suspect it wasn’t just the cows and crops he was attached to, but, more importantly, his identity and sense of worth based on those possessions.
In effect these cows become sacred, in the worst sense of not being able to question our attachment to them. We may feel as if these cows are sacred to the divine, but they are really only sacred to the ego.
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Clinging to Cows
Your cows, your attachments, might be your ideas about the proper way to shovel snow, your identity and reputation, or perfectionism in all its glorious manifestations.
But, I hear you say, “Can we be more realistic about this? Snow does need to get shoveled. Reputation is important. And what’s wrong with aspiring to greatness?”
True. True. And nothing is wrong with aspiring to greatness.
But there is a difference between clinging to these things as if you need them, and pursuing them because you want them. It’s much harder to release a need than a desire.
I’m not suggesting you give away everything but your begging bowl and robe. After all, the Buddha didn’t advocate asceticism, rather he pointed to The Middle Way.
But wouldn’t it be nice not to be so worried about counting and corralling your cows?
I’m fond of this cow metaphor because cows convey something realistic about attachment: they’re heavy, move slowly, aren’t very smart, and emit far too much methane for our good.
Take a moment. Slow down. Think about something you feel you need, something you’re very attached to. Your espresso machine, your upcoming vacation, your identity. Now imagine losing them, like that farmer with his cows. Where do you feel it in your body? Is it tense?
Now think about something you want, but you’re not attached to. Do you have to have it? Does that feel different from needing it?
Scarcity Mindset and Insecurity
Much of what we feel we need, other than food, clothing, shelter and relationships, is a manifestation of some insecurity, a sense of not being, having or doing enough. There is no data to support this hypothesis, but I suspect that most people with obsessive-compulsive personality have some degree of scarcity mindset which leads them to cling to what they have.
There are some early research indications that attachment anxiety is a factor that leads to the control often typical of people with obsessive-compulsive personality traits. Because they felt that the people they needed to depend on when growing up were not dependable, they developed a strategy of either clinging to people, or avoiding them by clinging to ideas, control, or money instead. For some, cows are more dependable than people, so they stick with their cows. Or bank accounts. Or cocaine.
The underlying feeling is that there will never be enough, so better cling to what you’ve got. Voila: scarcity mindset and sacred cows.
Scarcity mindset is a way of thinking in which we believe that resources (like time, money, or support) are limited and insufficient. Thinking this way can lead us to fixate on imagined deficits rather than thinking clearly about what we really need for our well-being. This can make us anxious, stressed and jealous, focusing on what we don’t have rather than what we do have.
What’s worse is that one resource we may fear not having enough of is personal: brains, strength, energy, generosity, confidence, goodness, etc. Then we are contending not just with scarcity mindset, but also fixed mindset, the belief that we can’t get any better.
This inaccurate sense that we don’t have enough or are not enough can lead us to feel that we need more than we really do, and we cling. Which causes suffering.
This manifests in people with OCP in the need to have things a certain way because otherwise there isn’t enough. Then everything revolves around getting things to be that way, whatever the price: including failed relationships and diminished well-being.
The next time you notice yourself clinging to something, tell yourself, “Oh, there’s another one of those cows. Do I really need it?”
Melinda Counts Her Cows
Melinda was a buyer for a large department store. She had originally got into the field because she loved fashion. She had a flair for dressing and a keen sense of what worked aesthetically for whom.
After being awkward and invisible in middle school, in high school she was suddenly popular and in demand. Her friends, and even many who were not her friends, came to her for advice in dressing. She found it fun and fulfilling for eight or ten years, but, as we’ll see, fashion sense eventually became her identity, the only thing she felt made her a worthwhile person. Her cow.
She studied fashion design in college. Her natural drive, determination and meticulousness served her well. But come graduation, she couldn’t find a design job that would allow her to pay off her student loans, and she became a buyer instead.
The money was good. The hours were bad.
Studying fashion trends was really interesting, but cultivating supplier relationships and managing inventory somehow just didn’t feel the same as choosing the best scarf to go with a bold blouse. But the job did support her sense of herself as having worth because of her good taste in fashion.
While part of her liked the intensity and competition, she also felt the stress from holding on to her cow. She had difficulty sleeping, ate regretfully, and leaned a little too much on vodka and tonics to get her through. She feared failing and her cow running away.
Her original joy in fashion went the way of shoulder pads and bell bottoms. Instead, she was left with needs to make money and prop up her image so that she looked successful. Because she was able to use her compulsive and obsessive traits skillfully, she had been able to succeed. But those same traits eventually took over and ran the show.
Goodness, Identity and Worth in the Compulsive Personality
As a therapist I’ve found it helpful to understand what gives people their self-esteem. I’ve seen attractiveness, money, power, agreeableness, humility, and energy all serve as the reason people feel good about themselves. The more specific the trait they feel good about, the more vulnerable they are to emotional highs and lows.
I’ve also observed that people with obsessive and compulsive traits lean particularly heavily on their sense of goodness, virtue, and morality for their self-esteem. When these are questioned, they may become defensive, or they may double their efforts to prove themselves to be decent human beings.
Unconditional self-regard would be the better solution, but too often it feels too risky to let go of the proof.
Let’s follow Eleanor as she struggles to broaden her identity and let loose some cows.
Eleanor Frees a Cow
Eleanor was a devoted minister. She had worked hard to get through seminary and to reinvigorate a congregation that had been on the edge of collapsing when she took over. She took pride in being a good person, and to her that meant being loving, forgiving, and accepting. But when congregants with difficult personalities started to make trouble, she was at a loss.
Spencer was a critical curmudgeon who showed up to every congregational business meeting to make sure things didn’t get out of control. He didn’t hold back his acerbic opinions. He was a teacher/leader type of compulsive who had turned bossy. Eleanor was the server/friend type of compulsive who had turned people-pleaser. Their interface was bound to challenge her, and it was going to require her to cultivate her own teacher/leader side—which felt very hard for her since her strategy was mostly about being nice. And that was her cow.
It got to the point that Spencer’s behavior was discouraging other congregants from staying engaged, and was blocking progress in both the spiritual and practical growth of the community. Parishioners on both sides of the issue faulted Eleanor for how she handled it. She kept feeling that there must be some answer, and that she just wasn’t smart enough or good enough to figure out what that was.
She consulted with psychologists and learned that Spencer probably had some serious mental health issues. How could she lovingly help both this man and her congregation?
And how was it that she had worked so hard to make her church a loving congregation and here she was having to set limits with this person who, however annoying and destructive, desperately needed help and love?
It was going to be impossible to please everyone, including herself, and the only way out went against her idea of goodness. Her image of herself as a good person was in jeopardy, and she was going to have to let go of something to survive the situation.
Eventually she had to let go of her idea of what it meant to be loving. Loving can include limit-setting, but that was new to her.
She politely but firmly told Spencer that while she knew that he wanted to help the congregation, and that he felt responsibility for keeping it from getting out of control, his approach was actually hurting it. If he wanted to continue to be active in the congregation he was going to have to restrain himself from talking in business meetings for 6 months, and do his best to listen to what others had to say.
It was not an elegant solution, but it was the only one she had. It required her to let go of her image of herself as always nice, and always able to find a gentle way out.
Replacing the Cows
I often tell my patients that if they need to let go of something, it helps to have something more meaningful and fulfilling to put in its place, something they don’t need to cling to unhealthily.
We don’t know what happened to the farmer who ran into the Buddha that day. I hope he didn’t kill himself. I like to imagine that he found a healthier way to live without his cows. Maybe he raised chickens instead. Maybe he made meaning of the loss and started support groups for other people who had lost their cows. Maybe he realized it was silly to end his life over a bunch of belching bovines and came to live with gratitude for what he did have.
I like to imagine that the loss of his cows put this man on a better path.
For more on how to let go, check out my previous post, Letting Go and Holding On: The Life Skills No-One Taught You.
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