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General
Buddhism |
Delusions
WORKING WITH DELUSIONAL EMOTIONS
PAGE CONTENTS
As already mentioned in the page on Rebirth, in Buddhist psychology four Mental Aggregates are described: Feeling, Discrimination, Primary Consciousnesses (5 senses and mental awareness) and the other aspects, gathered as the Compositional Factors.
The Feeling Aggregate is defined as an omnipresent factor of the mind which
labels experiences into three categories: pleasant, unpleasant or neutral:
- When the label of pleasant is given to an object, we develop attachment.
- When the label of unpleasant is given to an object, we develop aversion,
and sometimes even anger or hatred.
- When the label of neutral is given to an object, we often don't care about
the object or even ignore it.
The process of labeling by the Feeling Aggregate usually only takes
a fraction of a second. After applying the label, we tend to create a static
opinion and image of the object in our mind. At this stage, the seed for prejudice
is often planted. Once we have established the opinion that something is pleasant
or unpleasant, we often need a large amount of evidence before we are willing
to change our mind - that is, if we are prepared to change our mind at all.
Once we labelled an object unpleasant or bad, it appears as if the object
is all bad by itself, as if badness is an inherent quality. We may label a
person "bad", but the friends of this person would certainly not agree!
Therefore, we need to realise that "good" and "bad" are merely subjective
opinions of our mind, and the opinion is often founded on nothing more than
a first glance and an almost automatic label. Things and people change quicker
than our labels! Everyone tends to prejudice. Labelling is a convenient way
to quickly make some sense of our surrounding world by categorising things
in being "good" or "bad" to us. The main problem is that we tend to react
to the world merely via these (over) simplified labels.
A practical example to reflect on would be medicines: most of them are poisonous in a large dose, but can still be healing in small doses. Every living being requires salt to live, but try eating half a kilo of it, and no doctor can prevent your speedy death.
On top of the above problems related to labelling, the aspect of habituation comes in to reinforce our opinions and prejudices. Strictly spoken, habituation is not negative; in fact it can be extremely positive. Note that the Tibetan word for meditation means "habituation". However, within the context of problematic emotions, habituation can cause exponential growth of problems. If we just look at the results of racial and religious discrimination and hatred, it is sadly obvious how extreme opinions can arise and create havoc, simply because they have become habitual.
A story by the Buddha to illustrate habituation and the resulting closed-mindedness:
"A young widower, who loved his five year old son very much, was away on business when bandits came who burned down the whole village and took his son away. When the man returned, he saw the ruins and panicked. The took the burnt corpse of an infant to be his son and cried uncontrollably. He organised a cremation ceremony, collected the ashes and put them in a beautiful little bag which he always kept with him.
Soon afterwards, his real son escaped from the bandits and found his way home. He arrived at his father's new cottage at midnight and knocked at the door. The father, still grieving asked: "Who is it?" The child answered, it is me papa, open the door!" But in his agitated state of mind, the father thought that some young boy was making fun of him. He shouted: "Go away" and continued to cry. After some time, the child left. Father and son never saw each other again." After this story, the Buddha said: "Sometime, somewhere, you take something to be the truth. If you cling to it so much, even when the truth comes in person and knocks on your door, you will not open it."
The three most important negative mental attitudes or delusional emotions are called the Three Poisons, these are anger, attachment and ignorance. Underlying all negative emotions are one or more of these three, with ignorance at the bases of all negative emotions (see also the page on mind). Ignorance here, mainly refers to the Buddhist concept of lack of wisdom, or insight into the actual way that things exist.
His Holiness the 7th Dalai Lama (from 'Songs of spiritual change' traslated by Glenn Mullin) wrote on attachment and anger:
"Merchants come from the north and south,
To gather in the trading center;
But after three days have passed,
Each goes his separate way.
Meeting for but a flash in time,
They should avoid fights and fancies.
Hooked by karmas from previous lives,
Love and hatred run fierce,
But soon we all go our own ways,
And each takes his suited rebirth.
Right now abandon interpersonal discrimination
Made on the basis of attachment and aversion.
Teachings on the web from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Lama Yeshe and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Teachings on the web by the American nun Thubten Chodron on the 6 root delusions.
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Last updated: February 28, 2001
