Guilt is huge for most of us. So let’s analyze it.
All the delusions, all the neuroses, all the anger, the attachment – this is the crucial point – are all voices of the unhappy, neurotic, concrete I. And they all exaggerate: their function is to exaggerate, to grasp at, to see as solid.
Attachment, which runs the show, is this emotional hunger that’s always wanting something more, and then when it finds what it wants, it exaggerates its deliciousness and then tries to get it. Then, when it doesn’t get it, or it gets it and then it changes, aversion arises, which is anger.
Attachment and aversion are the two fundamental ones that we run between a thousand times a day, and they’re both voices of this neurotic I.
Look at anger, if you’re mad at somebody: they do a certain action that isn’t what your attachment wants, and you’ll say, “You did this! And you did that!” – and then you conclude: “And you’re a bad person!” A person does a naughty action to us and then we exaggerate the action and paint the whole person with that brush, don’t we?
It’s like that boyfriend who cheated on you: you forget all about the twenty-seven years when he was kind and loving, and then one day he cheats on you, and now forevermore all you see is this cheating boyfriend – you paint the picture of a cheating boyfriend. That’s what anger does: it exaggerates.
So guilt is exactly the same, except you are the object: “I did this! And I did that!” and you paint the whole of you with the brush of those naughty actions, and then you conclude, “And I’m a bad person!”
We run to this automatically. And it’s rooted in attachment – but in this case, attachment to being seen as a good girl, attachment to being approved of, attachment to being liked. This is the deepest attachment of all: it’s the closest to ego we can get, the most primordial attachment. It’s been there from the moment we came out of the womb.
Every time we do something naughty, you know, like break the cup, immediately we get guilty because we’ve programmed ourselves since we’re tiny: “Mummy says you shouldn’t break cups.” Or if you’ve been religious, when you’re a naughty girl you feel guilty because God says you shouldn’t do it and he’s going to punish you.
This guilt is always in reference to other people judging us as being naughty, and then we think we’re naughty, and then we get all depressed and ridiculous.
It’s very instinctive. It’s a function of ego-grasping, the root delusion. When we’ve realized emptiness, we won’t have it: it’ll be gone, we won’t have this neurotic, ridiculous sense of a self who’s naughty.
Guilt is, “I’m naughty, I did this bad thing” – we judge ourselves as naughty, based on our assumptions of what other people expect from us, all the assumptions we have about what we’re supposed to do that we’ve internalized throughout our lives.
We’ve internalized Mummy and Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa and God and the police and the government. We’re full of all these shoulds, and constantly strive to live up to these expectations in the hope of being seen and heard and validated.
All of this is very instinctive within us, very deep. This is why we’ve got to watch our minds like a hawk every second, you know, and not only simply be aware of what’s going on but be proactive.
This is important: we often think merely being aware is enough – it’s the first step, yes, but it’s not enough. We have to change our mind: argue with it, deconstruct it, don’t believe it.
First, we need to be aware of what’s in our garden, we need to identify what’s there, the weeds and the herbs, but then we need to decide what to do with them. You don’t just say, “There’s a weed” and “There’s a herb” and leave it at that. What are you going to do about it? That’s the real point.
Awareness is the first step, and analysis of it is the next step, and then, “What’ll I do about it?” “What’s the action?” The action is to change, to argue with those misconceptions. They’re very instinctive misconceptions, but argue with them!
For example, how do you argue with attachment to being approved of? You say to yourself: “What has approval got to do with who I am? Other people’s opinion about who I am can be useful, but to crave other people’s approval in order for me to think I’m a valid person, that’s silly.”
And that’s how we all are – the deepest attachment of all.
So you argue with it: “I am who I am, and I’m the boss of who I am. Whether people like it or not is not relevant.” That’s how you argue with that one.
And then we begin to have the courage to be driven by what we know is right, which is good ethics – not driven by the need to be approved of as a nice person.