Archive for July, 2008

31
Jul

Afflictive Emotions (Ignorance & Pride)

By The Daily Buddha 0 Comments
Categories: Courage, Life, Mindfulness and Transformation

Good Day,

Yesterday I began talking about afflictive emotions. I would like to continue that dialogue today with two more emotions worthy of our investigation – Ignorance and Doubt

IGNORANCE
Ignorance is not only not knowing, but in this context it is the act of not wanting to know. The deeper levels of ignorance refer to a lack of wisdom or insight into the nature of reality.

Ignorance, or not having real wisdom, lies at the basis of all our problems. Due to our ignorance, we do negative actions and thus create misery for ourselves down the road. Almost all of our negative emotions origins stem from misunderstandings or ignorance or not realizing the facts. Knowledge is not a head full of memorized facts and figures and ignorance is not knowing. . . .ignorance is not wanting to know thus one can never realize the truth or their own potential as long as one does not want to face the facts and gain the wisdom. The good news is that all journeys journey begin with a first step.

To deal with ignorance we must:

TRANSFORM ourselves from avoiding responsibility for one’s own life, having a lack of self-confidence, and negative mind-patterns and behaviors.
WITH: an open mind, heart and attitude. We should study something intently, engage in critical analysis, reflection and meditation.
INTO: wisdom, taking responsibility, feeling confident, thinking and acting positively for ourselves and others

DOUBT
Defined as: deluded indecisive wavering – being in two minds about reality; usually leading to negative actions. There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. Doubt is an even greater block to human evolution than is desire or attachment. Our society promotes cleverness instead of wisdom, and celebrates the most superficial, harsh, and least useful aspects of our intelligence. We have become so falsely “sophisticated” and neurotic that we take doubt itself for truth. This form of mean-spirited doubt is the shabby emperor of samsara, served by a flock of “experts” who teach us not the open-souled and generous doubt that is necessary for testing and proving the worth of wisdom, but a destructive form of doubt that leaves us nothing to believe in, nothing to hope for, and nothing to live by.

To deal with doubt we must:

TRANSFORM: lack of self-confidence or ignorance
WITH: study, critical analysis, reflection, enthusiasm, meditation.
INTO: clarity, self-confidence and conviction.

Please keep in mind we all have these emotions and we all deal with them in some way on some level. What’s important is realizing how you deal with them when they arise and the resulting roles they play in your life. This simple form of awareness transforms us from being merely reactive to our emotions to actually taking charge of them and our life.

Peace and Love, Jim

30
Jul

Afflictive Emotions (pride)

By The Daily Buddha 0 Comments
Categories: Acceptance, Courage, Life and Transformation

Good Day,

Have you ever wondered about the purpose of emotions in your life? Now please do not misunderstand my question, we all have emotions and I do not feel that there is inherently anything wrong with them or that they should be tossed in the nearest trash receptacle. I merely question their origin and purpose in my life.

With that said there seem to be more afflictive emotions such as depression, anxiety etc. than more positive ones. It is these negative or afflictive emotions that do us the most harm and yet they are the ones most familiar to us all!

It is important that we understand these emotions and the remedies for them therefore I would like to talk briefly about one of these emotional states each day for the remainder of the week starting today with pride. Try to keep in mind that awareness of emotions is directly related to the awareness of intentions.

Pride is defined as an exaggerated positive evaluation of oneself, often based on a devaluation of others. It results in a kind of attachment to oneself and aversion to others.

When you have a distorted view of yourself, such as through excessive pride or arrogance, you have an exaggerated sense of your qualities and personal abilities. On the other hand, when you have low self-esteem, then you underestimate your actual qualities and abilities. You belittle yourself, you put yourself down. This leads to a complete loss of faith in yourself. So excess–both in terms of exaggeration and devaluation–are equally destructive. lt is by addressing these obstacles and by constantly examining your personal character, qualities, and abilities, that you can learn to have greater self-understanding.

Tibetans look at a person who holds himself above others, believing he is better than others and knows more, and they say that person is like someone sitting on a mountain top: it is cold there, it is hard, and nothing will grow. But if the person comes down into the valley then that person is like a fertile field.

So how do we deal with excessive pride or devaluation?

We take the feelings of inferiority, feelings of superiority, and other views of excess and TRANSFORM them:
WITH: observation, analysis, equanimity, courage and understanding.
WE ASK: Who caused my: education, intelligence, beautiful body, money? Does someone with self-confidence need to be proud?
THIS RESULTS IN: self-confidence, honesty with yourself & others, fearlessness, gratitude, friendship, equanimity.

In a world full of low self esteem, pride seems like a great medicine, but it too can be a poison for the mind when over indulged. It is better to lose your pride with love rather than to lose what you love over your useless pride.

Peace and Love, Jim

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