Sunday, December 9, 2012

Outgoing Exuberance vs Effective Consulting


"Outgoing Exuberance", a valuable Buddhist concept, really is one of the main sources of misery and trouble in this world.

It basically means being too enthusiastic about something, so that you do or say stupid things that can be harmful or inappropriate, making you look foolish.

I still struggle with this.

As a marketing consultant, sometimes I am a bit too eager to share my insights and solutions with a client who may not be ready to understand and implement them. 

Sometimes I must be in a mentoring mode and not an advisory mode. My passion for imparting my expertise must be curtailed and subdued by exercising self-restraint. In other words: "shut up and listen". LOL

Buddhist philosophy teaches that the way to stop this "outgoing exuberance" is by calming the mind, fixing attention on breathing, contemplating death and decomposition, deconstructing your cravings, manifesting compassion, cultivating inner joy and stillness, clearly seeing the transient nature of all things and thoughts, etc.

Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, atheists, all people can learn much from Buddhist psychology (as I call it). It is really not necessarily tied to Buddhist "religion" or rituals, but is more like Deconstruction or Cognitive Science.

QUOTE

"Outgoing exuberance" of the heart has been the enemy of all beings for countless ages, and a person who wants to subdue the outgoing exuberance of his own heart will need to compel his heart to take the MEDICINE which is the KAMMATTHANA.

Taking the medicine means training ones heart in Dhamma (truth, psychological reality) and not allowing it to go its own way, for the heart always likes to have outgoing exuberance as a companion. In other words, taking the medicine means that the heart brings Dhamma into itself as its guardian.

All types of Kammatthana - dhamma are for controlling the "outgoing exuberance" of the heart. The heart which is not controlled by a Kammathana is liable to the arising of outgoing exuberance throughout life.

This is so from infancy to old age, it is so with the rich and the poor, with the clever and the stupid, with those in high and low position in life, with the blind, deaf, paralysed, maimed, deformed, and so on endlessly.

The baneful effect of the outgoing exuberance of a heart which does not have Dhamma as its guardian, is that it never finds true happiness...

...and even if happiness does arise due to the outgoing exuberance of the heart searching for it and finding it, it will be happiness of the type in which one is (like an actor) playing a part, which increases the outgoing exuberance, making the heart go increasingly in the wrong direction, and not the type of happiness which is truly satisfying.

END QUOTE


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