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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

[jackoweskla.livejournal.com]

::is curious, and has just finished her Philosophy homework::

So, the best way would be to remove yourself from situations where guilt occurs? Or would it be to maintain a more assertive and analytical attitude?

[bruno-greengras.livejournal.com]

Sounds logical to me, really.
But the big question is; how do you rid yourself of guilt?

[cordelia_v]

Agreed. I've always thought that guilt is a quite useless emotion.

But many people seem to carry around an endless wellspring of it, inside themselves. Just telling them not to feel guilty doesn't seem to do much good. They torment themselves, which makes me feel sad for them.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Now I wish I'd taken his class. :D

Icarus

[wanderingscribe.livejournal.com]

Agreed, but now I have this image of my newly inflated guilt-ego having an iron-fisted grip on a large city. Seriously. No, I'm not kidding. My long learned guilt is actually that large.

[sighs] Getting rid of it is easier said than done, though. And no, telling someone not to feel guilty will work. Probably because when you say something, you bring attention to something hidden by its' very nature.

Or something. It's late and I'm in an odd mood. Don't mind me.

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

It's harder still to differentiate guilt from remorse. I assume of course that Buddism accepts remorse as a good an natural consequence of wrong-doing. (I love topics like this. I am impressed with my own ignorance more and more often.) Anyway, does Buddism accept/expect an act of contrition? Must remorse end at a specific time, before it becomes guilt?

I'm not enlightened; I'm passively vindictive. I want people who let me down to feel soul-destroying guilt. (At least until I forget about it - but I expect my memory is stronger and longer than anyone's guilt.)

[fourth-moon.livejournal.com]

That's a great quote/info, and strangely appropriate for me at the moment. (Because now I know I don't have to feel guilty about what I did to my annoying younger brother, and as soon as I get rid of the stains everything's gonna be fine! Yes! Igor, fetch the knives!) Sorry, late night abberations there.

Ehm, egoist or egotism? Is that a typo or a word I'm not familiar with?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Well, guilt is just in your mind, so the situation isn't what's in charge -- it's you, and your response to it. Not to mention it's impossible to stay away from guilt-producing situations. We're human. We make mistakes.

I wasn't there for the class (since it was in Montreal...) but I do know the teacher.

Usually guilt is just a kind of masturbation over something you've done, magnifying it all out of proportion and setting it up as a Reason Why I [Don't/Can't/fill in the blank]. You use it to define yourself: I am this kind of person who sleepswithmybestfriend'sboyfriend, Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa. *thwap, thwap, thwap*

We think that so long as we're tormenting ourselves, we're making up for it.

In reality, that just keeps us stuck in the past, reinforcing a concept of ourselves that's not even true. On one level, the way to live a good life is to recognise, "Okay, I screwed up. How can I change this?" The path is the mistakes: you don't see yourself and what you need to work on until you have that mirror in front of you. That "oh shit" moment is good, it's honest, but you don't have to (or want to) stay there.

On another level, you gotta understand that this frozen moment in time is just that -- one moment, one mistake. It isn't who you are, and you're already a different person from then. Even milliseconds later.

On another level, recognise that even the greatest spiritual masters have made the exact same mistakes. And they recovered. In fact, they've made mistakes that are a lot worse. What did someone like Milarepa do after he murdered 32 people in cold blood? He rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

What does this imply then? If you can achieve great realisation despite mistakes? It implies that the underlying nature of enlightenment is stainless and pure. Nothing you can ever do can touch that or harm it. Even Hitler is capable of achieving enlightenment, because it's what's natural, what's underneath everything. It implies that this nature is one of vast compassion that leaves out no one.

The egotism comes about when you act as if your mistake is special or especially bad, that you're the only person who's ever done this, it's the worst mistake ever, or maybe these terrific beings have overcome their mistakes but I can't... because why? See how egotistical that is? It's like reverse-pride. And it's a bit of an excuse really.

Icarus

[jackoweskla.livejournal.com]

I see. So, it's the ability to realize that you messed up, you're not special, and to learn from that instead of wallowing in it. In a simplistic nutshell.

That makes quite a bit of sense. Shall have to think about this more. When papers aren't staring me in the face, that is. :)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

It depends on how deeply you've entrenched yourself in it, how much you've invested in feeling guilty. :D

As soon as you make a mistake, there's a four-step process:

1 - Recognise, whoops. If you don't see it's a mistake, or you pretend that, oh, sleeping with your best friend's boyfriend is okay, you'll just keep doing it. (Some people who feel horribly guilty say, "well, I'm this kind of person, so, fuck it." Which doesn't do any good either.) This leads to -

2 - Regret it. Guilt is different from regret or remorse. Remorse is an honest appraisal, and assumes that you are perfectly capable of doing better. It's empowering. Guilt is "I'm bad" and undermines you. You can tell the difference because remorse lasts for a very short period of time, and you feel motivated to do something. Guilt lingers like an unwelcome houseguest. Remorse leads to -

3 - Do something to make up for it. Such as apologise. Sometimes you can't do it in person, or it'll make it worse if you do. In that case, the Catholics really have this down: confession is good for the soul. Then, let's say you stole something. Either give it back. Or if it's gone, give some money or something to a charitable cause to make up for it. (A Buddhist would then dedicate the virtue and good karma this creates to the benefit of others, especially those swimming in guilt and shame.) Which then leads to -

4 - Is the most important step. Promise yourself not to do it again. And this is sort of like giving up smoking sometimes: you may go around this issue several times.

Now, sometimes people have really dug themselves in, and have a lot invested in their guilt. They don't want to give it up. Guilt really has a grip. What's happened is that the guilt has become about "you." Real melodrama, that's moved it to stay, has set up some furniture.

So it's time to pop the melodrama. Put it in perspective. #1 - it's not such a big deal. #2 - it's not unique. #3 - you've done worse, if not in this lifetime, than in others. #4 - other people have done worse (a lot worse), and come through it just fine. You are no worse or better than anyone else. And this mistake is just an open door.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

No, it does no good at all.

Guilt is just a habit, like smoking or sleeping in past your alarm. Thing is, people think the guilt fixes it, makes them better, that the punishment makes up for it.


Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yep. That's about it. :)

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yeah.

Actually, your long-learned guilt is no larger than anyone else's. It's just a habit like anything else.

So you chip away at the habit.

Don't feel guilty about that guilt - *grins.* People feel guilty because they want to do better and they think punishing themselves helps. But instead the guilt avoids the next step of doing something about whatever it is. The ideal is to bounce right off the recognition of "ooops" to the next step of fixing it, or doing something to make up for it.

Guilt is just magnifying the wrong waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of proportion.

Frankly, there is nothing that you've ever done that hasn't been - worse - by someone else. Even the greatest people make mistakes. And no matter what you've done, in your past lives you've done far worse.

Icarus

[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

[wanderingscribe.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Much food for thought there.

I agree about the last part especially, but there's a part of me that just doesn't care. I want to be selfish and make it *my* mistake. I want to take all the blame and torture myself for it, simply because I've been the scapegoat so many years.

Good grief. I'm thinking way too into things now when I should just let sleeping dogs lie. This is what lack of sleep does to me, I guess. *g*

[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?