>On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:51:40 -0500, Tang Huyen
>gmail.com[remove]> wrote:
>

>>
>>
>>Thank you for your reply. I meant what I wrote as
>>purely objective reflection on the human condition,
>>in this case two highly gifted men who could have
>>accomplished much in liberation (a topic of intense
>>interest to them) but ended up worse than the
>>average sinners out in the street who have never
>>heard of mental culture. Self-deception is a
>>meretricious attraction that is hard to resist,
>>especially if one is preternaturally gifted for
>>deception, except that one turns the deception
>>primarily against oneself and only secondarily
>>against others. It is not a triumphalist account,
>>rather a sad and rueful one, in that such talent
>>went to waste, by dint of lack of self-reflection,
>>self-examination and self-criticality. As I often
>>say, due to lack of self-reflection, self-examination
>>and self-criticality, mental culture doesn't work,
>>for the sake of the ending of suffering at least,
>>though it can get supernatural powers, charm and
>>charisma and the like (all worldly attractions) to
>>its practitioners.
>>
>>I would rather like to write positively of success
>>in mental culture, but since coming to these boards,
>>I have said that many people here look like the
>>contrary to the successful candidates in Buddhist
>>mantal culture. Many here are privileged, with
>>education in general and with Buddhist study
>>and practice in particular, but something keeps
>>them from success in Buddhist cultivation, and
>>when they fail, they fail spectacularly. Their
>>failure has a moral side to it, in that I detect lack
>>of sincerity in them, and usually a generous dose
>>of self-deception also. Could they have broken
>>through their obstacles (including lack of sincerity
>>and presence of self-deception) if they had tried?
>>Here it is circular, in that if they could have, they
>>would have. They succumbed to self-deception,
>>which was their easy way out, and that was why
>>they failed in their Buddhist cultivation, and
>>whatever the mental culture that they engaged in
>>was, they ended up worse than the average
>>sinners out in the street who have never heard of
>>mental culture. They talked the good talk but
>>never walked the walk. They were divided people,
>>who could not and would not get themselves
>>together, into one single piece, though they talked
>>about that all the time and claimed to have
>>succeeded at it, too.
>>
>>In their case, five minutes of mindfulness a day
>>would have been more than sufficient to keep
>>them in good shape, even if a crash happens to
>>them, as that limited amount of mindfulness
>>would have kept them aware of themselves and
>>would have helped them not lose self-awareness
>>massively, in a single block. But five minutes a
>>day of mindfulness would have broken their
>>self-deception, which they could not have
>>tolerated. Their entire lives were built on
>>self-deception. They could be gone broke fighting
>>their self-deception, if they had wanted to, but
>>they didn't want it. Their self-deception was too
>>deep-rooted to do anything about. (Sorry if it
>>sounds circular, and it is). Mental culture was a
>>mere facade, to make them look good to
>>themselves, to justify and validate them to
>>themselves, but was never meant to liberate them.
>>They never wanted liberation, but only compromise
>>with a difficult position, coverup for their
>>self-deception. They started right out with defeat
>>and merely sought to fool themselves into thinking
>>that it was not defeat. So they didn't live their lives
>>as themselves but as somebody else who was not
>>them. Mental culture was meant only as the
>>coverup for such a sham. It was never meant with
>>any sincerity. They lived their lives in bad faith to
>>themselves, in a Faustian bargain with themselves,
>>so that they could fool themselves into thinking
>>that they were somebody else who was not them
>>but with whom they could live. It was a textbook
>>case of Existentialist anxiety, more specifically
>>anxiety in front of nothingness -- they couldn't
>>stand their own guts, couldn't live as themselves,
>>and could live only if they substituted somebody
>>else to live them in their stead. A philosophical
>>tale if there ever was one. That I met them in
>>person only made the tale more poignant. But like
>>a Greek chorus, there was nothing that I could do.
>>It was all fated, all the talk of freedom to the
>>contrary. There was never any wiggle room.
>>Perhaps it was in their genes. The Buddha wanted
>>to teach only those with but a little dust in their eye.
>>He never mentioned self-deception, perhaps
>>because it was not necessary: his teaching
>>depended wholly on mindfulness, and mindfulness
>>would not work with self-deception. The two were
>>and are mutually exclusive. They could not and
>>cannot exist in the same person.
>>
>>Sorry to have offended you and possibly others. It
>>was only a philosophical reflection on the human
>>condition, with attention to a certain twist, which
>>however seems frequent on these boards. That part,
>>I never understand. Self-deception is so foreign to
>>my mind.
>>
>>Tang Huyen
>>

>
>Mile wide, inch deep.
>
>If not for these periodic public confessions
>I'd consider you wise. But here you are lamenting
>what you perceive as the faults of others (by name).
>How does that help them? How does it help you?
>
>"That part, I never understand. Self-deception
>is so foreign to my mind." Rational mind is
>nothing but self-deception. Here you claim to
>be self-aware and to know what you're doing
>(while others presumably are not self-aware).
>And yet you display the unskillful contents of
>your thoughts here. Are you truly aware of that?
>
>