Now that the holidays are over, let’s examine what brings delusions in our lives and how to reduce them. I am sure during the holiday season, most of you at some point confronted your delusions. These come in any form such as anger, jealousy, hatred, attachment, ignorance, greed, etc. If we look at the root of our delusions, usually it boils down to Self-Cherishing and Self Grasping Ignorance.
Self-cherishing is a mind that thinks “I am important”. Self-Cherishing is nothing but a belief that our happiness, our comfort, our views, our thought process is superior to that of the other person. In other words, it is the same a supremacy. Let’s explore this a little. When we have a disagreement with someone it is because we consider our opinion to be superior to that of another person. Because of our ego or “me” delusion, all of our viewpoints are tainted. If we have tinted windows on our car, everything outside looks of that color. Look at all the wars in the world; they are rooted in this belief of supremacy. Let me tell you an interesting story. A few years ago, I was getting a massage. My masseuse asked me how my day was going. I casually mentioned I was dealing with some not so competent insurance people. Out of nowhere, she said do you think you are smarter than everyone else? I said most days I have this Smartest Person In The Room syndrome. What she said next was very profound. She said the universe gives you what you want. You want to be the smartest person so it sends you people who are not as up to speed! I thought it was a unique way to look at the world. But in essence, it was supremacy that was bringing frustration. Geshe Kelsang Gyasto put it wonderfully; “The moment we let go of our obsessive concern for our own welfare, our mid naturally relaxes and becomes lighter.”
The second reason we experience our delusions is Self-Grasping Ignorance. It is just a fancy way of saying we grasp at ourselves and its inherent existence. When we talk about wisdom teachings we will dive deep into inherent existence. Self-grasping ignorance is also known as separation. We have created this boundary around us separating ourselves from other living beings. This is similar to a saying that goes; my cold is worst than yours because it is happening to me! If we erase the boundaries around us, the world would be a much better place. How so? Let’s look at it. We strongly identify with ourselves and grasp it so tightly that nothing is more important than our I. If our boundary only includes us then we focus on our happiness over all else. If our boundary includes our family then all of a sudden we are willing to make little sacrifices for the greater good of our family. Most people stop there. If we all begin to erase boundaries around our community we would all try our best to make sure everyone in our community is better off. If you think about the war analogy I just pointed out, it also applies here. There are wars because there is separation. We all identify strongly with something or other. Man, Woman, American, Indian, Republican, Democrat, Black, White, Brown, Hindu, Christian, Jew, so on and so forth. The politicians of the world are actively creating more identities based on race, gender, and so forth. We are actively trying to divide the world instead of uniting it. That causes delusions.
In other words, if we begin to identify a little less with ourselves and start erasing boundaries around us to include more living beings, we will begin to notice that our delusions are decreasing. Similarly, if we reduce our self-cherishing, we will reduce our delusions.