Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org
Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org
Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org
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Delusion too can be incredibly intoxicating, blinding us as<br />
easily as greed or anger. One might say that greed and<br />
anger are in-and-of-themselves fairly benign; it is<br />
delusion-based mind states like self-righteousness and<br />
conceit that make them deadly, leading one to cultivate<br />
unwholesomeness and thinking it a virtue.<br />
The Buddha said that he didn’t see any evil greater than<br />
holding steadfastly to wrong views. Just as a person who<br />
cuts themselves on grass or leaves due to an improper grasp<br />
of them, a person with wrong view will fall into great<br />
suffering due to their ignorance.<br />
When a person likes or dislikes something, there may still be<br />
room to understand the dangers in reacting to it; when one<br />
believes it proper to like, dislike and even react violently in<br />
response to one’s partialities, this belief poses a much<br />
greater threat than any single emotion it might cultivate.<br />
It is common in society for people to feel abused or<br />
mistreated by others and demand equal or even special<br />
treatment. We often rationalize our desires based on some<br />
perceived privilege we “deserve”. <strong>In</strong> the same way, we tend<br />
to rationalize our aversions with self-righteous thinking, as<br />
in, “I don’t deserve to be treated like that!” and so on. Such<br />
thoughts are only to our detriment, destroying respect and<br />
friendship and replacing it with fear and loathing.<br />
A person who looks down upon others, expecting special<br />
treatment, demanding obedience or respect, will never truly<br />
be respected by anyone; they will only find themselves<br />
alienated from their fellow human beings as a result of their<br />
unpleasant behaviour. Likewise, a person who has low<br />
self-esteem will find themselves alienated through their<br />
clinging to thoughts of their own worthlessness. They will<br />
ever act in ways that are self-defeating and never succeed in<br />
accomplishing anything worthwhile including spiritual<br />
enlightenment.<br />
All forms of self-appraisal are associated with attachment to<br />
self. We spend much of our time defining ourselves as some<br />
entity that we never experience but somehow imagine to be<br />
real and really “I”. Because such an entity is fixed in our<br />
minds irrespective of reality, it can only serve to hinder our<br />
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