I'm reading Subhuti's essay "Remorse and Confession in the Spiritual Community", which can be found on FBA. Not sure when it came out. I didn't see the paper announced, but a friend hipped me to it.
Reading the following paragraph of Subhuti's, I had a few revelations:
"According to the Buddhist tradition, laziness has three forms. There is laziness as everyone understands it – ‘the laziness that takes delight in lying down and not getting up’. Then there is the laziness that consists of yielding to unskilful impulses when we should resist them. But there is also the laziness of despondency. This is the state of mind in which we tell ourselves, ‘Poor me! What can I do? Not only do I lack x, but I also lack y and z. I’m just not up to it. Ah well, there it is’. This attitude leads to (or rationalises) the giving up of all effort. The tradition unequivocally regards this as a form of laziness: an unwillingness to put forth the virya, or spiritual energy, that is needed to close the gap between ourselves and our Ideal. It is important to distinguish this attitude from the objective self-criticism that is informed by faith and which leads (as we shall see) to confession. But before moving on to discuss confession, we need to look still deeper into sraddha."
So I had this revelation that in a way the following idea snuck into my head: ‘Poor me! What can I do? Not only do I lack x, but I also lack y and z. I’m just not up to it. Ah well, there it is’
I recognized myself in that, unfortunately.
The second revelation was that I haven't really talked enough to people and connected with others to process my experience. I'm too much of an isolato, as Melville coined. I want to be more connected to others.
Reading the following paragraph of Subhuti's, I had a few revelations:
"According to the Buddhist tradition, laziness has three forms. There is laziness as everyone understands it – ‘the laziness that takes delight in lying down and not getting up’. Then there is the laziness that consists of yielding to unskilful impulses when we should resist them. But there is also the laziness of despondency. This is the state of mind in which we tell ourselves, ‘Poor me! What can I do? Not only do I lack x, but I also lack y and z. I’m just not up to it. Ah well, there it is’. This attitude leads to (or rationalises) the giving up of all effort. The tradition unequivocally regards this as a form of laziness: an unwillingness to put forth the virya, or spiritual energy, that is needed to close the gap between ourselves and our Ideal. It is important to distinguish this attitude from the objective self-criticism that is informed by faith and which leads (as we shall see) to confession. But before moving on to discuss confession, we need to look still deeper into sraddha."
So I had this revelation that in a way the following idea snuck into my head: ‘Poor me! What can I do? Not only do I lack x, but I also lack y and z. I’m just not up to it. Ah well, there it is’
I recognized myself in that, unfortunately.
The second revelation was that I haven't really talked enough to people and connected with others to process my experience. I'm too much of an isolato, as Melville coined. I want to be more connected to others.
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