LTF 16: The Three Destructive Actions of Mind

As you know, one of the big themes that we have in the Buddhist teachings is about the three higher, or exceptional, trainings: exceptional discipline, exceptional concentration, and exceptional discriminating awareness. As His Holiness was explaining in Brussels last week, we find discipline, concentration, and discriminating awareness in non-Buddhist schools as well, so these aren’t exclusive to Buddhism at all. To practice these things in a Buddhist way and to make them exceptional requires, first of all, discriminating awareness – to have some discriminating awareness of the various levels of the Buddhist teachings on the voidness of a self and of all phenomena, all phenomena in terms of Mahayana. But also, the motivation is what makes these exceptional. If we practice discipline, concentration, and discriminating awareness with the aim to achieve liberation – in other words, with renunciation and the correct understanding of discriminating awareness – or if we, in addition, practice them with bodhichitta, as well as with the correct understanding of discriminating awareness, it would make these three exceptional. 

As His Holiness explained, we need discriminating awareness with this motivation to be able to actually cut through the obscurations preventing liberation and omniscience. In order to be able to use that discriminating awareness, we need concentration so that our minds don’t wander away or become dull. In order to be able to gain that concentration, the main mental factors that we rely on are mindfulness and alertness. Mindfulness is the mental glue that holds on to an object, and alertness is like the alarm system that checks whether or not there’s something wrong with our mental hold. If there is something wrong, the alarm goes off, and then attention will reset the concentration. 

Learning about and developing mindfulness and alertness is exactly what Shantideva discusses in the context of far-reaching ethical discipline. If you recall, the chapter on ethical discipline is called “Mindfulness.” There are two chapters. One is on the caring attitude – actually caring what the effect of your behavior is. The other is on mindfulness and alertness. We develop these qualities in terms of our gross behavior, particularly our actions of body and speech – how we speak, how we act, and these sorts of things. Of course, this is done with our mental behavior as well, although that’s more difficult. That gets into the direction of concentration. But with our physical and verbal behavior, we need to be mindful – in other words, to have the mental glue that holds on to the discipline. 

Discipline is a restraint. Remember, Shantideva explained that as well. What is ethical discipline? It’s the mental attitude with which we hold back from acting in destructive ways. Of course, there’s the ethical discipline as well of engaging in positive things like meditation and helping others, but the main focus is the restraint – holding back from destructive or negative actions. And alertness, of course, is the alarm system to check what’s going on. So, this is the reason that we need ethical discipline as the foundation.

Then, having developed that basis, we can apply that mindfulness and alertness in our meditation in order to gain concentration. With concentration, we can actually focus on discriminating awareness and get somewhere with it. Otherwise, if we can’t stay focused on that understanding, even if we understand correctly how things exist and how they don’t exist, it’s not going to be of much help, especially when we need to apply it in difficult situations.

So, our verse here is speaking about entrusting ourselves with body, speech, and mind to the ten pathways of constructive karma. A pathway of karma, as we’ve briefly talked about before, is an abbreviation for a pathway of a karmic impulse (las-lam). Karma (las) is an impulse, which according to Asanga’s presentation, the one we are following, is exclusively a mental factor, the mental factor of an urge (sems-pa). It’s the compelling force that gets us into a physical, verbal or mental action. The pathway, then, is the action that is brought on by and follows from that urge. So, the karma is not the action itself. A constructive pathway of karma, of a karmic impulse, is the action of restraining from acting destructively when we’ve had the wish to act destructively. So, we restrain ourselves; we apply ethical discipline and don’t commit the destructive action. 

Now, we’ve gone through the three destructive actions of body and the four destructive actions of speech. Can anybody recite and state what these three and the four are? What are the three destructive actions of body? 

Participant: Killing.

Participant: Stealing.

Dr Berzin: Stealing. And? 

Participant: Sex.

Dr Berzin: Inappropriate sexual behavior. And the four of speech? 

Participant: Lying.

Participant: Gossiping

Dr Berzin: Gossiping. It’s actually called “idle chatter.”

Participant: Divisive speech.

Dr Berzin: Divisive speech. And?

Participant: Harsh and cruel language.

Dr Berzin: Harsh and cruel language. It’s language that will hurt somebody’s feeling. Very good.

Then we have the three destructive actions of mind. These are more difficult to refrain from, obviously, because the actions of mind are much more subtle than the actions of body and speech. One important point to keep in mind here, to understand, is that when we are talking about an action of mind, we are talking about a way of thinking. We are not talking about a disturbing emotion or a disturbing attitude. There isn’t anything that is both karma and a disturbing emotion. So, when we speak about these karmic actions, we’re referring to a way of thinking, a line of thinking, which, of course, would be accompanied by a disturbing emotion, but it’s not the same as a disturbing emotion. And it’s not just any type of thinking. These three destructive actions of mind are thinking over and deciding to commit or not to commit one of the destructive actions of body or speech.

What are the different destructive ways of thinking? 

The first is called “covetous thinking,” which means strongly and selfishly thinking and planning how to make something somebody else has our own, to possess it as “mine.” That’s what the English word “covetous” means – wanting to possess an object as “mine.” And covetous thinking is thinking strongly and selfishly about how to get that object and make it our own. 

The Basis

The basis for such thinking has to be some external object or some internal quality that belongs to somebody else. This could be somebody else’s wealth or fame – fame being an internal quality. It could also be something that we see in a store. It could even be a quality of a Buddha that we want as our own in order to have fame, power, lots of disciples, and this type of thing. 

What would be the German word for covetous? It’s not just attachment. It’s not just desire. 

Participant: Gierig.

Dr Berzin: Does that mean “greedy”? 

Participant: It’s greedy, yes.

Dr Berzin: “Greedy,” actually, in English means to have more of something than you need. That’s not what this is talking about. 

Participant: Verlangen.

Dr Berzin: That’s desire. But what we’re talking about is wanting to possess something that somebody else has for some selfish reason. You want to get it for yourself. 

Participant: In German, it has this connotation. If you are gierig, it means that you need a person or you want things and this desire doesn’t stop somehow; you can never have enough.

Dr Berzin: Oh, yes. But in English, greedy could also refer to something that you have yourself. Let’s say that you buy a cake; it doesn’t belong to anybody else, but because you are so greedy, you eat the whole thing. Covetousness is talking about something that belongs to somebody else – that you want it for yourself. 

In the Bible, you have this word “covet” – “Don’t covet thy neighbor’s wife” – which means wanting to get your neighbor’s wife for yourself. 

Participant: In German, it’s called begehren. So, it could be to desire. 

Participant: Although, of course, in German, desire can also be toward something that you already have. So, maybe that’s not the correct term. 

Participant: Maybe it’s a different shade of jealousy – that you want something from somebody else.

Dr Berzin: Right. There is jealousy there. There is a lot of envy there. 

Participant: But what about Buddhahood?

Dr Berzin: This is what I just said – that wanting Buddhahood in order to have power, fame, or for some selfish reason, it’s covetousness.

Participant: Is it possible to long for Buddhahood and to become that just for…

Dr Berzin: Sure. “I want to achieve Buddhahood because it’s the best, and I want to be the best. I want to be the highest.” 

Participant: Then you can become that.

Dr Berzin: No, you can’t, not with that sort of selfish attitude.

Participant: What about enlightenment in the Hinayana?

Dr Berzin: The Hinayana idea of enlightenment is not selfish because in order to achieve liberation you have to understand no true self.

Participant: The problem would be thinking, “I want to be a good Buddha,” or something like that – striving for enlightenment with some sort of arrogance.

Dr Berzin: Yeah, “I want to be a Buddha so that everybody will worship me, so that they will make statues of me and bow to me. I want to be a Buddha in order to have power over everybody because I am going to be the one that will help everybody.”

Participant: In my opinion, with this kind of thinking, you would never get Buddhahood.

Dr Berzin: Of course. You never get Buddhahood with that attitude. 

Participant: But it’s allowed to long for Buddhahood, isn’t it? That’s not wrong?

Dr Berzin: Well, there is a difference between longing for it and being covetous of it, at least in English. To long for something is, for example, thinking, “Oh, I really wish I could have it. I long for cold lemonade on a hot day. I really would like it.” Covetous means strongly desiring the lemonade that somebody else has and wanting, out of envy or jealousy, to get it for yourself. Then, you think of ways to take it. You plot how to get it – for example, when the other person is not looking. That’s covetous thinking. “Look! There’s the Goodyear blimp!” Then you take what’s theirs while they’re distracted. That’s why it is important to study what these are actually talking about. If you just rely on the word that’s used for translating it into your own language, you might get a completely different idea of the meaning. 

So, covetous thinking could even be something that is already promised to be ours, but we are covetous to have it before it’s our due, such as an inheritance, or our turn in a line when we are waiting in a queue. We will get our turn, so it’s something that will belong to us in the future. But we are covetous; we want it now. Or we want our parents to die so that we will inherit their money or their house. Things like this. 

Motivating Mental Framework – Unmistaken Distinguishing, Motivating Intention, Motivating Emotion

Our distinguishing has to be unmistaken. We must be identifying correctly that it is this object that we covet, not some other object. Also, it has to be specific – a specific object, a specific quality, or something like that. The motivating intention is strongly wishing to get that object away from the other person and to make it ours. And one of the three disturbing emotions has to be present. So, in the case of desire or attachment, we could covet a whole variety of useless products in the store that we think we need and will make us happy. “Everybody else has the latest model car, so I have to have it too.” Or the latest fashion – “I have to have it too.” That type of thing. 

Participant: An iPod.

Dr Berzin: An iPod, yes. Or, “I have to get modern, new glasses because the old ones are too much 1970’s or 80’s…” Also, out of hostility, we might wish to buy something quickly before somebody else that we don’t like has the chance to buy it, so that we can deprive them of the pleasure of having the object. “I’m going to buy this so that you can’t get it, or take this book out of the library so you can’t have it.” This type of thing. Also, out of naivety, we might feel that it’s good to want to possess many products because it’s healthy for the economy. 

Participant: It’s even unethical not to consume.

Dr Berzin: That’s right.

Participant: It’s stingy.

Dr Berzin: Yes, “Be Indian; buy Indian.” That’s the expression they use in India. 

Implementation of a Method; Finale

The motivation to possess the object has to be so strong that we really plot and plan to make the object our own. This negative action of mind reaches its finale when our obsession becomes so strong that we actually come to a decision to get the object. So, it’s talking here about the mental action. 

In other words, the action that is involved in this way of thinking is not just wishing. That’s just the beginning of it. Instead, the action is obsessively planning to get it. Then, subsequently, we decide to get it. That’s the whole line of thinking. The decision to get it doesn’t necessarily have to be expressed; we don’t have to say it. We also don’t have to actually put our plan into action. What we are concerned with here is just the thinking that’s generated by this negative state of mind. OK?

Tsongkhapa adds to this that five disturbing attitudes have to be present for the action of covetous thinking to be complete and to have its most serious consequences. This becomes quite interesting. 

Five Additional Disturbing Emotions & Attitudes That Make the Action Complete

• First, there must be an exceptional attachment to the object that we wish to make use of and enjoy. We really have to be into either material things or qualities such as fame or power. So, an exceptional attachment is present. 

• The second is greediness – we wish to accumulate more and more and more of the object. 

• The third is called “nosiness.” Do you know what nosiness is? That’s when we feel compelled to check out thoroughly anything of good quality such as what other people have, and to sample it or try it out for ourselves. We are very curious. Well, it’s more than just curious. Curiosity, in English, can be positive. This, however, is nosy. It’s poking our noses into somebody else’s affairs, what they own and so on, and having to see because, “Ah, maybe I don’t have something as good as they have.” With this attitude, we then check out what they have and maybe even try it on to see, “Oh, how would this look on me?” This type of thing. Then we are very nosy, asking, “Where did you get that? How much did it cost?” “Steve, that looks nice. I wish I had something like that.” It’s basically just poking our noses into somebody else’s affairs and possessions, asking about it and so on, which really is none of our business. 

• The fourth factor is a competitive attitude. Because we are competing with someone, we feel that we simply have to own and have whatever the other person has. “I have to keep up with everybody else and have what they have.”

• The fifth is the headstrong attitude of wanting to get the better of somebody, wanting to win, wanting to have more than others do, without feeling at all ashamed about being covetous and not having the slightest recognition that it’s a fault or that we should determine to get rid of it. “It’s good to compete and to get more than what other people have. I will have the best car, the sexiest car.” This type of thing.

Participant: What was number four?

Dr Berzin: Number four was the competitive attitude – competing with somebody else: “I have to have what they have; I have to own what they have.” 

Participant: Actually, what you’re describing is how people generally think these days.

Dr Berzin: Yes, yes. This is capitalism, consumerism.

Participant: 100 percent.

Participant: But I really wonder if you are wrong. Did Tsongkhapa just sit there and get all these ideas? There are things here that I’ve never heard of before. How do they find all these things out?

Dr Berzin: What do you mean – how they know how other people act? 

Participant: Yeah, because it’s not their way of living, and yet they find all of these things…

Dr Berzin: By observation, by being with people. If you’re with people and you’re sensitive, you can understand what’s going on in their minds, what attitudes they have. They didn’t just live in caves. 

Participant: I really think that if you are a monk, you first look at the other side of the person.

Dr Berzin: Sir, I would suggest that you spend some time in a monastery with the monks and see how unenlightened a large percentage of them are. Many of them are very, very worldly. 

Participant: They have a good show on television at the moment about young monks trying to see the World Cup.  

Dr Berzin: Oh, they have “The Cup.” That’s a very nice movie. Very nice movie.

So, it’s not complete covetous thinking simply to daydream, “Oh, wouldn’t it be nice to have my boss be my slave and to have his wealth and power,” or “Wouldn’t it be nice if everybody knew what a good practitioner I was and how learned and generous I am and how hard I’m working for their sakes,” or “Wouldn’t it be nice if I was respected by everybody in the world.” For it to be a full-blown attitude of covetousness, we have to be very attached to these things, be greedy to have more, be very nosy about what other people have, to compete with them and want to get the better of them. We also have to have the strong desire and the full intention to do something about achieving our aim – thinking very consciously, “I want to have the wealth and power of everybody; I want to have all the money in the world,” and then thinking of ways in which we can actually get what we want.

If we don’t have all of these factors, the karmic consequences are not as heavy. OK, that’s covetous thinking. Any questions or comments?

Participant: I’m interested about the economy thing. If I buy things in order to improve the economy, would it still be this bad motivation?

Dr Berzin: There’s a difference. Let’s say, some beggar in the streets of India is selling chewing gum, some little bauble or something stupid like that, that we don’t want but that we buy in order to give the person money and so that they won’t feel like a beggar. That’s not covetous thinking. It’s not really naivety to think that it will make the world a better place if everybody makes and spends a lot of money. 

Participant: Maybe we do spend a lot of money, but we don’t enjoy it. 

Dr Berzin: Well, you could spend your money, for example, thinking, “I want to spend it on an expense account so that I can deduct it from my taxes and won’t have to pay so much tax.” In a case like that, you don’t really enjoy it, but you are thinking to get some gain from it. There are many different variations here. this is just talking about what would make the action the full destructive action of covetous thinking. 

This spending in order to improve the economy – it’s all based on greed. Look at the advertisements, the commercials. “If you buy this car…” and then they have some sexy, half-dressed girl leaning against it to try to increase your desire so that it will spill over into buying the car, the implication being that you’ll attract her if you have this car. This is pretty gross; pretty low. 

I think the important thing to realize here is that we are not only talking about material objects. It can also be people: “I want to have a partner, a sexual partner, because everybody else has one, and poor me, I’m alone.” “I want to have friends; I want to have company,” “I want to have a good physique,” etc. 

Participant: Lift my face.

Dr Berzin: Yes, a face-lift. “I want to have a face job, or a nose job in order to…” in order to have what? 

Participant: I want to look like Michael Jackson.

Dr Berzin: I want to look like Michael Jackson. Oh, you poor thing! Look at Michael Jackson before he had all those operations. He was perfectly good-looking before. Michael Jackson is a good example in terms of having had all of those operations on his face. It had to have been because he wanted to look like somebody else, not just to have a certain image – “Oh, this is what other people have, and this is what I want to have, too.” So, then you check out what’s the most attractive-looking shape of a nose, and then you have to have it, being exceptionally attached to this sort of thing. But it’s interesting to examine ourselves, actually. 

But as I said, covetous thinking is not just wishing to have it. It’s obsessively thinking about getting it and planning how to get it. It’s a whole line of thinking. Just to have the wish is something else. That’s a first step.  

The second one is thinking with malice. Thinking with malice is thinking and plotting how to hurt a person or creature by killing it, punching it, slapping it, or causing something unpleasant to happen to it. 

The Basis

The object of this negative thinking is like the object of harsh and abusive language – namely, some living being who would be hurt if we enacted our wish. There is a difference here between malice and anger. Malice, like hostility, is aimed at living beings, whereas anger and hatred can be directed at anything, either animate or inanimate. We could be angry at our car and hate our car. “I hate my car. It’s so ugly and it doesn’t work.” 

Participant: I hate my computer.

Dr Berzin: “I hate my computer. I’m really angry with my computer because it doesn’t work!” But we are not hostile toward our computer. Hostility, in English, has to be toward a living person or an animal. Do you have that difference in German?             

Participant: So, it’s differentiated into two parts? 

Dr Berzin: No, I mean that these are different mental attitudes. Hostility and anger are two, separate mental attitudes. Hostility is toward a living being; anger is toward all objects. When we talk about the three disturbing emotions, we’re talking about hostility, not anger. Why? Because they are discussed in the texts in the context of the ten destructive actions, and those ten actions are all intended to hurt or deceive or harm someone else in some way. They are not directed at harming or destroying some inanimate object. In English, hostility is only directed at others. You don’t have hostility toward your car or computer. You can have anger toward them, but you wouldn’t say in English that you had hostility toward them.  

So, thinking with malice is like thinking with hostility. about a living being. It’s not thinking with anger, “How can I destroy my car? How can I hurt my computer? I’ll kick it. I’ll throw it out the window. I’ll unplug it and see how it likes that!”

Participant: It says, I think, that seventy percent of people actually beat their computers.

Dr Berzin: Well, that’s the Indian way as well. If any object doesn’t work, you kick it – sort of like a water buffalo that won’t move. 

Motivating Mental Framework – Unmistaken Distinguishing, Motivating Intention, Motivating Emotion

Now, our distinguishing of the person or creature that we wish to hurt must not be mistaken. The motivating intention must be the wish to kill him, punch him in the face, or some sort of thought like, “Wouldn’t it be great if I or somebody else could take away everything that they have and throw them into poor house…” – something like that. One of the three disturbing emotions has to be present. So, out of attachment, we might wish to kill our parents in order to receive the money that they said they were going to leave us when they die. Or, out of deep hostility, we might wish to smash a fly or mosquito that’s annoying us. Out of naivety, we might wish to hurt somebody because we think that violence is good and that what we do to others doesn’t matter. 

Implementation of a Method; Finale

Then the action involved has to be thinking to act out that urge; it’s not just the wish. The action is to think about and to plan to actually do it. The mental act reaches its finale when we actually decide definitely to hurt the person or the creature. So, thinking with malice is not merely thinking with ill-will. It’s not merely wishing to harm somebody; it has to be the whole line of thinking with which we firmly decide to cause that harm. It’s like the covetous thinking in that it’s not merely the wish to have the thing: it’s to actually decide to do something to get it – even if we don’t actually do anything to get it. This is the line of thinking that is involved. 

Five Additional Disturbing Emotions & Attitudes That Make the Action Complete

Like with covetous thinking, there have to be five disturbing emotions that are present. 

• The first is deep hostility, which comes from grasping tightly to some token that symbolizes our reason for wanting to hurt the being. We want to hurt the person because they look funny, because of the color of their skin, or because of their sexual preferences – these hate crimes type of thing. We pick something that symbolizes our reason for wanting to hurt somebody, and we have deep hostility that grasps onto that thing. “You insulted me!” We hold onto that as a token, as a symbol, for why we are so angry and we you want to hurt this person. 

• The second is an attitude of being unable to stand something. “I can’t stand it! I can’t bear it any longer without doing something to hurt the other person.” 

• The third factor is an attitude of holding a grudge from having thought over and over again with incorrect consideration our reasons for being angry and annoyed. So, we’ve thought over and over again with incorrect consideration – in other words, we consider our reason a valid reason for hurting the person, whereas it is not a valid reason at all – about wanting to hurt them because of the color of their skin, for example, or their nationality. 

• The fourth factor is a competitive attitude. “Wouldn’t it be great if I could punch or kill my rival?” In other words, we want to get the better of this person, this insect, or whatever it might be by hurting them.

• The fifth one is a head-strong attitude.  “Head-strong” means having a very stubborn attitude. In this case, it would be wanting to get the better of somebody without feeling the  least bit of shame about wishing to hurt them in order to do that, in order to get ahead, and without having the slightest recognition that this is a fault and that we should determine to get rid of it. “I’ll hurt you. I am the superior one,” or, “I am going to drive this person out of business by selling more in order to hurt them.”

Think of the politicians that want to make some sort of scandal about the opponent candidate because they are competing with them. They pay hundreds of thousands of dollars and euros to political advisors for them to come up with ways to slander their opponent. And they are thinking with malice the whole time about how they can destroy the other candidate in order to get their own candidate elected. That’s what we’re talking about.

Participant: Sometimes, let’s say there are two politicians, and one politician thinks, “If I win this race, I’ll be of much more benefit than the other person.” So, he has to find certain ways to put the other one down; otherwise, he won’t win. Let’s say that it really would for the better that he wins. So, I don’t know if the motivation sometimes…

Dr Berzin: Well, this is a very interesting thing. Actually, His Holiness was speaking about this once – that if you are going to have an election in a democracy, what the candidates should speak about is just their own good qualities. Although, this is  a little bit prideful from a Buddhist point of view and also difficult from the Tibetan point of view because they are  supposed to say, “Oh, I don’t have any qualities; I can’t do anything,” and so on in order to come across as very modest. However, it’s better to show what the positive plans that you have are rather than pointing out how bad the other person’s plans are. There is no reason to have to say how bad the other person’s plans are just to present your own positive plans. This is the difficulty, I think, in many of the American elections. All they did – the Democratic Party last election, for example – was to say how bad the other party was, but they never came up with anything positive about how they would solve the problems. Then the election comes out of who is the least evil, the least bad one, which is a terrible basis for an election. “The better of two evils,” as we say in English. 

Participant: There was Kucinich in this last race against Bush. He tried to bring good stuff up, but people didn’t even want to hear what he had to say. So, Bush and all these…

Dr Berzin: Well, in the present world when one side is doing that, it’s difficult for the other side to ignore it. But it’s interesting. You look at His Holiness. There are all sorts of really unpleasant things that he could dwell on in terms of what the Chinese are doing in Tibet and so on, but instead, he speaks in terms of the positive things that he would like for Tibet.

Thinking with malice, “How can I put the other one down? How can I hurt them?” – this is really very nasty. “When I see this other person, what am I going to say that will really hurt them?” It’s this type of thinking. It’s not just about what we can do to the other person but also what we can say to them. We’re fixated on some symbol for why we’re so angry, why we’re so hostile. “I will get the better of them” – so, we’re competing. “I will win.” 

Why don’t we spend a few moments on each of these and just examine ourselves before we go to the third one. Let’s examine ourselves, first of all, for covetous thinking. “Do I have covetous thinking?” It might not be to keep up with the latest fashions, but it might be with other things. OK? Let’s start with that one. Any comments about covetous thinking? Questions? 

Participant: This is when you’ve made up your mind for a decision you have made. Other people say, “No. I know.” There’s too much egotism, and you should do it the other way around, because other people see more benefit from a different way of thinking and doing things. “You have to do it this way,” This kind of thinking.

Dr Berzin: I’m not sure that I understood what your point is.

Participant: You have made a decision and say, “It’s my decision; I do it this way.” Other people say, “No. It is too much egotism.”

Dr Berzin: Give an example.

Participant: I had a relationship with a woman. And now every three months she calls me to tell me that I should go back to her, that it’s better for her and for other people as well. She really wants to make me feel guilty. But it’s better now because before, she expected that something might change…

Dr Berzin: Well, the covetous thinking here would be if you thought how to get her back. 

Participant: No. I think it is over.

Dr Berzin: Well, if you think that it’s over, it’s not covetous thinking. Covetous thinking is that you want to possess something or somebody who belongs to somebody else.

Participant: But this friend of mine tells me that I should go back and that it’s wrong thinking to want to stay alone. 

Dr Berzin: Yeah, but what is the covetous thinking here? 

Participant: It’s more about being self-centered.

Dr Berzin: So, being selfish because you don’t want to go back to her. 

Participant: Yeah. And being attached to being on my own or whatever – to stop worrying about her.

Dr Berzin: So, the covetousness of wanting to be on your own – is that what you’re talking about?

Participant: Yeah, clinging to that. I think that’s the question – whether that would be covetous.

Dr Berzin: No. That’s attachment. That’s attachment to being alone – that is, if you are indeed attached to that. You might not be. I mean, you could make a decision and be very firm in your decision, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are attached to that decision. But there is attachment there. And what is attachment? Attachment is exaggerating the good qualities of something that you have and not wanting to let go of it. But, “I have decided not to go back with this woman. Period. I am not going to make a big thing about it.” You are not exaggerating it, thinking, “Oh, it is the most fantastic thing that I am rid of this horrible woman.” 

While we still have time, let’s go through this last one. Then, if we have time left over, we can think a little bit about the second and third ones. 

The last destructive action of mind is thinking with a distorted, antagonistic attitude. It’s not just distorted; it has to be antagonistic as well. It’s a naive, closed-minded, ignorant state of mind in which we stubbornly think to deny something. 

The Basis

Its object has to be some phenomenon that exists or is true, such as some sort of fact or somebody’s qualities or situation. 

Motivating Mental Framework – Unmistaken Distinguishing, Motivating Motivating Emotion

We must distinguish our denial of the phenomenon as being correct – like when a criminal feels that what he’s done was right and wants to fight it in court. We deny that it was wrong and have to be convinced it was right. 

The motivating intention must be wishing to repudiate something that exists or that is true. “Repudiate” means to deny something very strongly. Then, one of the three disturbing emotions has to be present. Out of attachment or desire, we might think in this distorted, antagonistic way because we want, for example, to gain someone’s favor by agreeing with them. So, somebody says, “All people from such and such a country are stupid or bad people,” and because we want to gain the favor of this person, we begin to think like that as well; we think to put those people down. Out of hostility, we might dislike somebody who holds a correct point of view, and because we can’t bear to agree with them, we assert the opposite at any cost. There are people who, no matter what somebody says, think, “no.” Because they don’t like the person, they want to argue about everything this person says. These types of people are very childish. Most often, though, we think with this distorted, antagonistic attitude out of naivety, such as when we are wrong about something and feel that nobody else  is correct. 

Implementation of a Method; Finale

The action involved must be thinking to undertake the repudiation, like by thinking to spread false propaganda or to tell others about what we think. And the action reaches its finale when we decide for sure to repudiate the object. 

So, distorted, antagonistic thinking is not just disbelieving a fact like the existence of rebirth. It goes beyond that to deciding to actively deny or refute it: “This is really stupid, and I am going to put down anybody who thinks like that.” OK? 

[Discussion in German]

Dr Berzin: Yes, Brasil is playing this evening and thinking that that’s more important than class. That’s a bit of naivety… and covetous thinking. “Other people are watching it; I want to watch it too.” So, we don’t want them to get the better of us. We have to be even better than they are and watch it at whatever cost. 

Our action of thinking of repudiating something could be to deny a cause and effect, a functioning phenomenon, or an existent phenomenon. So, to deny a cause would be thinking to deny that there is such a thing as good or bad actions or that some things are proper to do and other things are at fault. To repudiate effects would be to cynically deny that such types of actions have any results – for example, saying, “It doesn’t matter what people do. There’s no such things as ethical or unethical. You just do what you have to do.” So, it would be thinking like that and wanting to argue with somebody who thinks that it does matter. Or we might repudiate the functioning of something, thinking that good things happen to us for no reason at all, that certain things don’t function to bring about other things. Or we can deny the value of doing constructive actions in order to get beneficial results. 

Five Additional Disturbing Emotions & Attitudes that Make the Action Complete

For distorted, antagonistic thinking to be complete, the motivation has to have the five following disturbing attitudes: 

• Blindness from not knowing how one of the four noble truths or one of the eightfold noble paths exists, or that it is existent. So, we are blind to what is really the truth.  

• Contentiousness from a perverse sense of enjoying being negative. 

Do you have a word for that? It’s a perverse sense of enjoying being negative.

Participant: It would mean that you are very much holding onto your view.

Dr Berzin: No, it means that you enjoy arguing and being negative with others and think it’s really fun to think in the opposite way from others or to argue with them and deny what they say.  

Participant: Did Socrates have that? 

Dr Berzin: Did Socrates have that? You could say that it’s possible that Zen masters and so on have this, or that Socrates had this, thinking that it was fun, and “How great I am that I can confuse everybody else by repudiating everything that they say.” That’s not the pure motivation, hopefully, that Socrates had and that these various Zen masters have. 

Participant: Es ist eine Methode um zu erkennen.

Dr Berzin: It’s a method for bringing them to a correct view. Anyway…

• The third factor is an attitude of being thoroughly imbued in our distortion – “imbued” means being totally sunk into it, really into it – from having decisively analyzed some phenomenon with incorrect consideration. So, we’ve really thought about it and are convinced that something that is true is not true. 

• The fourth factor is complete mean-spiritedness, as demonstrated by repudiating  the value of good actions, being charitable, doing spiritual practices or anything like that. So, we’re denying something that’s good.

• The fifth factor is a head-strong attitude of wanting to get the better of somebody without feeling the least bit of shame about being antagonistic and repudiating other people’s beliefs and not having the slightest recognition that it’s a fault or that we should determine to be rid of it. 

What I think goes in this direction is criticizing, thinking in your mind in a very criticizing way – “Oh, what that other person thinks is stupid, and I am going to really put it down” – when what the other person is doing is positive. It could also be neutral: “You like to watch football. Well, I think that’s really stupid and a waste of time, so when I see you, I’m going to really try to make you feel badly about it, feel guilty about it.”  Or you want to go sightseeing around Brussels, and I am going to give you a hard time by telling you how stupid it is and how boring it is so that you won’t have any fun and won’t want to do it. This type of thing.  

Participant: That is when two persons are married.

Dr Berzin: Often, that is the case. My aunt and uncle argue about little things all the time. 

So, although there are many levels of distorted, antagonistic thinking, it’s only when we are blind to something, when we are contentious about it and want to argue, when we are thoroughly imbued in our distortion, are being completely mean and wish to get the better of somebody and then decide to fully repudiate that person’s correct assertion that we have a complete destructive action of thinking with a distorted, antagonistic attitude. This is really heavy because it really cuts off the possibility for positive thought and positive types of actions. 

Participant: It seems like that the view the other person holds has to be true or…

Dr Berzin: The view of the other person has to be true or constructive. But I think one could extend it to being neutral as well. Usually, however, it has to be something constructive that you repudiate. 

Participant: If you argue against a wrong view or idea, you can…

Dr Berzin: Right. But that can go in another direction. Let’s say, in a debate, when you think that somebody has a wrong understanding, your motivation for thinking of ways to show them that they are wrong could be for an ego reason – “I want to show them how smart I am” – or it could be for the positive motivation of wanting to help them to correctly understand. Let’s give an example: 

Let’s say that you haven’t studied the Kagyu tradition, and you go to a Kagyu lecture and they say that mind is permanent. You think that this is wrong… Well, no. That’s another example. That’s a different case because there the problem is that you don’t understand their definition. You’re thinking in terms of another tradition’s definition, and then you think “How I can prove them wrong?” The point with distorted, antagonistic thinking is to think how to prove somebody wrong when they are right because you think that your wrong position is right. So, that was not a good example. 

Here’s another example: Somebody wants to make a donation to some sort of charity, and you think that that is really bad to do, that they should keep their money or that they should give their money to you or something like that. So, you think to repudiate that there’s any value in making a donation and think to tell them, “This is really stupid. You shouldn’t do that.” So, first, you think about how bad the idea is and how you need to convince them of that, and then you definitely decide, “I am going to go convince this person that this is a bad thing to do.” 

We have to be very careful here. What about when somebody wants to study with a certain spiritual teacher and we think this is a bad spiritual teacher, a misleading spiritual teacher? So, we think to try to convince this person not to go to that teacher or to leave that teacher. Is this distorted, antagonistic thinking? All depends on whether or not what we think is correct – that this other person really is a bad teacher. So, we have to ask ourselves: are we being contentious? Do we enjoy just trying to destroy this other person’s spiritual practice? Is that part of our motivation? Have we really analyzed it well? And are we being mean about it, thinking, “Oh, you shouldn’t do anything that’s spiritual”?

These destructive ways of thinking can get very much mixed with each other. For example, we want to hurt the other person and we’re covetous –  e want to get them to come to our Dharma group because we like to be with the person. There can be lots of things that are involved. 

When it goes over into speech, it could be using harsh language or divisive language. It could even be lying – we know that this is actually a good teacher, but we we say that they’re a bad teacher because we want to get the person to come be with us. All these various ways of acting in a destructive manner are often mixed with each other. 

Participant: This subject often comes up – judging others: “Is he better or is he not?” Once, I heard a guideline about this. It said that the Buddha had said that we shouldn’t judge anybody because we’ll surely fail; only he can judge a person. That’s what Buddha said in one of those teachings. Then I heard a geshe say, “You don’t know if somebody we think is bad could actually be a Buddha, a teacher, or something, so we should abstain from any judgment.” 

Dr Berzin: Right. There is this teaching. Certainly, Buddha said that only someone who is omniscient can really know the spiritual level and the attainments and so on of others. At least you have to be on the same level as the other person in order to know if they are there or not. Also, we are warned never to criticize anybody because we never know who is a bodhisattva in hiding. 

His Holiness the Dalai Lama said something very interesting on this subject at a conference where there had been a whole discussion about sexual and power abuse by various spiritual teachers, both Asian and Western. The comment that was brought up was, “Well, you know, it’s ‘crazy wisdom.’ And who knows? Maybe they are enlightened beings, so they can’t make any mistakes. Who are we to judge?” His Holiness said that you can’t use that argument. In situations like that, he said, you have to go by convention, by what the world’s convention is regarding what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior between a teacher and a student. And certainly sexual abuse or power abuse is not appropriate behavior by any convention.  

Participant: There are many discussions about that.

Dr Berzin: There are many discussions about that. But His Holiness said that you have to use conventional, common-sense wisdom.

Participant: I always try not to think anything because I might be wrong.

Dr Berzin: That’s true. One can be neutral. But this becomes difficult because then you could say, “I’m not going to be judgmental about what the Chinese government has done in Tibet. I’m not going to be judgmental about what Hitler did. I’m not going to be judgmental about anything, because – who knows? Maybe they’re bodhisattvas.” This, of course, is going to the extreme. Do you, at some point, take a moral stand and say, “This is not right”?

Participant: Well, in the Western world some say, “OK, the Chinese invaded Tibet. That made it possible for us to get all these teachings now. It’s the reason that all the lamas went to America or wherever.” 

Dr Berzin: But that was not the motivation of the Chinese when they invaded Tibet. 

Participant: It might be a secret motivation.

Dr Berzin: Well, that’s silly. That’s naive. It’s naive to say that Mao was a bodhisattva and that he did it on purpose. That’s silly. That’s absolutely silly. 

Participant: There are all kinds of strange talk about this. 

Dr Berzin: Well, then you get to this very interesting question about whether or not it is worthwhile to think with distorted, antagonistic thinking that, “It is stupid what they think, and I am going to repudiate it”? Now, here, what they are saying is wrong, and what we are thinking is correct – that what they are saying is not correct. But is it worthwhile to think about how we can counter their arguments? It’s an interesting thing to question. Or is it simply not worthy of even commenting on because it’s just so stupid?

Participant: Well, it depends. Maybe you also want to set up correct information, and at some point, you have to do that. Otherwise, you could say that all information is relative somehow, that you never can know…

Dr Berzin: Well, this is my point. Distorted, antagonistic thinking is when we are wrong and the other person is right. But what happens when we are right and the other person is wrong? Is it necessary to refute them in all cases? What about when we are speaking with somebody who uses incorrect grammar, and we think to correct them? Is it always appropriate?

Participant: No. I would say that it always depends. Perhaps you know that this person always makes the same mistake, though, and you want to support them in growing beyond it.

Dr Berzin: It could be with a good motivation. But if you are constantly correcting them, it’s not so nice. Or let’s say that somebody is very disturbed in the street and really in trouble, and they ask you for help. If they use incorrect grammar, are you going to correct their grammar? No. There are situations where correcting others is appropriate and inappropriate.

Participant: Would it be appropriate to say to a Christian or to every Christian that you meet, “Well, there is no such thing as a creator”?

Dr Berzin: Right. That’s a very good example. Or, let’s say that our parent is dying and they are Christian and believe in God. They are on their death bed and are praying to God. Would it be destructive to think to repudiate their belief in God and say, “That’s stupid. There is no such thing as a creator”? Obviously, that would not be distorted, antagonistic thinking by definition, but it certainly would be cruel. It would be cruel and harmful.  

Participant: Divisive language, divisive speech.

Dr Berzin: Divisive speech. That’s divisive, yes. 

Participant: What about correcting a geshe, for example, on findings according to modern views, things that science has found out, such as that there’s no such thing as a lifespan of one thousand years?

Dr Berzin: OK. So, what about correcting a geshe who is very conservative and traditional and says that various beings such as Nagarjuna lived nine hundred years or something like that and saying to the geshe that this is impossible? Well, first of all, is it actually impossible to live for nine hundred years? How do we know? Just because we don’t think that it’s possible… We don’t really know. I’m thinking of the example that Shantideva uses in terms of the Hinayanas who say that the Mahayana scriptures are not the words of the Buddha. Shantideva said, “How can you say that? Any arguments that you use to say that they’re not the words of the Buddha, are the same arguments I could use to say that the Hinayana scriptures are not the words of the Buddha.” 

Also, what is your motivation? Now, you have to be a diplomat in terms of this example with the geshe. The geshe says the earth is flat, and you say, “Well, that’s not true. The earth is a sphere.”

Participant: Isn’t it the Abhidharmakosha that talks about this – about lifespans?

Dr Berzin: Right. The Abhidharmakosha speaks about the lifespans of various beings. It speaks about humans being born from eggs, like chickens; it talks about the size of the sun and the moon being the same. I mean, it has all these sorts of things.

Participant: Mount Meru...

Dr Berzin: Right, Mound Meru. His Holiness said very clearly in Brussels that one must not take any of this literally – that this is contradicted by valid perception. 

Participant: The Abhidharmakosha?

Dr Berzin: From the Abhidharmakosa. He said not to take it at all literally.

Participant: In the Abhidharmakosha, one thing they say is that karma in those days, in the early days, was very good or at least, not as bad as it is now, so people had longer lifespans. Then it degenerates into shorter lifespans and will go down to ten years at some point. Then it will go back up to a thousand years.

Participant: Eighty thousand.

Dr Berzin: Eighty thousand. Well, one could imagine a lifespan that’s only ten years – let’s say, if there’s a nuclear holocaust and people suffer from radiation. I guess one could imagine that. 

His Holiness says that if scientific evidence contradicts what’s said in the scripture, you have this criterion from Dharmakirti, I think it was. He cited Dharmakirti, saying that if what it says in the scriptures is contradicted by valid cognition, either by sense perception – like seeing from space that the earth is actually a sphere – or by logic, it is not meant to be taken literally. The other thing was that if the scripture is filled with internal contradictions, what’s said is also not to be taken literally. His Holiness was quite clear about this. In fact, he stressed it several times in Brussels. This is quite good; His Holiness is quite enthusiastic about science.

This covers the ten destructive actions. Now, if you like, since we’ve discussed this, next time what we could do is to go through all the various factors that affect the strength of the ripening of karma – in other words, what things make the results heavier and what things make them lighter, so that if we do something destructive, we can lighten the results. This is very helpful to know and to use as guidelines for our behavior.