WSW 23: Deceived by Others, Confused by Anger and Attachment

We’re up to verse 43. The poetical translation: 

When those with ambition repay trusting friendship by luring us on with their devious schemes, this is the wheel of sharp weapons returning full circle upon us from wrongs we have done. Till now from ambition we’ve acted with arrogance, hereafter let’s dampen our self-centered pride.

But when we look at the literal translation, we find it a little bit more precise: 

At times when we ourselves have been swindled by others’ cunning, this is the sharp weapon of negative karma circling back on us from our selfish desire, arrogance, and greed having been great. Now, let’s minimize our trying to make profit off of anyone.

The first part is quite the same as in the poetical version. It’s talking about having friendships with others or associations with others – it could be business associations; it could be friendships – and then others deceive us with cunning. “Cunning” means being very clever and trying to somehow take advantage of us, to get some gain; others just wanted something from us. They are fooling you, trying to get something from you, or trying to get some money from you, because you’re always paying for things or helping. They are friendly with you in order to take advantage – this type of thing is quite common. That’s what it’s talking about: this type of problem of others basically using us in the name of friendship. This comes from us having had selfish desires, arrogance, and greed, it says, also in our friendships. When the friendship is based on our selfish desires – we want to get something from the other person; and arrogance – thinking that we can fool the other person; and greed – we want to take as much as we can get from the other person – this would be a cause for that. “Now,” it says, “let’s minimize our trying to make a profit off of anyone” – in other words, to get some sort of gain from them. 

We can speak in terms of friendship, or we can speak in terms of business. In business, there is a difference between making a reasonable profit and making an outrageous profit. For instance, these various companies that manufacture things, and it costs just a few pennies to make something, and they sell it for 30 or 40 Euros and pay the people in some Third World country just pennies to make it – that’s obviously inappropriate. That also comes from greed, and arrogance, and selfish desires, and so on. What results from that is that others will take advantage of us as well. Usually, people who have a lot of money and so on – people befriend them basically to use them. I have a friend, for example, who has a small business of renting audio equipment to television stations. He’s a very strongly Buddhist, and he’s always very worried about the whole situation of running a business. The way that he resolves it is to give very good salaries, and treat very well, and give very good insurance policies to the people who work for him; and always be friendly with various customers that he has, and not charge so much, so that he makes a little bit of a living but not outrageous type of living. Unfortunately, in our world you need money to be able live. 

But I think what’s very relevant here is in our friendships – that we make sure that we are not using people in our friendships. It’s interesting, I think, to examine, in our own friendships, do we use other people? Sometimes we can use them for not necessarily material things: you could use them to get affection; you could use them to get attention; you could use them to get a sense of being worthwhile, necessary, useful.

Let’s then think in terms of this verse: 

At times when we ourselves have been swindled by others’ cunning, this is the sharp weapon of negative karma circling back on us from our selfish desire, arrogance, and greed having been great. Now, let’s minimize our trying to make profit off of anyone.

We think in terms of this type of problem that we have and, even if we don’t see so many people deceiving us, nevertheless we can look to see, are we deceiving others? Are we trying to get something from them? Are we trying to use them in our friendships and so on? We can try to minimize that in our friendships. Try not to base friendships on selfish desire and greed of getting something off of the other person – to be the vampire, suck whatever it is we want from the other person – and not to have this arrogance that “I’m better and therefore I can use the other person.” Then think in terms of everybody who has this problem, accept the responsibility to deal with it on a mass level. Send to everybody this solution, to take away their being deceived by others, and give them the insight and the understanding to not use others and not be so much like a greedy vampire in the relationships. 

The next verse, verse 44, poetical version: 

When the force of attraction or that of repulsion colors whatever we hear or we say, this is the wheel of sharp weapons returning full circle upon us from wrongs we have done. Till now we’ve ignored what has caused all our troubles: the mass of delusion that dwells in our heart; hereafter let’s try to abandon all hindrances: note their arising, examine them well.

The more literal translation: 

At times when attachment or hostility have led us astray while listening or explaining, this is the sharp weapon of negative karma circling back on us from not having thought about the demonic faults in our hearts. Now, let’s examine (these) adverse conditions and then rid ourselves of them.

This has to do with, basically, how when we have a lot of attachment or hostility inside us, that tends to affect what we hear. We often project that the other person is hostile to us; we get paranoid; we think that they’re trying to get something from us; or we react toward what other people say with attachment or hostility. How often somebody will say something very innocently, and we take great offence – we feel great hostility and we think that that really annoys us? Or we misinterpret what somebody says or does, and we think that they have attachment toward us. 

Let me give an example of that. It happened to me, and it was very funny. In Europe, when you greet somebody – let’s say a man meets a woman or greets them – you have this thing of kissing on the cheek. But you never touch the lips to the cheek; you sort of just touch cheeks with each other and go “mwha!” In different countries, it’s a different number of times: in Moscow it’s three times; sometimes in Paris it’s four times; in some countries it’s one time, sometimes it’s two times – it’s very confusing. But in America, if you do that you actually touch the lips to the other person’s cheek. In any case, when I was in the early days in India, there was a woman who came from Switzerland, and I greeted her like that, but actually I kissed her on the cheek. She totally misinterpreted that and totally thought that I was attracted to her and went on a whole big fantasy trip about this for a long time until it was straightened out. 

Here it was in terms of an action, but it can also be in terms of what we hear. Somebody says something and they don’t really mean anything deep, but we interpret it to mean that they really like me or don’t like me. This type of attachment and hostility is coloring what we hear. Likewise, it could affect what we explain. When we’re explaining something, there can be, underneath it, some hidden hostility: you tend to speak down toward the other person or you tend to speak in a way that is critical of the other person. Also, attachment could color the way that we speak to somebody: we’re trying to impress them and, in a sense, seduce them by what we’re saying. These are the types of situations that it’s talking about. This happens from “not having thought about,” it says, “the demonic faults in our hearts” – in other words, this attachment and desire that we have within ourselves as well. The Tibetan term here has the connotation of “to cause us attachment and hostility;” it causes us to go off course, to wander. In other words, instead of really hearing what the other person has to say, we misinterpret it because of hostility and attachment, and that causes problems to us. 

When we have that problem, that’s because we have not thought about these demonic faults in our hearts: the faults of attachment and hostility that we have in ourselves. It says, “Now, let’s examine these adverse conditions” – in other words, try to see what’s going on in our minds and rid ourselves of them. This is speaking about this paranoia, or attachment, or wanting somebody to fall in love with us, which leads us to interpret what they say to mean that they like us; or low self-esteem, which causes us to think that anything that they say is a rejection of us. You know how often it happens that we’re with somebody and they say, “Oh, I don’t feel like doing this” or, “I don’t feel like coming over this evening,” or “seeing you this evening,” and then we take that as a personal rejection, whereas it could just be that they’re tired? But here is an example where attachment, insecurity, hostility – because then we get angry with the person – colors what we hear, and then causes us a big problem, and we suffer very much. 

This I think is what it’s talking about; we take everything very personally. This is connected with having desire, and hostility, and insecurity, and low self-esteem, and all these sorts of delusions in our heart – these demonic things. Like a demon, it causes us problems. We have to really examine – rather than thinking in terms of “The person doesn’t love me” because they are tired today and didn’t want to come, so that means that they’ve rejected me, examine what’s the fault in ourselves that’s causing this, and try to eliminate that. The cause would be the attachment and hostility that’s in ourselves. We’re not conscious that it’s, for example, my insecurity that is making me interpret what the other person said to me as a rejection. Then I get very upset, I get very hostile, and then I have even more attachment: “When are you going to come over? When are you going to call me again?” It’s not being attentive to how our own disturbing emotions colors, in a sense, whatever we hear from other people. We interpret it through that filter of our insecurity, our attachment, our hostility, and so on. 

Likewise, when we explain to others, that also comes out through the filter of attachment, and hostility, or arrogance, and so on. It could come out very much even just in the tone of voice. There is a tone of voice that some people have that’s always very aggressive. There’s a tone of voice that some people have that’s very arrogant – it seems as so they’re always talking down to everybody. This is saying that when we ourselves experience problems because of that and a great deal of suffering, what we need to do is really to examine much more clearly within ourselves. It is very important. Atisha said, “When alone, keep a watch on your mind; when you’re with others, keep a watch on your speech” – watch how we’re speaking, watch the tone of voice. 

I find it very helpful to try to pay attention to the tone of voice with which I speak. Sometimes people ask me questions, for example, and I find myself speaking in a tone of voice that is annoyed – annoyed with a stupid question; or I’m tired, and I really don’t want to answer any more questions. I’m a human being like everybody else; I get tired, and sometimes questions are a bit much. Especially when somebody is asking a very sincere type of question, and particularly, let’s say, if I’m teaching all day long, and there is the 10-minute tea break, and then they come up to me with all these questions so I can’t relax or drink the tea, then I have to really pay attention to my tone of voice. I think this is what this is talking about: your tone of voice. I’m not even aware that I’m being hostile, but my tone of voice sounds very hostile. So, I try to do this, to change my tone of voice and to speak in a very calm and friendly type of way. Because this is what it says: it colors the way what we hear and what we explain, without even being aware of it.

Let’s think about this verse and do the tonglen practice with it. 

At times when attachment or hostility have led us astray while listening or explaining, this is the sharp weapon of negative karma circling back on us from not having thought about the demonic faults in our hearts. Now, let’s examine (these) adverse conditions and then rid ourselves of them.

Let’s end then with the dedication. We think whatever understanding has come from this, whatever positive force has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper, and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.