Cattāri Brahmavihārā

I find myself thinking a lot recently about practices to cultivate humility. Why I’m pulled so strongly in this direction is anyone’s guess but I came across the following  today:

Nivaato: humility. Yet another factor which stresses the importance of having no pride. The fact that we encounter a number of “blessings” which deal with non-pride should make us realize how important humility is for successful practice of Dhamma. The person who knows it all, who always replies “I know,” who has his own theories about Dhamma, or anyone else’s theories for that matter, does not have humility. Because of this he can never train under a good teacher. The Commentary gives the right attitude to have: to be lowly “like a foot-wiping cloth,” “like a bull with horns cut off,” or “like a snake with fangs extracted.” People like this get on with Dhamma. Of course, this does not mean that one is obsequiously “humble” — just another disguise for pride and a revolting one at that. But the wise person tries to make displays of self less and less evident. He does not advertise himself, he is not exuberant in body or speech but instead is restrained. It is interesting to note that this humility in Paali is literally “not-wind” which ties up well with such English expressions of conceit and pride as: “puffery,” “vaporing,” or more colloquially “hot air” and “gas.

Source: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soni/wheel254.html#ch3-stanza08