Restoring Dignity by John G. Banks, C.A.S.

In dealing with those individuals from addiction, codependency & other dysfunctional behaviors, a common thread runs thru each story I hear. These people give up & give in. This behavior eventually leads to loss of personal dignity.

Each person performs & puts on an act, while hiding & wearing an assortment of masks. They continue to hope that no one will find out how they deal with life & reality, their lives become a struggle.

Loosing one’s dignity isn't an over night quest. Year after year, they practice until this loss of dignity occurs. The result is simple; loss of respect joined with a low self-worth. When we focus our attention of actions, thoughts & feelings of another human being, we are positioning ourselves to receive Gods’ punishment for disobedience.

In looking at the book of Leviticus, we see how the book of laws has a distinctive meaning to those people that have chose to turn their back on God. God has promised to strip us of our dignity if we aren't obedient.

Leviticus: 26:16: "I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption & the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes & cause sorrow of heart: & ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it".

These are the types of people that I meet on a daily basis. Spiritually bankrupt, homeless, addicted to alcohol or drugs, their lives are out of control. They're blinded by self will run riot & there's no meaning to their lives. The choices they had made to turn disobedient & allow substances & other people to control their lives led them to annihilation.

How do you deal with a person who by their own decisions has ruined their life & the lives of those who love them? The answer is simple: become obedient & He will restore your dignity.

This simple solution becomes perplexing when someone has spent a lifetime of self-control & their own sense of willpower to suddenly come to the realization that God’s will & His grace are the way out.

The majority adopts this process, but it only lasts for a few days until some self-conscious feelings leave & suddenly, the person is back in control & heading towards discouragement. The person quickly overlooks the pain, suffering & devastation that occurred just a few days before the relief was sent from God.

Titus 1:15-16: "Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled & unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind & conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable & disobedient & unto every good work reprobate".

In fact, both their minds & consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions, they deny him. They're detestable, disobedient & unfit for doing anything good. As this person heads back down the path they just left, what can we do as believers to change their course & provide structure in their lives?

We model the things they lack & keep modeling them until they realize what it is they need to do to recover.

Peter (The First Epistle of) 2:1-3: "Wherefore laying aside all malice & all guile & hypocrisies & envies & all evil speakings; As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye tasted that the Lord is gracious."

People in recovery are just like newborn babies. They have to learn to walk, talk & behave appropriately just like a child. Addiction & dysfunctional behaviors stunt emotional growth. I see grown men & women acting as if they were still in teenager years. Working a program of recovery such as suggested by 12-step models helps restore dignity while providing a method to enhance emotional stability.

Corinthians (The Second Epistle of) 4:1-2: "Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God."

For some of us with major issues suppressed by our addiction & loss of control, lack of dignity plays a significant role in our lives. Not being able to look at ourselves in the mirror or having someone look in your eyes with no one looking back is the definition of loss of dignity.

God helps us restore that dignity from the inside out. It's a tearing down of walls & denial that allows the dignity to return to the lost soul."

May I suggest that if you know someone or have a problem with addiction or other dysfunctional behaviors, it may be worth your efforts to look into a 12-step recovery program. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop the loss of dignity that someone or you may have suffered.

Currently we have 11 meetings, 7 days a week, located at the church. My ministry includes those who have serious & sometimes life threatening problems. The hours are long; the rewards are few & far between.

It's the miracles that keep me focused on my own purpose. Watching someone grow from a newborn to a mature adult is one of God’s miracles that I experience on a daily basis.

Over the past 10 years, I've devoted my life to recovery. My philosophy is simple: I don't look down on anyone unless I'm going to help him or her up. When I made a decision to change my life & started my search, I was grateful that someone was there for me.

This person told me that I had lost my dignity & he knew a way that it could be restored. I listened, I believed, I found it! I found out the hard way that thru God all things are possible.

John G. Banks, is a Certified Addiction Specialist, (C.A.S.) and Administrator for Family Recovery thru Education & Empowerment (FREE) in Visalia, California. 

Discipline With Dignity by Richard Curwin & Allen Mendler

Now more than ever we must take a good look at what we're teaching our children by the way we treat them. Controlling their behavior is simply not enough. We must help them become decision makers & critical thinkers. We must help them feel that they can contribute to society & we must enhance their joy for learning.

''Discipline with Dignity'' was written to achieve these goals.

School is a battleground for many teachers & students. Why is there so much contention?

Much has been written about discipline over the years & many programs & methods have been tried & retried with new names. The issue will always be an integral part of school because students will always learn more than the content of the curriculum.

They'll learn about their behavior, their choices & their impact on others. Instead of trying to solve the discipline problem, it might be wiser to try to positively affect the lives of children. We strongly advocate a model of discipline based on a positive value system & suggest many practical methods to implement such a system in the classroom.

There are many factors that contribute to discipline problems in school, including family instability, violence in society, confused values, lack of positive self-concepts, powerlessness, boredom & unclear limits.

Still, schools can & do influence student behavior & achievement.

Giving Dignity to Life

by Bhikkhu Bodhi

To ask what it means to live with dignity may sound strange in an age like our own, when our frantic struggle to make ends meet hardly allows us the leisure to ponder such weighty matters.

But if we do pause a moment to give this question a little thought, we'd realize soon enough that it's not merely the idle musing of someone with too much time on his hands.

The question not only touches on the very meaning of our lives, but goes even beyond our personal quest for meaning to bore into the very springs of contemporary culture. For if it isn't possible to live with dignity then life has no transcendent purpose & in such a case our only aim in the brief time allotted to us should be to snatch whatever thrills we can before the lights go off for good.

But if we can give sense to the idea of living with dignity, then we need to consider whether we're actually ordering our lives in the way we should & even more broadly, whether our culture encourages a dignified lifestyle.

Though the idea of dignity seems simple enough at first sight, it's actually fairly complex. My Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (1936!) defines dignity as "elevation of character, intrinsic worth, excellence,... nobleness of manner, aspect, or style." My Roget's Thesaurus (1977) groups it with "prestige, esteem, repute, honor, glory, renown, fame" - evidence that over the last 40 years the word's epicenter of meaning has undergone a shift.

When we inquire about living with dignity, our focus should be on the word's older nuance. What I have in mind is living with the conviction that one's life has intrinsic worth, that we possess a potential for moral excellence that resonates with the rhythm of the seasons & the silent hymn of the galaxies.

The conscious pursuit of dignity doesn't enjoy much popularity these days, having been crowded out by such stiff competitors as wealth & power, success & fame. Behind this devaluation of dignity lies a series of developments in Western thought that emerged in reaction to the dogmatic certainties of Christian theology.

The Darwinian theory of evolution, Freud's thesis of the Id, economic determinism, the computer model of the mind: all these trends, arisen more or less independently, have worked together to undermine the notion that our lives have any more worth than the value of our bank accounts.

When so many self-assured voices speak to the contrary, we no longer feel justified in viewing ourselves as the crowning glory of creation. Instead we have become convinced we're nothing but packets of protoplasm governed by selfish genes, clever monkeys with college degrees & business cards plying across highways rather than trees.

Such ideas, in however distorted a form, have seeped down from the halls of academia into popular culture, eroding our sense of human dignity on many fronts. The free-market economy, the task master of the modern social order, leads the way.

For this system the primary form of human interaction is the investment & the sale, with people themselves reckoned simply as producers & consumers, sometimes even as commodities. Our vast impersonal democracies reduce the individual to a nameless face in the crowd, to be manipulated by slogans, images & promises into voting this way or that.

Cities have expanded into sprawling urban jungles, dirty & dangerous, whose dazed occupants seek an easy escape with the help of drugs & loveless sex. Escalation in crime, political corruption, upheavals in family life, the despoliation of the environment: these all speak to us as much of a deterioration in how we regard ourselves as in how we relate to others.

Amidst these pangs of forlorn hope, can the Dhamma help us recover our lost sense of dignity & thereby give new meaning to our lives? The answer to this question is yes & in two ways: first, by justifying our claim to innate dignity & second, by showing us what we must do to actualize our potential dignity.

For Buddhism the innate dignity of human beings doesn't stem from our relationship to an all-mighty God or our endowment with an immortal soul. It stems, rather, from the exalted place of human life in the broad expanse of sentient existence. Far from reducing human beings to children of chance, the Buddha teaches that the human realm is a very special realm standing squarely at the spiritual center of the cosmos.

What makes human life so special is that human beings have a capacity for moral choice that isn't shared by other types of beings. Though this capacity is inevitably subject to limiting conditions, we always possess, in the immediate present, a margin of inner freedom that allows us to change ourselves & hereby to change the world.

But life in the human realm is far from cozy. To the contrary, it's inconceivably difficult & complex, rife with conflicts & moral ambiguities offering enormous potential for both good & evil. This moral complexity can make of human life a painful struggle indeed, but it also renders the human realm the most fertile ground for sowing the seeds of enlightenment.

It's at this tauntingly ambiguous crossroads in the long journey of being that we can either rise to the heights of spiritual greatness or fall to degrading depths. The two alternatives branch out from each present moment & which one we take depends on ourselves.

While this unique capacity for moral choice & spiritual awakening confers intrinsic dignity on human life, the Buddha doesn't emphasize this so much as he does our ability to acquire active dignity. This ability is summed up by a word that lends its flavor to the entire teaching, ariya or noble.

The Buddha's teaching is the ariyadhamma, the noble doctrine & its purpose is to change human beings from "ignorant worldlings" into noble disciples resplendent with noble wisdom. The change doesn't come about thru mere faith & devotion but by treading the Buddhist path, which transmutes our frailties into invincible strengths & our ignorance into knowledge.

The notion of acquired dignity is closely connected with the idea of autonomy. Autonomy means self-control & self-mastery, freedom from the sway of passion & prejudice, the ability to actively determine oneself.

To live with dignity means to be one's own master: to conduct one's affairs on the basis of one's own free choices instead of being pushed around by forces beyond one's control. The autonomous individual draws his or her strength from within, free from the dictates of craving & bias, guided by a thirst for righteousness & an inner perception of truth.

The person who represents the apex of dignity for Buddhism is the arahant, the liberated one, who has reached the pinnacle of spiritual autonomy: release from the dictates of greed, hatred & delusion. The very word arahant suggests this sense of dignity: the word means "worthy one," one who deserves the offerings of gods & humans.

Although in our present condition we might still be far from the stature of an arahant, this doesn't mean we're utterly lost, for the means of reaching the highest goal is already within our reach. The means is the Noble Eightfold Path with its twin pillars of right view & right conduct. Right view is the first factor of the path & the guide for all the others.

To live with right view is to see that our decisions count, that our volitional actions have consequences that extend beyond themselves & conduce to our long-term happiness or suffering. The active counterpart of right view is right conduct, action guided by the ideal of moral & spiritual excellence. Right conduct in body, speech & mind brings to fulfillment the other 7 factors of the eightfold path, culminating in true knowledge & deliverance.

In today's hectic world humankind is veering recklessly in two destructive directions. One is the path of violent struggle & confrontation, the other that of frivolous self-indulgence. Beneath their apparent contrasts, what unites these two extremes is a shared disregard for human dignity: the former violates the dignity of other people, the latter undermines one's own dignity.

The Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path is a middle way that avoids all harmful extremes. To follow this path not only brings a quiet dignity into one's own life but also answers the cynicism of our age with a note of wholesome affirmation.

Buddhist Publication Society Newsletter cover essay #38 (1st mailing, 1998) Copyright © 1998 Buddhist Publication Society -For free distribution only  

Toward a Common Language on Human Dignity
William P Cheshire

Speaking from the White House on April 9, President Bush chose these words to frame his statement in support of legislation to ban experiments in human cloning:

"As we seek to improve human life, we must always preserve human dignity."

The noble aspiration to preserve human dignity has broad appeal. And yet this language of consensus is also a language of nuanced plurality. i.e., what the coalition Do No Harm means by "the essential dignity of every human being," is altogether different from what's implied in the Oregonian political slogan, "death with dignity."

The latter places dignity within an extreme interpretation of individual autonomy, while the former imputes dignity to all people, including those too vulnerable to exercise autonomy. Whether to promote death or protect life, both march beneath the banner of dignity, tugging it at times in opposite directions.

Contradictions in usage by no means invalidate all possible interpretations. Nevertheless, some have questioned whether "human dignity," an emotionally-laden phrase used to dignify various political causes, is sufficiently well-defined to serve as a useful term in bioethical discourse.

Its colloquial use is often vague. A more rigorous attempt at a precise definition might risk dividing public discourse & dismantling consensus where unity is desirable.

It would hardly befit the dignity of human beings, however, to settle for a consensus that tolerates contradictions when the basis in truth for a deeper, more satisfying consensus lies, for those who'll accept it, within reach.

Now that society has approached the brink of human cloning, the need for a valid understanding of human dignity is unprecedented. It's also urgent. Biotechnology has already begun to supply the tools capable of altering the basic genetic structure & familial relationships of human beings. If human dignity is to be preserved, we must hold fast also to the language of human dignity.

What is human dignity? Is dignity an arbitrary cultural construction conditioned by the times & pragmatically tied to preferences for this or that agenda? No, dignity touches on something more profound. There really is such a thing as human dignity.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "dignity" as "the quality of being worthy or honourable." Human dignity thus denotes that particular dignity which human beings uniquely possess. It isn't that all human actions are morally praiseworthy, but humans are, by their nature, worthy of a special level of respect fundamentally above that of nonhuman animals & beyond that of the most intelligent computers.

At stake in defining human dignity isn't the question of when a human being acquires dignity but whether human beings have intrinsic dignity. A frequent mistake is to equate dignity with certain functional capacities such as intelligence, abstract reason, language, creativity, ability to feel pain,