how much hate do you have in your body

[vlyons]

21. Buddhist psychology

Buddhism is about examining and controlling one's mind, and that in includes emotions. What Judeo-Christian calls "soul," Buddhism calls "mind."

This is really really hard to get. We have a mind, but it is empty. Mind is devoid of intrinsic self-existence. We think our thoughts and feelings have a real substance, but they only SEEM real. Unless we are highly enlightened, most of us operate from duality. There's I/me/mine/myself and then there's everything else is "other." Even our language of sebject-verb-object promotes duality.

In the case of the MAGATs, they think that those "others," out there, are the cause of their anger and hatred. But no, they habitually cultivate, project, and label "others" as objects to be hated, because they experience the others as unpleasant. All the labels they project are creations of their very own minds. How we see the world is merely a reflection of our very own mind. We do not exist with other people's labels for us. We don't exist with our own labels for ourselves either, but that's another topic.

For long time bigoted haters, it takes someone or something extraordinary to break through their delusions about "others." Sadly their anger and hatred is habitual and unmindful. Most likely they did not grow up in a loving home. As children, were not taught self control. Few if any models of loving kindness. How many are poorly educated with little or no grasp of history, science, philosophy, literature? They are not happy people. Anyway, that's my understanding.