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True Happiness 6
“The complexes of superiority, inferiority, and equality give rise to the field of argumentation… When these three complexes are ended, the mind is no longer agitated.” The Separate Translation of the Miscellaneous Āgama clearly explains the complex of superiority, the complex of equality, and the complex of inferiority; eradicating the three notions of “I am better, I am less, I am equal” leads to immovable sitting, as steady as the root of a tree, a characteristic of Nirvana. “Cutting off craving, removing arrogance, completely ending anger and hatred, letting go of all fetters, and abandoning all hope” opens up happiness right in the present moment, no longer running after “name and form, perception, aspiration, and desire,” transcending “the ocean of birth and death.”
There are seven types of arrogance to recognize:
- ordinary arrogance – seeing oneself as superior;
- excessive arrogance (Atimana) – still thinking oneself superior when actually equal;
- arrogance upon arrogance (Manatimana) – placing oneself above those who are truly superior;
- self-arrogance (atma-mana) with the three notions of self, other, and coexistence;
- exalted arrogance (Adhimāna) – “claiming attainment without having attained”;
- inferiority arrogance (Una-māna) – the complex of never being able to equal the Buddha or Bodhisattvas;
- wrong arrogance – “having no virtue but thinking one has.” When “you and I are one,” the seven forms of arrogance dissolve, as do anger, jealousy, and inferiority.
“In America in 1993, there were 25,000 murders, three people died every hour; in the Soviet Union, 70,000, and in Moscow alone, 39 Vietnamese were killed.” One death is “the collapse of the universe”; we embrace each other like novices, like Sister Vinh Quang embracing her gravely ill father, “breathing in, I feel well; breathing out, I feel light,” taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, dwelling in “the joy and ease of the Dharma.” Not hoping for any new conditions, “everything necessary is already present,” that is true happiness.