Personality
As babies, we are able to express ourselves rather well. When we want something, we cry, scream, and let all our emotions out nearly unchecked. Then, as we grow, depending on how our parents react to us, we see thatsome actions are acceptable. Others are not. We see this through the eyes of our mother, father or caretaker. We determine whether what we feel is right, wrong or worthy depending on how mother responds when we cry out for her to come.
This continues into childhood, when we venture into the outer world more often. We determine our self worth by the judgments and reactions from a broader range of people. These reactions are often based in greed, aversion or delusion. Also, children and adults have differing views of right and wrong, how one should act, and what one should say. So, we restrict our feelings and believe that some things we are saying and doing are unacceptable, or that we are unacceptable. This is the birth of holding our feelings and thoughts in. We suppress out of fear of worthlessness, rejection or abandonment (mostly from our mother or father).
probably a very nice lady
As we grow older, we develop different patterns to express the suppressed feelings and thoughts. Some people get tattoos all over their bodies. Some start to be controlling out of fear that others will make them feel guilty or worthless. Some try to express the suppressed feelings in an extraordinarily loud tone, believing that volume will get their feelings across, when only expressing the feelings really can. Some seek love by mastering crafts and professions, because at some point openly showing love or pride was not acceptable. Maybe never acceptable but praise for a job well done was. These people do grand things to feel admired in place of love.
In all these cases, our view of reality and what we really want becomes perverted. And what we really want is love, acceptance and comfort, which give us a peaceful mind.
Eventually, we grow up and develop a personality. Often, this developed mind suppresses so much that over time it affects the body – cancer and neurological disorders are some of the symptoms. Sometimes the problem is genetic, but this also requires certain actions or environmental conditions to switch the genes “on”.
The perverted wanting, the looking for the wrong thing, the desire to be fulfilled, and the wrong way of going about it, the Buddha calls samsara (cyclical existence). According to the Buddha, the cause of samsara is ignorance and craving.
What we do here is figure out what we really want and how we search for it in the wrong way. Most of the time, we are. Actually, from the Buddhist perspective, most of us are crazy and everyone is suppressing something.
That doesn’t mean that our lives are not interspersed with joy, love, wisdom, kindness and inspiration, but that there is a lot right in front of our nose that we can work on.
Wow, Hue Gioi! You really did a great job of simplifying a complex theory and making it really clear. Thanks!