Is caring about something the same thing as clinging?

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Fitter Stoke, modified 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 9:42 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 9:41 AM

Is caring about something the same thing as clinging?

Posts: 487 Join Date: 1/23/12 Recent Posts
Lately I’ve seen people using the word “clinging” in a way that makes it sound identical with caring about something or some outcome or holding to a position. Here are two examples:

”Example 1”:
Clinging?...Aversion?...Change? Funny that We are getting so uptight about these things while trying to be almighty enlightened...and shit! … t just made me laugh that we work so hard to drop clinging and accept change. But when something pretty minor in our lives may change people worry so much. (I'm in no way exempt!)


”Example 2”:
None [of these practitioners] mention "stages of insight", afaik. Time to stop grasping at the Theravada model?


The second example uses the word “grasping” instead, but both “clinging” and “grasping” are often used to translate the Pali word “upadana” which figures so much in the Buddha’s teaching.

Often the Buddha’s teaching is taken to mean that, because all things are impermanent, insight into that impermanence should drive us to experience all things without clinging, embracing them in their full intensity but being prepared to let them go and embrace whatever comes next. This idea seems to be assumed in the two examples given above. In the one case, we should let go of how we want the DhO to be and accept a new way for it to be (whatever it is?). In the other we should let go of a particular interpretation of the path and be ready to embrace (cling to?) another.

But at least one scholar of the Pali canon and meditation master doesn’t think this is what the Buddha had in mind.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu:
Change is the focal point for Buddhist insight — a fact so well known that it has spawned a familiar sound bite: "Isn't change what Buddhism is all about?" What's less well known is that this focus has a frame, that change is neither where insight begins nor where it ends. Insight begins with a question that evaluates change in light of the desire for true happiness. It ends with a happiness that lies beyond change. When this frame is forgotten, people create their own contexts for the teaching and often assume that the Buddha was operating within those same contexts.


The entire essay is short and worth reading. What he seems to be saying is that the Buddha presented us with an account of cause and effect. The path is not about letting everything go so much as it’s about discerning what sorts of activities bring long-term happiness and therefore are worth putting our energy into (and even building a temporary but healthy sense of self around). Here’s a passage that stood out:

Getting the most out of our changing experiences doesn't mean embracing them or milking them of their intensity. Instead it means learning to approach the pleasures and pains they offer, not as fleeting ends in themselves, but as tools for Awakening. With every moment we're supplied with raw materials — some of them attractive, some of them not. Instead of embracing them in delight or throwing them away in disgust, we can learn how to use them to produce the keys that will unlock our prison doors.


Unfortunately sometimes it seems like people aren’t using these concepts in the way the Buddha intended, which was in the context of insight into cause and effect. Instead, it seems as though people are sometimes using them as a means of silencing others. Some people come close to saying, “The only reason you’re opposing some thing (me?) as much as you are is because you have a problem with grasping. If you didn’t have this defect, you wouldn't hold forth that view.” But this is just an ad hominem argument with the Buddha's plumes hastily glued to it. (And if I’m clinging by caring enough to have the discussion - no matter how heated - then what exactly are YOU doing?)

So contrary to popular opinion, Buddhism does not appear to be a thoroughgoing relativism. The point isn’t to be indifferent to every outcome (and every way to bring about an outcome) since “everything is impermanent anyway”.

Especially when people are disagreeing about the dhamma or about our virtual sangha, it’s probably better to give the other person the benefit of the doubt and treat their concern as though it were legitimate rather than an indication of how unenlightened they are or how much of a problem with clinging or grasping they have. Simply having a strong opinion on something can’t disqualify the truth of what the person is saying. It’s not even a definite indication that they have a problem with clinging or grasping, as though the Buddha taught a person shouldn't care whether they take a bath in warm water or acid.

And even if a person is stuck in some form of clinging, unless they’re asking for help dealing with it, or you’re their teacher or very close friend - in which case the discussion probably isn’t occurring in an online forum anyway - it would probably be better to approach the person/subject in a different way (one which addressed the content on its own merits) or maybe not say anything at all.
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 11:12 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 10:48 AM

RE: Is caring about something the same thing as clinging?

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
Hi Fitter,

I like your post and the Thanissaro article you linked, the focus on dependent origination.

To focus a little on speech, I also appreciated your words:
Especially when people are disagreeing about the dhamma or about our virtual sangha, it’s probably better to give the other person the benefit of the doubt and treat their concern as though it were legitimate rather than an indication of how unenlightened they are or how much of a problem with clinging or grasping they have.

There are three components of conceit: taking oneself to be 1) superior (ketukamyata, desire to advertise oneself) and 2) inferior to others, and then 3) comparing oneself to others. When being introduced to a little of the Abhidhamma Sangaha this weekend I laughed to read, "[Conceit] should be regarded as madness." (pg.84, BPS Paryatti Edition, 2000)

The above goes nicely with right speech parameters, which a friend sent me this summer (because I mentioned my rapproaches can be a leeeettle bit strong on occasion): http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-vaca/index.html

From Anguttara Nikaya 5.198:
[indent]"It is spoken at the right time.
It is spoken in truth.
It is spoken affectionately [agreeably].
It is spoken beneficially.
It is spoken with a mind of good-will."[/indent]

and Majjhima Nikaya 58:
[indent][6] "In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be
factual,
true,
beneficial, and
endearing & agreeable to others,
he has a sense of the proper time for saying them.
Why is that? Because the Tathagata has sympathy for living beings."[/indent]

Obviously, I post this as much for me as anyone else. I know all traditions and secularism have such standards for speech conduct. And I hope it's part of the individuals engaged in Syrian intervention talks, now and for one other example, just as we work on it here.

There's a tremendous amount of pressure in the world, so it's understandable, too, why we would vent excessively/aggressively/conceitedly sometimes, then learn from this (even after repetitions...)

Anyway, above right speech is a tall order, but a useful destination.

Okay, thanks FS.
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Fitter Stoke, modified 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 11:29 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 11:29 AM

RE: Is caring about something the same thing as clinging?

Posts: 487 Join Date: 1/23/12 Recent Posts
katy steger:
There are three components of conceit: 1) taking oneself to superior (ketukamyata, desire to advertise oneself) and 2) inferior to others, and then 3) comparing oneself to others. When being introduced to a little of the Abhidhamma Sangaha this weekend I laughed to read, "[Conceit] should be regarded as madness." (pg.84, BPS Paryatti Edition, 2000)


The "inferior to others" bit is interesting. A lot of people come to the practice with an unhealthy, unwanted sense of self. They approach the practice as a way of getting rid of that unwanted sense of self or of seeing the reality past the sense of self. In a lot of ways they succeed. Even a person with an unhealthy sense of self can get a taste of the Ultimate. But I think it produces a divided life, since the unhealthy self doesn't go anywhere, it just gets cordoned off. "Off the cushion" as it were. But if you look at the way the Buddha taught and what he taught - causes/intentions leading to long-term happiness - a lot of it was meant to produce a healthy sense of self, a healthy sense of accomplishment arising from moral, skillful behavior. Does this lead to a sense of conceit, of comparing oneself with others? Of course! But that's not a bad thing. You're not expected to get rid of the sense of comparing yourself to others until you're a fully enlightened Arahant anyway. But before that, it might be damaging to try to get rid of "conceit" (as it's used here) right away. It might be better to focus on developing the healthy kinds of conceit that come from a job well done.

I wrote a longish post on this the other day that I have yet to put up. It's somewhat critical of the way we do things as a community. I'm holding off because I want to be sure the criticism is constructive (though I can't control how it will be received).

Anyway, above right speech is a tall order, but a useful destination.


Right speech is hard. I felt especially disarmed not being able to use sarcasm or exaggeration.

Interestingly, nowhere in the guidelines for right speech does it mention never disagreeing with someone, even firmly. I've seen folks bend over backward to present the dhamma as a thoroughgoing skepticism about views. I've heard it said, "You can have a view, just don't cling to it too tightly!" That's rather subtle and less helpful than what the Buddha instructed:

Uncle Sid:
"Whenever you want to do a verbal action, you should reflect on it: 'This verbal action I want to do — would it lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both? Would it be an unskillful verbal action, with painful consequences, painful results?' If, on reflection, you know that it would lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both; it would be an unskillful verbal action with painful consequences, painful results, then any verbal action of that sort is absolutely unfit for you to do. But if on reflection you know that it would not cause affliction... it would be a skillful verbal action with pleasant consequences, pleasant results, then any verbal action of that sort is fit for you to do. (link)


And then he has Rahula observe carefully the consequences of the verbal actions. (Same with bodily and mental actions.)

Anyway, we could all stand to look more closely at the effects of our intentions. It's probably a bad idea to make a b-line for another's intentions, though, just as a means of avoiding the content of what they're saying.
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 11:58 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 11:57 AM

RE: Is caring about something the same thing as clinging?

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
Fitter Stroke:
You're not expected to get rid of the sense of comparing yourself to others until you're a fully enlightened Arahant anyway. But before that, it might be damaging to try to get rid of "conceit" (as it's used here) right away. It might be better to focus on developing the healthy kinds of conceit that come from a job well done.


Here I would say for me it's worth not comparing persons and that such comparison is distinct from looking at actions and asking, "Did those actions lead to skillful/wholesome means, reliable happiness, reliable tranquility, reliable cessation of dukkha?" That is an evaluative way of looking at phenomena versus comparing persons.

For example, Lance Armstrong's name was raised today in a thread in regards to respect being lost; yet Armstrong's recent behaviours have been honest in regards to doping and he is, regardless, a person who is always changing. So it's not useful compare oneself to this dynamic entity, but one can reliably look at the dishonest actions and say, "Dishonesty did not lead to reliable happiness, cessation of stress."

Therefore, in looking at the actions and not comparing persons, conceit is avoided in all three ways, and phenomena --- including thoughts and actions --- can be taken up based on an evaluation of their skillfullness towards the reliable cessation of dukkha.


Fitter Stroke:
I've heard it said, "You can have a view, just don't cling to it too tightly!"
Alagaddupama Sutta: The Water-Snake Simile MN22 and raft: rightly holding a view (e.g. dependent origination) in order to cross the river & rightly letting it go once on the other shore.

Both of these relate to causes of I-making.
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Fitter Stoke, modified 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 1:03 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 1:03 PM

RE: Is caring about something the same thing as clinging?

Posts: 487 Join Date: 1/23/12 Recent Posts
katy steger:
Here I would say for me it's worth not comparing persons and that such comparison is distinct from looking at actions and asking, "Did those actions lead to skillful/wholesome means, reliable happiness, reliable tranquility, reliable cessation of dukkha?" That is an evaluative way of looking at phenomena versus comparing persons.


I'm not sure what the right way is with regard to this, as I haven't done the experiments rigorously enough myself, though what Thanissaro Bhikkhu says in this essay about forming a healthy sense of self makes intuitive sense to me.

Alagaddupama Sutta: The Water-Snake Simile MN22 and raft: rightly holding a view (e.g. dependent origination) in order to cross the river & rightly letting it go once on the other shore.

Both of these relate to causes of I-making.


Ah, so that's where they get that from. It makes a lot of sense in context.
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 1:21 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 1:19 PM

RE: Is caring about something the same thing as clinging?

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
Could you summarize the Thanisarro essay you've chosen to link here in a sentence or two?
E.g, What you like and intuitively feel is correct about comparing persons versus just evaluating phenomena for its ability to cause/thwart reliable happiness/cease dukkha?

I'm hard pressed for time and since you've read it, like it, understand it and understand the point you want to make relative to what I've passed on in regards to conceit I'd appreciate your 2-3 lines summary.
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Fitter Stoke, modified 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 1:53 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 1:53 PM

RE: Is caring about something the same thing as clinging?

Posts: 487 Join Date: 1/23/12 Recent Posts
Sure. It's similar to what I said above re: forming a healthy sense of self. Some choice quotes:

As you stay with this line of questioning [=looking at results of actions], it fosters two major results. To begin with, you become more sensitive to your actions and respectful of their effects, both in the present and over time. Unlike the child who says, "It was already broken when I stepped on it," you're aware of when you break things — physical or mental — and when you don't. At the same time, you gain mastery over the patterns of action and effect. You get better and better at handling things without their getting broken. This in turn fosters a healthy sense of "self" and "I" based on competence and skill. Your sense of self becomes good-humored enough to freely admit mistakes, mature enough to learn from them, quick enough to notice the immediate effects of your actions, while patient enough to strive for long-term goals. Confident in its own powers of observation, this "I" also has the humility needed to learn from the experience and advice of others. [...] Because your "I" is an activity, any attempt to pin it down before you had mastered the processes of activity would have left you pouncing on shadows, distracted from the real work at hand. Any attempt to deconstruct your "I" before it had become healthy and mature would have led to a release neurotic and insecure: you'd simply be running away from the messy, mismanaged parts of your life.


Emphasis mine.

I've inferred from what he's said here that developing a healthy sense of self involves some degree of pride: the joy that comes from mastering a skill. He goes on to say that this is to be abandoned at the end of the path, where it is seen that the fabrication even of a healthy sense of self is still stressful, but that this healthy sense of self is normal for the early and middle stages.
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 4:42 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 4:24 PM

RE: Is caring about something the same thing as clinging?

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
Yes, Fitter. All of what you've excerpted points to looking for what is skillful/wholesome/useful in the action and experience of others and oneself (not what are skillful/wholesome/useful others and oneself). This is, to me, an evaluation of action and experience for "skill and [competency]".

Not comparing me to you, her to him, them to us, etc, rather just evaluting the actions-outcomes-experience. "Does this action bring me (closer to) reliable happiness?" Versus "Being (dis)like this other brings me (closer to) reliable happiness?" (The "reliable happiness" refers to nibbana, the big'un.)

Do you see that nothing I have passed on in my posts here suggests doing this (below except)?
Any attempt to deconstruct your "I" before it had become healthy and mature would have led to a release neurotic and insecure: you'd simply be running away from the messy, mismanaged parts of your life.



So I do not see a contradiction or disagreement with the three-part definition of conceit and what you're sharing: that one not take oneself as superior, inferior or in comparison to others. That one is best served looking at experience and actions (which arise from mind, forerunner of all actions) and developing health, "competence and skill", "gain[ing] mastery over the patterns of action and effect" versus mastery over/under/relative to others. What you've added seems to me to support the idea well that one evaluate action and experience in order to develop one's reliable happiness.

And this allows "others" to be not reified or objectified in your mind as the actions that they've since ceased. The other is free of being an object of comparison, free also to evaluate actions and experience, free to liberate from their own mind and free to be not held by one who is holding them statically as an object of comparison.

So it is important to evaluate actions versus compare with others. This is why I raise this 3-part definition of conceit; it's friendly and useful to persons, lets them change, lets actions/experience be that which are evaluated.


For me, I've found that 3-part definition very useful, particularly the "simple" comparison bit.
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Fitter Stoke, modified 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 4:44 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 4:44 PM

RE: Is caring about something the same thing as clinging?

Posts: 487 Join Date: 1/23/12 Recent Posts
Right. I get that evaluating experience is not the same thing as comparing oneself to others. I'm not trying to imply otherwise.

What I'm saying is that, while comparing oneself with others is not identical with the goal (which would be not to compare oneself at all), it's not incommensurate with the path to the goal. That in a choice between comparing oneself with others on the basis of (for instance) income vs. comparing oneself with others on the basis of mastery of right speech, the latter is more skillful. It's a step in the right direction. The pride one feels in that would still be stressful, but it's still better than being prideful about your car, because pride has a way of feeding back into the activity and encouraging its further development. This seems consonant with what Thanissaro Bhikkhu is calling a healthy sense of self based upon skillfulness.

Does that make sense?
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 6:18 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 5:02 PM

RE: Is caring about something the same thing as clinging?

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
Fitter:
What I'm saying is that, while comparing oneself with others is not identical with the goal (which would be not to compare oneself at all), it's not incommensurate with the path to the goal. That in a choice between comparing oneself with others on the basis of (for instance) income vs. comparing oneself with others on the basis of mastery of right speech, the latter is more skillful. It's a step in the right direction. The pride one feels in that would still be stressful, but it's still better than being prideful about your car, because pride has a way of feeding back into the activity and encouraging its further development. This seems consonant with what Thanissaro Bhikkhu is calling a healthy sense of self based upon skillfulness.

Does that make sense?


Not once in the excerpt you provided by Thanissaro does he suggest that people compare themselves to each other.
As you stay with this line of questioning [=looking at results of actions], it fosters two major results. To begin with, you become more sensitive to your actions and respectful of their effects, both in the present and over time. Unlike the child who says, "It was already broken when I stepped on it," you're aware of when you break things — physical or mental — and when you don't. At the same time, you gain mastery over the patterns of action and effect. You get better and better at handling things without their getting broken. This in turn fosters a healthy sense of "self" and "I" based on competence and skill. Your sense of self becomes good-humored enough to freely admit mistakes, mature enough to learn from them, quick enough to notice the immediate effects of your actions, while patient enough to strive for long-term goals. Confident in its own powers of observation, this "I" also has the humility needed to learn from the experience and advice of others. [...] Because your "I" is an activity, any attempt to pin it down before you had mastered the processes of activity would have left you pouncing on shadows, distracted from the real work at hand. Any attempt to deconstruct your "I" before it had become healthy and mature would have led to a release neurotic and insecure: you'd simply be running away from the messy, mismanaged parts of your life.


Fitter:
That in a choice between comparing oneself with others on the basis of (for instance) income vs. comparing oneself with others on the basis of mastery of right speech, the latter is more skillful. It's a step in the right direction.
So, if you're training someone in a sangha, do you think it's a good idea to teach a person, "Compare your speech to Fitter Stroke and Katy"?

Or do you think it's best to just give the person the criteria for Right Speech and say, "These guidelines are what we each try to actually think and do: that speech be timely, truthful, agreeable, beneficial and with the intention of well-being, that it not be divisive nor harsh."

Consider Bahiya who died so suddenly. Did Buddha say, "Compare yourself to Ananda/Sariputra/Mogallana/Angulimala"?
Being aware that we die at any moment (and that stream of aggregates may give rise to another life that will either know to compare itself to others or know to focus on reliable thoughts, actions and cause-and-effect), the Buddha gave Bahiya a reliable focus, not a dynamic personhood target.

What do you think?
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Fitter Stoke, modified 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 8:51 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 7:26 PM

RE: Is caring about something the same thing as clinging?

Posts: 487 Join Date: 1/23/12 Recent Posts
Not once in the excerpt you provided by Thanissaro does he suggest that people compare themselves to each other.


Yeah. I recognized he didn't say that. I was inferring it, though.

I was thinking of an interview he did with Oberlin Magazine back in 2004 where he mentioned pride.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu:
Pride?
A little bit. I was editing my Dhamma talks, and every now and then I'd come across a phrase and think, "that was pretty cool."


So in my mind I linked the thing he said about a healthy sense of "I" based on competence and skill with what he said about feeling proud of having explained some piece of the dhamma particularly well (competently). I inferred that, while extinguishing pride is a task for someone as advanced as Ajahn Geoff, it's normal for a novice or even someone in the middle stages of the path to still have it. The fact that "conceit" (normally a synonym for "pride") is one of the last fetters, not one of the first, lends some credibility to this.

Does that connection make more sense now? Mastering a skill => Pride/Conceit in a job well done => Comparing oneself with others (per the definition you gave at the beginning)

So, if you're training someone in a sangha, do you think it's a good idea to teach a person, "Compare your speech to Fitter Stroke and Katy"?


Is THAT what you think I meant? Holy moley...

What do you think?


I still think what I initially said is worthy of consideration. If you go after conceit, pride, the general sense of comparing oneself to others too early, it might exacerbate neuroses. Since so many people are coming to this practice with a sense of unworthiness and a desire to escape their unwanted self, it makes a lot of sense, just from a psychological perspective, not to encourage people to blast that away right away, either with noting, or seeing the three C's in it. (And if you look at the order in which the Buddha taught things, as explained by Ajahn Geoff, you might understandably conclude he felt the same way.) Maybe that approach is misguided, and maybe that's why there's so many yogis around here who are getting really far in their meditation in terms of jhanas and what have you, but there's still a sense like the practice hasn't touched other parts of their lives. That's a common story here, right? What's your explanation of it?

Edit: I do agree with you that it is best of all not to compare oneself with another person at all. I'm merely pointing out that if one can't do this, one would be better off comparing themselves favorably rather than unfavorably. It's not just black and white. This seems consonant with TB's concept of a "healthy sense of self" which is an intermediate step between a person suffering deeply and an enlightened person. He doesn't explicitly mention comparing oneself with others, but I'm willing to bet he would make room for it, if only because having ANY sense of self seems to imply relation and comparison to others. And sure, if Fitter Stoke and Katy were exemplars of virtue and not the specimens of neurosis they really are, then why not have a student compare themselves favorably to them or at least strive to accomplish what they've accomplished? Isn't that one of the purposes of this community, anyway? To show other people that they can do with their minds what the enlightened have done with theirs? I don't see why that's necessarily harmful.
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 9:30 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 9/6/13 9:10 PM

RE: Is caring about something the same thing as clinging?

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
I do agree with you that it is best of all not to compare oneself with another person at all.
Indeed.

I'm merely pointing out that if one can't do this, one would be better off comparing themselves favorably rather than unfavorably. It's not just black and white. This seems consonant with TB's concept of a "healthy sense of self" which is an intermediate step between a person suffering deeply and an enlightened person. He doesn't explicitly mention comparing oneself with others, but I'm willing to bet he would make room for it, if only because having ANY sense of self seems to imply relation and comparison to others.
Really? Negative otherization a "healthy step"? What consequences do you think that has, demoting people to uplift yourself?

Especially when there are simple actions in wholesome mental states (the mind, forerunner of all actions) that you could take for yourself directly without any demoting and surfeit middle step of putting someone else lower than you.

I'd not enjoy being "the other" in the presence of someone needing to be more favorable at my expense nor anyone else's. I can't imagine who would like to be your less-favorable "other" there, Fitter. Such a demotion of other would seem to jeopardize friendship-formation and friendliness, collaboration to work/play in a group.

So it doesn't seem like a healthy step to take up viewing oneself more favorably (nor less favorably, nor in comparison).


He doesn't explicitly mention comparing oneself with others, but I'm willing to bet he would make room for it, if only because having ANY sense of self seems to imply relation and comparison to others.
A gamble in a monk's name. Hmm...you might ask him or anyone first before speculating their views.
And also ask maybe yourself, Fitter, "Why do I need to create opinions for this monk so that he would seem to back my views?"

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