Buddhism is not a place for narcissists

When the narcissist comes to Buddhism (and there are many in Buddhism), they see the teacher as more like a benevolent parent who will take care of them and their emotional needs—in short, hopefully, relieve them of self-responsibility. 

In this regard, such people cling to the teacher and the community, yet all the while they remain narcissists who are incapable of understanding Buddhism except through the twisted mind of a narcissist.  Their Buddhism is an imitation, a superficial show, in other words.  Their study of Buddhism does not come from a profound, mature depth but from their shallowness.

Any religion can easily become a kind of substitute adulthood for the narcissist.  It is the same with any social cause or ideology such as Marxism, for example.  Marx, himself, was a narcissist if not a psychopath.  With religion or a particular idealistic cause, the narcissist can still remain more immature than adult who clings to a false, external image of himself like Ovid’s Narcissus.

Buddhism for the narcissist is not so much of a refuge as it is a defense mechanism against growing up, of ending the life of the child and by ending such a life, face a necessary existential crisis which means, in the example of Narcissus, having to reject and turn away from the lovely, false image of himself—which he could not do.

Buddhism’s so-called no-self teaching, as it regards the narcissist, is about learning that what he or she once regarded as their self is really a false self.  In the words of the Buddha the false self is perishable, unenduring, no protection, no shelter, no refuge, is empty, vain, void, not the self.

 Without overcoming and turning away from the false self (one’s narcissism) with all of its childish untamed emotions and infantile thinking, there is no way nirvana can be attained.  But this is precisely what Buddhism is about, overcoming and turning way from the false self and by doing so realize, instantly, the true self which is nirvana (Unperturbed, the very self [ātmaiva] attains emancipation [parinirvati]. SN II.82).