Overwhelmed With Pride

30th October, 2008 - These 2 days, I have been reading Dear Lama Zopa, the following striked a cord and I just want to pen this down as a reminder :

Most precious Teacher Lama Zopa,

I send you all my greetings and sincerest wishes for your good health. You do so much good in the world. I pray that you live long and continue to spread the teachings of the Buddha to all the corners of the world.

I would like to ask your advice about pride; it is something I struggle with daily. My mind becomes overwhelmed with pride again and again. I think that I am somehow special, superior to others. I have a hard time accepting anything other people want to give me on the grounds that I don't need anything from anybody. When someone criticizes me, my pride is easily hurt, and I react with a lot of anger. And on and on and on... I am really tired of all this inner drama and suffering. I would like to prevent it, but I don't know how. Please, can you tell me ways to handle this negative emotion?

Love,

Alejandra, Barcelona

My very dear Alejandra,

Thank you very much for your kind letter. Regarding your question on pride, this is my advice. It is important to remember that

• Each time pride arises, it leaves negative imprints on the mind, which block the path to enlightenment

If you have pride in relation to lower objects - those less fortunate or with fewer spiritual realizations - it causes strong delusion to arise and creates karma. This is very heavy and interferes with your attainment of enlightenment, which is the ultimate goal.

Pride closes your mind to realizations. Just as water cannot stay on top of an upside-down bowl, if you have pride, the water of intellectual understanding or realizations cannot get inside you.

No progress can occur in your mental continuum if you have pride. Even in worldly life, you won't get along with others. Many errors airse because of pride, including problems in future lives.

As it says in the teachings on thought transformation:

• Think : "There is so much ignorance in my mind, and there are many subjects I know nothing about. What I know is so little, hardly anything. There is so much ignorance."
• Think : "My realizations are very small. I do not even have the realization of death and impermanence."

In this way, reflect on your mistakes, including mistakes in the past. Thinking like this immediately makes you feel less proud and helps you have respect for others.

In 'A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life', it says, "I want to achieve a human body in my next life, but I create only negative karma and nonvirtue." If you examine your actions and their motivation in your daily life, you will see that your main motivation is for this life only.

Most actions are performed out of attachment seeking happiness in this life, and also attachment clinging to this life's happiness. Twenty-four hours a day our attitude is mainly attachment. This means even our Dharma actions are performed with this motivation, with the thought of this life's happiness. Twenty-four hours a day, your life becomes nonvirtue, and the result is to be reborn in the lower realms.

If pride arises when you see others who are ugly, have few possessions, no realizations, and so forth, the antidote is to think about the good qualities that they do have. That is one antidote. Then, when you see their good qualities, think "How wonderful" and rejoice. Rejoicing is also an antidote to pride.

• Think : "These beings appear to have these faults, but I never know in reality who they are, what kinds of good qualities they have, what their realizations are. I cannot see their minds, so I can't judge whether they are enlightened buddhas or bodhisattvas."

The Buddha was criticized by some non-Buddhists in India. They only saw mistakes in the Buddha. They could not see the beams of light coming from the Buddha's body. They only saw a mistaken monk. Likewise, when we think we see an inferior being, we might actually be looking at a buddha. Thinking in this way is an antidote to pride.

These are a few methods that you can use.

Pride prevents you from cherishing others. This becomes an obstacle to having realizations, practising bodhichitta, and achieving enlightenment so you can benefit and liberate all other sentient beings and bring them to enlightenment.

I hope this is enough advice on pride. Have a good time and experience putting this advice into practice.

With much love and prayers, Lama Zopa