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[icarus]

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

Guiltlessness on the Buddhist Path

Guilt is one of the greatest hindrances to our progress, both in the spiritual path and in everyday life. We have a strong sense of feeling unworthy, not good enough to make progress in doing the things we need to do. From the Buddhist point of view guilt is extra-strength egotism. By reducing the tendency to feel guilty, we can free our minds to be more alert, intelligent and agile.

Ah.

Comments

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

The difference between guilt and remorse is that remorse says, "Whoops. I did something wrong." Guilt says, "Whoops. I did something wrong, I am terrible."

So guilt uses that event to define (and limit) (and punish) yourself. That's what's egotistical about it. Remorse is simply honest, and you move on to doing something about whatever it was. Above I've described the four stages of admission, regret, restitution (which in Buddhism does not have to be directly related to whatever you did), committment not to do it again.

I think that remorse needs to bounce right into action. Staying with the remorse is a waste of energy, because in and of itself, it does no good.

If someone stole, oh, blankets from a bunch of widows and orphans, would you prefer that they return the blankets (or buy them new ones), or just roll around experiencing a lot of painful guilt? Because you can't have both. Once they start taking action, they'll feel better.

Icarus

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

If they stole the blanket from my orphaned child, honestly I want punitive suffering. Discomfort to prod the evil-doer to greater goodness than simply repairing the damage. A cold night of the soul to match the physically cold night that child had. And since I can't look into the evildoer's soul, and can only judge them by what they do, I have to say I don't want to see them happy until they've done a lot more than just returning the blanket. That's the vindictive part - I have not been harmed (I'm dead), but I want someone to suffer anyway. Contributing to the atmosphere of evil. Is there a path out of this cycle?