The Antithesis of the Buddha Dharma Path is Identity.
Just as there are two basic levels of being a Bodhisattva, there are two levels of Selfish Identity:
(1) The aspiration level
(2) The engaged level
The Engagement of Identity
The normal conditioned person engages in the practices and behaviour that bring about refined and excellent rewards for his or her identity and refrains from all attitudes, intentions and actions detrimental to the satiation of that Identity.
The Daily Reinforcement of Identity
1) Each day and even in one's dreams, one recalls the constant rewards of identity.
The Identity, as was mentioned, that generates the “false compasion which is social, the benevolent love which is conditioned and dangerous, intellectual indifference and the False happiness which is one of the roots opf the human creature's problems.”
Now it must be remembered that this “false benevolent love” is super egoistic. It is bound to the concept of “I LOVE”and the “false happiness” and the “false compassion” are equally bound to the Id and Ego respectively as “I have Compassion” and “I am happy.”
2) What is the reaffirmation and intensify factor of this Identity motivation, for it needs no regular re-dedicating? It is the sense of being. It is insufficient for the Identity that the pure mind and the body are living, the Identity must feel Comfortable, Secure and Belonging to something. If it must invent this comfort, security and belonging it does so and builds it a thousand forms in relationships both intimate and in groups.
3) Each day the Identity strives to build up positive Identity states and a deep awareness of SELF. Such is this extreme necessity that in psychological treatment we speak of self-expression, self-evaluation and the necessity of Identity.
What is this deep awareness of Self?
It arises with Attention. In attention the basic signals are seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting and thinking. The organism really needs no more than this and consciousness can do well enough with that information. But there is the Identity of Self which transforms and needs within consciousness “I see”, “I hear”, “I touch”, “I smell” “I taste” and “I think”.
Look at that for a moment.
“Cogito, ergo sum." (Latin: "I am thinking, therefore I exist").
So the 17th century French philosopher René Descartes came up with the great proof of existence: "I think, therefore I am." Can we say then the reverse is true, “If I do not think then I am not" (allowing the other five senses to be in concert with thinking)? Yes, we can indeed, for the idea of existence depends upon the “I ”element.
Now this becomes extremely important in Buddha Dharma so pay close attention.
We say “neither I nor not I”, “neither being nor not being.” That does not mean that we are somewhere in the middle. It means that existence is only a word, the individual is only a word.
It smells of philosophical trickery with words, but I assure you it is not and eventually if you are fortunate the Direct Experience will prove it for the “You” that is “neither you, nor not you.”
Then we must allow that in the mind we can invent the false joy, the false compassion and the false benevolent super-egoistic love and allow thse inventions to dictate destructive behaviour, or we can simply let there be a true joy, compassion and benevolent affect, and an equanimity beyond the words which are used to express them.
In the words of Dao… The Dao which is eternal is not the spoken Dao… The Earth (words and forms) is the Mother of ten thousand things.
What thoughts, divorced from the subtle concept of the truth of this Buddha Dharma, lead to captivity by the ideas of existence?
4) Each day benefit we benefit ourselves using all the skills and means at our disposal, as effectively as we can, and do so automatically with a deep awareness of Identity, understanding that our pleasure in the gains of self and the knowledge of self balance all pain and all suffering. I am sure you can see here the corollary of Sado-Masochism.
What is this deep awareness of Identity?
5) The constant wish “to be.” As such, it is in direct opposition with the concept of the Buddha Nature (wise nature), which is a natural process in which neither being or non-being is relevant.
What does this mean?
It means we are condemned with Identity to a constant search for the Permanent, the Ordered, Peace, Non-conflict and Existence.
Food for thought, is it not? Dwell on this and I am sure you will have questions. But relate them all to the topic of Joy, Compassion, Benevolent Affect and Equanimity.