Perspective
Mind Management and the
Dhammapada by
Satya Chaitanya (Based on a class lecture by the author
to his senior management students at XLRI School of Business and Human
Resources, Jamshedpur, one of the top business schools in the India.)
Mind management can mean
numerous things and can have several dimensions. It can mean building
self-confidence, self-motivation and drive, improving self-image and
avoiding defeatist habits of the mind like laziness, procrastination and
so on. It could also mean emotions management, which would then involve
managing negative emotions like anger, jealousy, hostility and fears and
developing positive emotions like love, ardor, passion and so on.
The
whole wide area of emotional intelligence can fall under mind
management. Again the term could be used to describe training the mind
in perception, thinking, problem solving, creativity, innovation and so
on. Other ways of looking at mind management are as development of
calmness, focus, centeredness and serenity, as getting into the
flow-state, as developing the higher powers of the mind like intuition,
etc.
While some would say mind management is development of self-mastery,
assertiveness and so on, Tibetan mind management traditions would say
that it consists of stilling the sem or sempa, the lower or ordinary
mind, which is “the mind that thinks, plots, desires, manipulates, that
flares up in anger, that creates and indulges in waves of negative
emotions and thoughts, that has to go on and on asserting, validating,
and confirming its ‘existence’ by fragmenting, conceptualizing, and
solidifying experience; and, after stilling it and transcending it,
rising to the higher mind which they call rig or rigpa, “the primordial,
pure, pristine awareness that is at once intelligent, cognizant,
radiant, and always awake.”
While all these and many more are valid ways of looking at mind
management, here we shall look at it from the standpoint of what the
first verse of the immortal Buddhist classic, the Dhammapada, says about
it.
“All that
we are,” says the verse, “is the result of what we have thought: It
is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man
speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel
follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.” [Dhammapada 01]
The verse reminds us of that
old story about the ancient fabler Aesop. The story tells us that one
day Aesop was sitting at the gates of Athens when a man who was coming
to the city met him there. Stopping near Aesop, the man asked him, “Tell
me, Sir, what kind are the people of Athens?’ Aesop looked at the man,
thought for a moment and answered, “The worst kind! The very worst
possible in the world!” “All right,” said the man, “but I have business
there, and it cannot be avoided.” And the man entered the city with a
sigh.
Not five minutes later another newcomer who was going to the city
stopped Aesop and asked him the same question. Again Aesop took a look
at the man and answered, “The best kind! You will find Athens is filled
with the most wonderful people in the world!” The man entered Athens
beaming, jauntiness added to his steps.
Now this was strange. Aesop had told the first man the people of Athens
were the worst kind and the second man they were the best people in the
world! Both within five minutes of time! One of the friends who were
with Aesop asked him why he gave such completely contradictory answers
to the two visitors. Aesop told him, “To the first man, the people of
Athens are going to be evil, because he expects them to be evil, as I
could learn from the tone of his question. And to the second, the people
of Athens are going to be wonderful, because he expects them to be so.
As for the people of Athens, they are like people everywhere – neither
all bad, nor all good.”
The world we live in is created by us, created by our mind. Whether our
world is populated by good people or bad people is decided by us. Our
expectations, our interactions with them, our perceptions of them, make
them what they are to us.
If we are lonely, if we are friendless and disliked, it is because we
have made it so. If we are well loved, with lots of friends, people
coming to us always, again it is because we have made it so.
And we can be lonely, friendless and disliked in the middle of our own
family, in our workplace, in our neighborhood, in the society,
everywhere. Just as we can be loved and cherished, surrounded by people
who love us in the family, in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the
society, everywhere. It all depends on what we make the world we live
in.
The bird of paradise cleans its living place for itself and its mate,
removing every fallen leaf and every small twig lying there. The pig
turns any place it lives into a sty.
And not only is the world we live in created by us, but what we are, too
is decided by us.
We are made of our thoughts. Our self-image, our personality, our inner
world, are all products of our thoughts. As we think, so we become.
If we constantly entertain angry thoughts in our mind, over time we turn
into angry people. Entertain jealous thoughts in our mind, and over time
we turn into jealous people. Our thoughts turn us into an intolerant
person, a vengeful one, rigid and unyielding and so on.
Anthropologists speak of two completely differing cultures: The Anxious
Dobuan of Melanesia and the Cooperative Zuni of New Mexico. Speaking of
the Dobuans, Anthropologist Ruth Benedict in her Patterns of Culture
says:
[In
the Dobuan world] nothing happens from natural causes; all phenomena
are controlled by witchcraft and sorcery. Illness, accident, and
death are evidence that witchcraft has been used against one and
call for vengeance from one’s kinsmen. Nightmares are interpreted as
witchcraft episodes in which the spirit of the sleeper has narrow
escapes from hostile spirits… Crops grow only if one’s long hours of
magical chants are successful in enticing the yams away from
another’s garden. Even sexual desire does not arise except in
response to another’s love magic, which guides one’s steps to his
partner, while one’s own love magic accounts for his successes.
Ill will and treachery are virtues in Dobu, and fear dominates
Dobuan life. Every Dobuan lives in constant fear of being poisoned.
Food is watchfully guarded while in preparation, and there are few
persons indeed with whom a Dobuan will eat… To the Dobuans, all
success must be secured at the expense of someone else, just as all
misfortune is caused by others’ malevolent magic. Effective magic is
the key to success, and a man’s success is measured by his
accomplishments in theft and seduction. Adultery is virtually
universal, and the successful adulterer, like the successful thief,
is much admired.
The Dobuan is hostile, suspicious, distrustful, jealous, secretive,
and deceitful. He lives in a world filled with evil, surrounded by
enemies, witches, and sorcerers. Eventually they are certain to
destroy him. Meanwhile he seeks to protect himself by his own magic,
but never can he know any sense of comfortable security.
Compare the Anxious Dobuan to
the Cooperative Zuni. Here is what Ruth Benedict says about him:
Cooperation, moderation, and lack of individualism are carried into
all Zuni behavior. Personal possessions are unimportant and readily
lent to others. The members of the matrilineal household work
together as a group, and the crops are stored in a common
storehouse. One works for the good of the group, not for personal
glory.
The magical forces in Zuni world are never malevolent and often
helpful… Violence and immoderation is distasteful, and even
disagreements are settled without open bickering. Unlike most Red
Indians, the Zuni rejects alcohol because it tempts men to
immoderate, undignified behavior… Responsibility and power are
distributed; the group is the real functioning unit.
The Zuni have no sense of sin. They have no picture of the universe
as a conflict between good and evil, nor any concept of themselves
as disgusting and unworthy. Sex is not a series of temptations but
part of a happy life.
The Dobuan’s
distrust-filled, hostility-filled, anxiety-filled neurotic world is
created by him – both his inner world filled with distrust, hostility,
anxiety and neurosis and the outer world in which he lives, filled with
the same negativities. And so is the Dobuan’s world of serenity,
cooperation, acceptance, understanding and benevolence – inner as well
as outer. What the Dobuan is, is his own creation; what the Zuni is his
own creation too.
And that is
what the first verse of the Dhammapada says: “All that we are is the
result of what we have thought: It is founded on our thoughts, it is
made up of our thoughts.”
~*~
Continuing the idea, the
Dhammapada says in the same verse: “If a man speaks or acts with an evil
thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that
draws the carriage.”
Hatred, anger, jealousy, intolerance, vengeance, greed, lust – these are
their own punishments. They make those who harbor them in their hearts
suffer, apart from causing suffering to others. A man whose heart is
filled with anger, with hatred, with jealousy, vengeance, greed or lust
knows no peace of mind. These feelings are like the forest fire born
from the friction of two dry branches – the fire first consumes the
branches and then burns down the entire forest.
Negativities make it impossible for us to know what joy is, what
happiness is. We may occasionally know excitements, but apart from that,
we know no joy.
A man filled with jealousy and other negative feelings can never enjoy
anything. His mind is always plotting the future, he is never in the
present.
The morning is beautiful, the mountains are beautiful, the music, the
dance, the game is beautiful, but the man whose heart is filled with
hatred does not see any of these – he is not there to see it, he is
either in the past or in the future.
Two children play in the shade under a tree, laughing, singing and
dancing, but the man sees only the father of the children who has done
him harm in the past.
He may be with his beloved, they may be making love, but he is not there
to enjoy it, his heart in the past or the future. Remembering past
offences done to him by others, visualizing future actions of vengeance
he would take.
That is what these feelings do to us: deny us the present. And the
present is all we have. Denying the present to us, they make us dwell in
the past or in the future. And that past and future the evil feelings
make us dwell in is always dark, always evil, always vile and horrid.
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban, JK Rowling
speaks thus of the Dementors:
Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They
infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and
despair, they drain peace, hope and happiness out of the air around
them… Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy
memory, will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed
on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself – soulless
and evil. You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of
your life...
The final punishment of Dementors is that they suck out the souls of
people through their mouths through the ‘kiss of the dementors’.
After that the people become soulless people, just living bodies.
The Dementors have no eyes. Only a mouth on the face.
This is what evil thoughts do
to us. Suck out every good feeling, every happy memory, reduce us to
something like themselves – soulless and evil. And we are left with
nothing but the worst experiences of our life.
Evil thoughts, like the Dementors, have no eyes – they only have a
mouth. A mouth to suck out all that is good in us, suck out our very
soul – ananda, bliss that is our essential nature, our very being.
Rowling’s Dementors do this from the outside. But negatives make our
very hearts their home, if we allow them to. And they turn our hearts
into dark, filthy, foul places of decay and despair.
Once we allow evil thoughts to make our hearts their home, then we lose
our inner sanctuaries to them, inner sanctuaries to which we could
retire and from which we can draw nourishment when we are famished, we
need to be fed from life’s deeper energy resources . They turn those
sanctuaries into their loathsome dwelling places. We no more know what
serenity is and without serenity of the heart, we can enjoy nothing.
Serenity is the canvas on which the joys of life are painted.
People who give their hearts to negative thoughts invariably suffer from
ulcers, from heart diseases, and frequently from delusions and
hallucinations, persecution complexes and paranoia and other forms of
neuroses and psychosis.
Places where they work, such people turn into dark, foul places like
their own hearts. They create suspicion and distrust all around them,
drain people’s energies and motivation, and the workplace become filled
with the poison in their hearts. When such a person heads an
organization, he makes the organization a reflection of his inner being.
The organizational climate becomes dark, people there lose initiative
and commitment, communication between individuals and between
departments breaks down, people feel powerless, with no sense of
autonomy, no one shows initiative, no one takes risks, stress mounts,
team spirit disappears, interpersonal relations break down, trust
vanishes and no one dares to behave with integrity. Leadership at all
level fail, employees desert the organization like mice a sinking ship,
and soon the organization sinks.
~*~
The Bhagavad Gita speaks of
the evil in the hearts of men as Asuri Sampat [‘demoniacal
wealth’] and says of people who possess them.
These
people of depraved character and poor intellect engage in fearful
actions that lead the world to destruction... It is giving
themselves up to insatiable desires, filled with vanity, pride and
arrogance, setting up evil goals originating from their delusions,
that these men of impure practices engage in actions…I have killed
this enemy, and I shall kill the others as well, [they plot
constantly]. Bewildered by numerous thoughts as a result of being
caught in the net of delusion…they fall into a foul hell... [Gita Ch
16]
When Krishna says these
people fall into a foul hell, Krishna is not speaking of a hell they
would fall into after their death, but the hell into which they fall
while still living in this world, the hell their world turns into.
Any one who has known what intense anger is, what deep hatred is, what
boundless jealousy is, what remorseless thirst for vengeance is, has
only to look into his own heart to understand the hell Krishna is
speaking of.
What we are now is the result of what we have thought in the past, of
how we have managed our mind in the past. It is for us to make what we
are and the world around us.
Our thoughts can make us winners. Our thoughts can make us losers.
Our thoughts can make our world beautiful, our life beautiful, or they
can make our world ugly, our life ugly.
It is all in our hands, says the Buddha in the first verse of the
Dhammapada.
The Buddha would later add: “Whatever a hater may do to a hater, or an
enemy to an enemy, a wrongly-directed mind will do us greater mischief.
Not a mother, not a father will do so much, nor any other relative; a
well-directed mind will do us greater service.” [Dh 4.42-43]
The Gita tells us the same thing: Atmaiva hyatmano bandhuh, atmaiva
ripur atmanah. Your mind is your best friend, and your mind is your
worst enemy too.
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Mind management can mean
numerous things and can have several dimensions. It can mean building
self-confidence, self-motivation and drive, improving self-image and
avoiding defeatist habits of the mind like laziness, procrastination and
so on. It could also mean emotions management, which would then involve
managing negative emotions like anger, jealousy, hostility and fears and
developing positive emotions like love, ardor, passion and so on. 
