Clinging to “I am like this” with Noah Levine

Sept 27, 2021 Each one of us has a core primary personality tendency that falls into one of the categories of the causes of suffering.

The three causes of suffering for us human beings are: greed which is craving, clinging and attachment; hatred which is being easily annoyed and aversive and angry, and delusion which means, for example, the deluded personality shows up as being maybe spaced out, sort of in a fantasy land.

If you have been practicing Buddhism for a full long time you know yourself according to this system; I'm a greed type or I'm a hatred / aversion type, or I'm a diluted personality tendency.

If you don't know yet, the way to self-diagnose is to think about when you enter a new space, a new room for the first time our personality will kind of run the show.

Greedy types will first see what you like and then maybe later you'll think, “they should really build some ******* shelves over there.” You might also have some judgments but first you'll see like what you like.

The aversive type first walks into the room and has a personality trait tendency to see what you don't like first; this carpet needs to be shampooed, the art is a little crooked, fold the ******* blankets, these chairs are not six feet apart. This is irresponsible! You are kind of characterized as a pessimist. You might come around to being like, “I do kind of like the art,” so it's not all negative, but it’s not your first thought is aversive.

The diluted type is harder to talk about, maybe you are sort of too into yourself to even have that sort of craving or aversion 'cause you're just kind of like what the **** is going on here? I was thinking about something else the whole time.

Can you diagnose yourself? And, do you think personalities can actually change?