- You are a deeply selfish person. -
+ You are a deeply compassionate person. +
* You are a deeply deep person. *
+~
+ Buddhism asserts that the mind can be changed. I doubt whether anyone
+would dispute that point although we often feel as if we are stuck with an
+obstinate mind that refuses to do what we want it to. In addictions this
+feeling of being stuck can be very powerful. But Buddha said that all this
+can change, no matter how bad it is.
+ Buddha was a top psychologist. He taught methods for dealing with
+immediate and urgent situations as well as methods that look into long-term
+change. For the long term, meditation is an important method. When he was
+teaching about how to meditate, he suggested a number of tools from which we
+can benefit. We are going to use three of these tools to help us:
+mindfulness, introspection, and equanimity. Mindfulness keeps our mind on
+whatever we have decided to do. Introspection checks whether we are being
+mindful or not. Equanimity stops the dramatizing and catastrophizing that we
+get into when we do not get what we want (the craving and grasping that arise
+from attachment) or we get what we do not want (aversion which gives rise to
+hatred, jealousy, and depression).
+ -- Chönyi Taylor, from "Enough! A Buddhist Approach to Finding Release
+from Addictive Patterns", published by Shambhala Publications
+~
+It is said in the Supreme Continuum of the Great Vehicle:
+ Earth is based upon water,
+ Water on wind, and wind on space,
+ But space is not based on anything.
+ Similarly, the aggregates and sensory sense fields
+ Are based on deeds and afflictive mental states.
+ Deeds and afflictive mental states are always based on mistaken attention.
+ Mistaken attention is based on the purity of mind.
+ But the nature of mind is not itself based on any of these things.
+ -- Choying Tobden Dorje, from "The Complete Nyingma Tradition from Sutra to
+Tantra, Books 15 to 17, Volume 1", published by Shambhala Publications
+~
+ First, I’ll begin with self, which sometimes goes by the name ego, or
+more familiarly, I and me. What is this self, really? We can investigate by
+trying to analyze this self, to locate it or pin it down, to see if it even
+exists in the first place. This can be a highly illuminating contemplation,
+but for the purposes of this book, I would like to focus more on our everyday
+experience. Let’s identify how having a self feels. In our mind stream,
+there is always some kind of feeling of having a self, which is at the center
+of all our thoughts and emotions. One Tibetan phrase targets this phenomenon
+precisely: dak che dzin. Dak means “self”; che means “important” or
+“dear”; dzin means “holding” or “regarding.” This term has various
+translations, which all capture different nuances: self-centeredness, self-
+clinging, ego-clinging, self-absorption. I like to use all of these terms in
+different contexts, but my favorite translation is “self-importance.”
+ This word may make us think dak che dzin has mostly to do with being proud
+and arrogant, but such pride is nowhere near the whole story. Self-importance
+includes both self-cherishing and self-protection. It is the source of the
+five main types of painful emotions, known as the “five poisons”:
+attachment, aggression, jealousy, arrogance, and stupidity. It can manifest
+as feeling like we’re better than others, but just as easily it can manifest
+as low self-esteem, or even self-hatred. The bottom line is that we regard
+this self—whatever or wherever it is—as the most important thing in the
+entire universe.
+ -- Dzigar Kongtrul, from "The Intelligent Heart: A Guide to the
+Compassionate Life", published by Shambhala Publications.