Greed, Hatred and Delusion

Advice: Do not read this post unless you have the patience to finish reading it.


Defilements refer to greed, hatred and delusion. Sufferings arise from defilements and sufferings bring unhappiness.


Recently, negative emotions filled my mind and I was trapped in my sufferings(unhappiness) due to too much dwelling in my defilements.


Greed

I promised to help out in a project months ago but I ended up breaking my promise recently. I had reasons such as I'm unable to handle it(something that is not my cup of tea) and I'm unable to commit myself to the project. Upon reflection, I knew deep down in my heart, I am just not courageous enough to take up the project as a challenge and I back away from it. I felt bad and started to worry how my friends would think of me. Irresponsible? Not trustworthy? ...


I always have high moral expectations of myself and I care a lot of what people will think of me. This is my greed. I desire to be the nice nice girl that people think I am. This causes my sufferings. I am not as nice as people think I am. When I feel I don't perform up to my expectations and people's expectations, I get upset and unhappy.



Hatred

The problem mentioned above triggered me to think of more past actions. I suddenly felt that I seemed to have hurt a lot of people unintentionally with my mindless speech and actions. How negative was the karma I have generated and the more I thought of these past actions, I felt even more guilty. I began to think how useless, timid and bad I am. I began to hate this side of me. The rejection of myself led to hatred.



Delusion

I had a bit of problem with my health condition. At first, I did not bother about the symptom I noticed. After quite some time, the symptom still persisted and thus I surfed the internet to understand what was wrong with my health. Initially, I was not bothered by the symptom but after reading some internet articles, I began to feel fear. Delusion set in. I was worried about my health condition. Nothing was confirmed but I just worried about it for the past few days and pondered how serious the health problem was.



Once I was so troubled that I decided not to do anything. I went away from a talk I was supposed to attend and did meditation in front of a bodhisattva (千手观音菩萨). After meditation and recalled the Dharma teachings I have learnt, I understood all my recent negativites are due to my defilements.

"Emptiness" in "I - Different people view a person differently as an object is "empty" (事物的空性) There is no need to worry how people think of me as long as I do whatever I can that I deem right. I should accept my own weakness and improve myself if I am in the wrong.

"Everything is impermance" - "Yesterday is a history; tomorrow is a mystery; today is a gift- That's why it is called present.(Kungfu Panda Movie)" Things are constantly changing. Indeed, I should not dwell on past actions that I cannot undo. I have to move on and generate more positive karma. It is of no use to keep feeling guilty and deepen my defilements.

It is ignorance if i keep worrying over things I cannot control. I will go for health check-up soon. If I really have problem with my health, I will accept and face it then. For now, I want to live happily and do positive and meaningful things as much as I can. I do not want to suffer from the delusion and do not want to worry too much over something I have no control over. Perhaps, the delusion is just delusion and things are not as serious as I have thought so.

Attitude of looking at problems is very important. With positive attitude and dharma teachings, I hope I can overcome the negativities that I feel recently : )