In this modern era, what are some examples of mental qualities that should not be cultivated?
This may seem like a basic question, but is indeed important for me to know.
Thanks in advance to those who answer.
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Action:
never let them wish each other ill
Through provocation or resentful thought.
~ Kn 9
Qualities:
Mendicants, there are these three stains. What three? Greed, hate, and delusion.
~ SN 45.167
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DN21
And you should cultivate the kind of …
idea known by the mind which causes unskillful qualities to grow while skillful qualities decline.
manoviññeyyaṁ dhammaṁ sevato akusalā dhammā abhivaḍḍhanti, kusalā dhammā parihāyanti, evarūpo manoviññeyyo dhammo na sevitabbo.
Well, should you know of a happiness (/sadness/equanimity):
Tattha yaṁ jaññā somanassaṁ
When I cultivate this kind of happiness, unskillful qualities grow, and skillful qualities decline.’ You should not cultivate that kind of happiness.
‘imaṁ kho me somanassaṁ sevato akusalā dhammā abhivaḍḍhanti, kusalā dhammā parihāyantī’ti,evarūpaṁ somanassaṁ na sevitabbaṁ.
Whereas, should you know of a happiness:
Tattha yaṁ jaññā somanassaṁ
When I cultivate this kind of happiness, unskillful qualities decline, and skillful qualities grow.’ You should cultivate that kind of happiness.
‘imaṁ kho me somanassaṁ sevato akusalā dhammā parihāyanti, kusalā dhammā abhivaḍḍhantī’ti,evarūpaṁ somanassaṁ sevitabbaṁ.
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MN 8 is pretty comprehensive.
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I think “Delusion”, ( a false belief that is resistant to confrontation with actual facts) must not be allowed to develop, because it could prove to be the mother of all other un-wholesome mental actions.
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Whilst the cultivation of delusion is certainly a bad thing, I don’t think one can directly prevent it.
The problem with being deluded is that one does not realize they are deluded, that the way they see things is incorrect. Compare this to greed and hatred which are routinely prized.
I think one of the main reasons it’s difficult to discuss and understand and translate sakkaya (‘selfhood’, a major delusion) is that to really understand it is we would have to step outside of it so to speak, or not fall for its delusion.
So it’s very hard to understand delusion while being deluded. This is also why ‘the voice of another’ is so important.
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We invest in what we value. What we think about and direct our minds to throughout each day are the things we value. Rather than investing our mental actions in desire of things of the senses, the impermanent things in this world that we’ve been conditioned to grasp and cling to, we need to cultivate a mind that fully understands that these things just lead to dukkha and rebirth and cultivate inclining our minds to what leads out of dukkha and samsara.
MN19
Whatever a mendicant frequently thinks about and considers becomes their heart’s inclination. If they often think about and consider sensual thoughts, they’ve given up the thought of renunciation to cultivate sensual thought. Their mind inclines to sensual thoughts. If they often think about and consider malicious thoughts … their mind inclines to malicious thoughts. If they often think about and consider cruel thoughts … their mind inclines to cruel thoughts.
…
Whatever a mendicant frequently thinks about and considers becomes their heart’s inclination. If they often think about and consider thoughts of renunciation, they’ve given up sensual thought to cultivate the thought of renunciation. Their mind inclines to thoughts of renunciation. If they often think about and consider thoughts of good will … their mind inclines to thoughts of good will. If they often think about and consider thoughts of harmlessness … their mind inclines to thoughts of harmlessness.
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Thanks Stephen for the response.
“The problem with being deluded is that one does not realize they are deluded, that the way they see things is incorrect.” ( your comment)
The cause of Delusion is ’ Conditioning’ out of Ignorance.
It is exactly here Buddha’s teachings help us. The first of the Noble Eightfold path (Ashtang Marg), is ‘Right Understanding’. which simply means understanding (seeing-samyak drishti), without being superstitious. This is the first requisite of entering into the noble eightfold path. In the current vocabulary, it’s developing a scientific temper. After continuous striving once one develops that Samyak drishti, one does not fall prey to Delusion.
I’m afraid I don’t follow your argument, and could you use Pali if possible?
Pride can never be manifested directly because it is a purely subjective sin. Self-examination can reveal to me that I am lustful or envious but it can never reveal to me that I am proud because my pride, if it exists, is in the “I” which is doing the examining; I can, however, infer that I am proud because the lust and envy which I can observe in myself are caused by it and it alone.
W.H Auden
I am not sure whether Auden is right regarding pride, but I think he is more insightful here even than Ajhan Chah who was asked “I can see greed and hate in myself, but what about delusion?”
He answered: “You are riding on the horse and ask ‘where is horse’?” This answer of course gives certain hint what delusion is, but how to see that one is riding on the horse? It seems it should not be too difficult, while when I am certain that “I am”, to see it as delusion, by direct insight of course, not just repeating Suttas: “conceit I am is delusion” is rather more difficult than simile with horse suggests.
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I’m reminded of David Foster Wallace’s famous This is Water speech….
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it’s so socially repulsive. But it’s pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.
I’m not sure Wallace had ever even heard of sakkāya diṭṭhi, ‘selfhood’, but he sure was on to something…
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I know that my birth is fortuitous, a laughable accident, and yet, as soon as I forget myself, I behave as if it were a capital event, indispensable to the progress and equilibrium of the world.
Cioran
Suttas describe, not explain. Subjectivity is associated with perception of pleasure and permanence. But actually why it is so? Some psychologists speaks about “totalitarian ego”, and there is some truth in it, but it looks like ego is more “God-like”.
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Pali Translation
“Mūḷhassa pana adosoti ayaṃ doso, yaṃ so na jānāti attānaṃ mūḷhaṃ, micchādiṭṭhiyā ca passati.
Moho nāma avijjāpaccayā saṅkhāranti hoti.
Ettha pana Buddhassa sāsanaṃ amhākaṃ upakārakaṃ hoti.
Ariyassa aṭṭhaṅgikassa maggassa paṭhamaṃ aṅgaṃ ‘Sammādiṭṭhi’ nāma, yaṃ pana yathābhūtaṃ ñāṇadassanaṃ, amūḷhaṃ amūḷhadasanañca hoti.
Idameva ariyassa maggassa paṭhamaṃ upanissayabhūtaṃ.
Vattamānakāle idaṃ ‘Vijjā-dhamma-vicaya’ (Scientific Temper) ti vatabbaṃ.
Sammādiṭṭhiyā bhāvitāya, naro na puna mohaṃ upeti.”
With regard to our deep delusion of “selfhood”, and not cultivating it, there’s this from the psychologist Lisa Feldman Barret (Neuro-psych) (2017: 83 and 86):
"…you construct the environment in which you live. You might think about your environment as existing in the outside world, separate from yourself, but that’s a myth … your perceptions are so vivid and immediate that they compel you to believe that you experience the world as it is, when you actually experience a world of your own construction.”
Note the “construction” of a world and a self “in it”.. close to SN35.23.
Does the psychologist offer any suggestions on how to change this perspective?
Re the Sutta you mentioned,
“If anyone, bhikkhus, should speak thus: ‘Having rejected this all, I shall make known another all’—that would be a mere empty boast on his part. If he were questioned he would not be able to reply and, further, he would meet with vexation. For what reason? Because, bhikkhus, that would not be within his domain.”
see Wittgenstein Tractatus, 5.62-4;
5.62
This remark provides a key to the question, to what extent solipsism is a truth.
In fact what solipsism means, is quite correct, only it cannot be said, but it shows itself.
That the world is my world, shows itself in the fact that the limits of the language (thelanguage which I understand) mean the limits of my world.
I am the world. (The microcosm.)
Here we see that solipsism strictly carried out coincides with pure realism. The I in solipsism shrinks to an extensionless point and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it.
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Hi,
As per many psychologists and neurophysiologists, she’s expressing the current understanding that any kind of lasting, essential, self is an ontological fiction.
At the same time, psychologists recognize and work with a “psychological self”to reduce stress, anxiety, etc.
Their form of understanding “no essential self” still leaves the “self”, from a Buddhist standpoint, intact. In fact, some of the Buddha’s teachings might be misinterpreted by them as pathological dissociation – “i.e. “This body…feelings..consciousness…is not mine…” , as their understanding is of course not embedded in the matrix of Dhamma practice.
So while I’m not familiar with all her work and can’t answer your question definitely, what does appear clear is that she describes our experiences as rooted in the processes of the sense-fields, including how the mind constructs our moment-to-moment realities, (and imo, this is close to though not the same as, Husserl and Phenomenology). She might offer that reflecting on this will loosen the delusion of a real essence-self inside the machine. However, her main published works are more oriented toward the construction of human emotions.
Regarding solipsism and the notion
of course, there’s no fundamental “I” to claim this.
There are several existing threads on sakkāya diṭṭhi.
See, for example, Bhante Sujato’s essay On sakkāya, identity, and substantial reality
Could we please limit the discussion to the main topic. Thanks.
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