The Seven Deadly Sins

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Russell Parr
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The Seven Deadly Sins

Post by Russell Parr »

Envy - Gluttony - Greed - Lust - Pride - Sloth - Wrath

I find that when the mind slips into egotism, the lesson of the Seven Deadly Sins, like the Buddhist lesson of the Desire Realms, provides a useful means for identifying where one's mental habits have gone astray. They explore a whole gamut of ways the mind slips away from what would be the clarity and loftiness of Enlightenment, into the clinginess and delusion of Ignorance. In contrast to the Desire Realms, these concepts may "hit closer to home" for fellow westerners.

The sins are not deadly in the sense that an Invisible Sky Daddy is waiting intently to murder you for committing them, but because they kill your mind, that is, any capacity you might have in perceiving Reality in a honest, purely logical manner. Also note that each sin usually leads to one or more of the others.

I sourced Wikipedia for basic information on the topic, but as usual for any teaching gone mainstream, a wiser spin is called for:

Envy - Jealousy of others for what they have, or who they are. Usually stems from pride. Know and respect your path as your own; don't worry yourself too much about the path of others, other than to learn something about yours.

Gluttony - Eating signals a release of pleasure chemicals such as dopamine in the brain, which is the body's way of rewarding you for self-nourishment. Gluttony is basically a drug addiction. This vice is often one of the last resorts on standby that people turn to when other sinful desires aren't being tended to.

Greed - The desire for more and more. Usually referring to wealth and power. A state of self-fulfilling misery. Ignorance of the temporal, finite nature of all things in existence.

Lust - Sex: the most popular and perhaps most powerful drug known to man. Most of man's actions is based on and driven by the desire for sex, which can easily turn into burning lust upon the slightest of mental lingering. Lust can lead to nearly every other sin, especially envy, greed, wrath, and pride, or perhaps worst of all, a wife.

Pride - Inflation of self-righteousness and/or entitlement. This sin is particularly dangerous for an aspirant on the early days of the path. Results in reveling in one's own supposed superiority, blinding one from the Truth that all things are the play of Nature, and are ultimately no more or less of any adjective than everything else. Nothing reinforces pure egotism quite like pride, and is usually the basis for most of the other sins, especially envy, greed, and wrath.

Sloth - Laziness, not of work ethic, but of mind. By not staying mentally sharp, the mind drifts into an animal-like unconsciousness, allowing the other sins to creep into one's habits. Drug and alcohol abuse is one of the leading causes of severe sloth. A constant desire for perfect knowledge of Truth, as well as stimulation from wise teachings and writings of others, is needed to keep this sin at bay.

Wrath - Lingering, self-righteous anger. Anger at anything is basically anger at God, whether it's anger towards the self or anyone and anything else. Keep in mind, while short bouts of anger are perfectly normal, any lingering of anger is most certainly due to egotism. If you find yourself justifying your own anger, you are suffering from wrath. Usually stems from pride.

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Any thoughts or recommendations are welcome.
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ardy
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Re: The Seven Deadly Sins

Post by ardy »

It's odd that today I got an urge to post on my own weaknesses, that after 25 years of working on and studying this stuff, I can't eat when I'm hungry or sleep when I'm tired.

So I come here and you have already covered greed so I am left with sleep, or the lack of it.

At 68 I find sleep difficult, mind you it has been an ongoing difficult area ever since my early 30's.

I have also fought eating at 6.30pm regardless. My partner is shocked if I say I don't feel like eating..The truth is I have not felt hungry since I was 21 bumming around Spain with no money. Contrary to popular opinion that lack of food brings on despair, it is the one time in my life when I felt most alive. Life was almost bubbling out of my ears. Which makes me wonder if we are built to starve occasionally.

Sex can lead to covetousness, envy, lust (which I've enjoyed in my life), happiness, sadness, desire, pride and failure. All have their place in the grand game of sex. I find the constant theme of sex in all things a little tiring and contrary to creating lust it brings on a general ennui that seems to be reflected in younger people these days. I am shocked by the attitude of young men, they have barely any interest in women and speak in such derogatory terms maybe because the cover of female mystery has been removed.

I put more faith in steadfastness, honesty, trustworthiness and conviction these days.

The Seven Sins are in us all and I am sick of fighting them but I won't give in just yet!
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Russell Parr
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Re: The Seven Deadly Sins

Post by Russell Parr »

ardy wrote:Sex can lead to covetousness, envy, lust (which I've enjoyed in my life), happiness, sadness, desire, pride and failure. All have their place in the grand game of sex. I find the constant theme of sex in all things a little tiring and contrary to creating lust it brings on a general ennui that seems to be reflected in younger people these days. I am shocked by the attitude of young men, they have barely any interest in women and speak in such derogatory terms maybe because the cover of female mystery has been removed.
I too find this to be the case. Femininity has been placed so high on the pedestal, being openly flaunted on every TV channel and newsstand, that men are no longer interested in the structural stability that comes with marriage; a masculine construct. Why buy the cow when the milk is free? Add to this the fact that the state will do everything it can to support a woman if her children's father screws up or she just one day happens to grow tired of him. Then you have a generation of men raised by women, allowing society to became feminized to the core. Men are no longer men.

Women are also being aggressively pushed into masculine roles. An interesting read on what feminine leadership leads to: http://alphagameplan.blogspot.com.au/20 ... -fail.html
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ardy
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Re: The Seven Deadly Sins

Post by ardy »

Russell wrote:
ardy wrote:Sex can lead to covetousness, envy, lust (which I've enjoyed in my life), happiness, sadness, desire, pride and failure. All have their place in the grand game of sex. I find the constant theme of sex in all things a little tiring and contrary to creating lust it brings on a general ennui that seems to be reflected in younger people these days. I am shocked by the attitude of young men, they have barely any interest in women and speak in such derogatory terms maybe because the cover of female mystery has been removed.
I too find this to be the case. Femininity has been placed so high on the pedestal, being openly flaunted on every TV channel and newsstand, that men are no longer interested in the structural stability that comes with marriage; a masculine construct. Why buy the cow when the milk is free? Add to this the fact that the state will do everything it can to support a woman if her children's father screws up or she just one day happens to grow tired of him. Then you have a generation of men raised by women, allowing society to became feminized to the core. Men are no longer men.

Women are also being aggressively pushed into masculine roles. An interesting read on what feminine leadership leads to: http://alphagameplan.blogspot.com.au/20 ... -fail.html
Yes this is true. I am just watching the old 1955 movie Seven Samurai for about the 10th time. What a huge change in men from those days. Men prepared to die for a lost cause and laughing about the possibility of death. We have become so soft in our heads and so hard in our hearts in the Western world that this depiction of men from long ago seems to refer to men from a different planet.

I met a Japanese ex-monk in Byron Bay many years ago and was surprised at how strong he was in body and mind. So much so that I have never seen another man like him.

We are so lacking in self-deprecation and inner strength that a minor blow is all it needs to knock us over. It strikes me that men only jump up and down about being 'confident' or 'up for it', they also talk as if they could never lose, yet when they do there is little introspection to look for improvement just complaints that someone cheated, or the ref was against them or - or - or -. It ends up that they either feel like a king or shit and there is nothing in between.

No wonder the suicide rate is high, they have no inner strength to get them through the tough times.
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Re: The Seven Deadly Sins

Post by Pam Seeback »

Russell and ardy, I assume both of you are aware that the views you have on femininity and masculinity or values in general exist because of the principle of contrast and opposition (duality/relativity), the sense of being for this because one is against that. Which opens the door to considering the ontological equality of all form (and its just cause or appearance) in the sense of its absolute necessity to the thinking sense-conscious mind.
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ardy
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Re: The Seven Deadly Sins

Post by ardy »

movingalways wrote:Russell and ardy, I assume both of you are aware that the views you have on femininity and masculinity or values in general exist because of the principle of contrast and opposition (duality/relativity), the sense of being for this because one is against that. Which opens the door to considering the ontological equality of all form (and its just cause or appearance) in the sense of its absolute necessity to the thinking sense-conscious mind.
Very Bloody True - Movingalways. Unfortunately we were enjoying the conversation and forgot about the absolute - AGAIN!
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Russell Parr
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Re: The Seven Deadly Sins

Post by Russell Parr »

Not to worry, Pam. Indeed, there is no other choice but to use dualistic concepts in order to gain an understanding of fundamental Oneness. I find that using the feminine/masculine principle is very useful, for those who can stomach it.

Imagine if we drew a line that represented a dualistic characteristic that can be applied to humanity. One end can be labeled "passive" and the other "aggressive", as an example. Or "tall" and "short" for our ultra-sensitive readers. We can then plot individual humans on the line as to where they tend to lean towards. From there, we can characterize the differences of the sexes with generalities, without equating one side of a dualistic quality to one sex in an absolute sense. The side of the line that describes most women can be called the feminine side, and so on.

With this in mind, it also reveals that all men are feminine to some degree, as all women are masculine to some degree.

Equating the feminine to unconsciousness or passivity is nothing new, by the way. In Taoism, the yin in the yin-yang symbolizes darkness, earth, unconscious/subconscious, feminine, etc., while the yang represents light, heaven, consciousness, masculine, etc..
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ardy
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Re: The Seven Deadly Sins

Post by ardy »

Russell wrote:Not to worry, Pam. Indeed, there is no other choice but to use dualistic concepts in order to gain an understanding of fundamental Oneness. I find that using the feminine/masculine principle is very useful, for those who can stomach it.

Imagine if we drew a line that represented a dualistic characteristic that can be applied to humanity. One end can be labeled "passive" and the other "aggressive", as an example. Or "tall" and "short" for our ultra-sensitive readers. We can then plot individual humans on the line as to where they tend to lean towards. From there, we can characterize the differences of the sexes with generalities, without equating one side of a dualistic quality to one sex in an absolute sense. The side of the line that describes most women can be called the feminine side, and so on.

With this in mind, it also reveals that all men are feminine to some degree, as all women are masculine to some degree.

Equating the feminine to unconsciousness or passivity is nothing new, by the way. In Taoism, the yin in the yin-yang symbolizes darkness, earth, unconscious/subconscious, feminine, etc., while the yang represents light, heaven, consciousness, masculine, etc..
Love it Russell but you are cruising for a cliche - as they say....
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Russell Parr
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Re: The Seven Deadly Sins

Post by Russell Parr »

In a way, it's all cliche in the end, isn't it?

But it's still a useful cliche.
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John Paul
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Re: The Seven Deadly Sins

Post by John Paul »

Never label malice that which can be reasonably explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice.
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