Beautiful Mind
Let me list, a few
of our emotions and then see how we can avoid feeling bad or
confused.
This is based on a
power point presentation to undergraduates in their Preliminary
Course in English. Seeing students of different faith I avoided the
Buddhist Terminology but in fact expanded on the four Wrong
Directions which young one’s, including individuals of different
religious faiths, political ideology, racial orientation and above
all some teachers (ill conceived) with hidden agenda.
1. Fear
2. Anger
3. Hate
4. Aggression
5. Resentment
6. Envy
7. Rejection
8. Guilt
9. Pride
11. Boredom
12. Loneliness
13. Jealousy (Green
eyed Monster)
14 Paranoia
Why not
1. Hope
2. Happiness
3. Love and
4. Self Control
5. Tolerance
These were the same
emotions which went through young minds of our generation 60 years
ago.
Most of them ended
up with “Reactive Depression” not “Endogenous Depression” but
there was no counseling of any kind at disposal.
I think in this
modern age of Digital Obsession, there is more expressed “Emotional
Intolerance”.
In fact, digital
media like Facebook, to some extent YouTube thrive on this malady.
I think politicians
from China to Russia to Middle East (Israel and Palestine included) to importantly USA base their strategies on hate anger and resentment.
Emotions like
relationships have various shades and connections.
We can shape our
emotions, the way we want them to be (for good as well as bad
intentions).
How can we progress?
In away according to
Professor De Bono;
It is to have beautiful Mind or get rid of the
wrong Directions and Intentions.
I did a survey on
technical terms in psychology and found psychological terms easily
outnumbered the technical terms in physics, mathematics and
philosophy all put together.
The corollary of
this is that Religious, Political and Racial Doctrines can thrive on
these minor and major psychological maladies.
It is interesting
that Buddha had crystallized the themes into four categories.
During the talk on
“Making Choice in Life”;
Ajahn Brahm taught
the four considerations when face with making a decision.
Not for selfish
reason
Not with ill-will
Not out of stupidity
With no Fear.
This is the Buddha’s
teaching on four “Agati”, namely,
Chanda-gati,
corruption induced by desire, is deviation from the right path in
pursuit of bribes or for the sake of those one loves.
Dosa-gati is taking
the wrong path to spite those against whom one bears ill will, and
Moha-gati is
aberration due to ignorance.
But perhaps the
worst of the four is bhaya-gati, for not only does bhaya, fear,
stifle and slowly destroy all sense of right and wrong, it so often
lies at the root of the other three kinds of corruption.
Agati: the 4 'wrong
Paths' are: the path of desire, the path of hate, the path of
confusion, the path of fear bhaya. One who is freed from these evil
impulses is no longer liable to take any wrong path.
Satara Agati -Four
unprofitable directions
The term 'Agati' in
Pali mean wrong course or going bad way.
There are four bad
ways,
a) Chandā agati -
the going a bad way through ill will
b) Dosā agati -the
going a bad way through hate
c) Bhayā agati -
the going a bad way through fear
d) Mohā agati - the
going a bad way through ignorance or delusion
