Character

The word "character" covers a wide range, including psychology, personality, one's manner of conduct in life, the ability to restrain the mind, the demeanour expressed outwardly in gestures...

There are great characters such as the saints whose names are praised through the ages, like Socrates, Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Francis of Assisi, Martin de Porres, Gandhi, Vinoba, Zhuangzi, Wang Yangming... Then within each religion there are particular Saints whom the faithful admire for ever, such as the saints of Christianity, the arhats and Zen masters of Buddhism... In the history of each nation there are also outstanding characters with fervent love of country and with feats in defending the nation and building the homeland. In the field of science too there are scholars who devoted their whole lives to the progress of human civilisation with tireless perseverance, like Pasteur, Newton, Einstein, Marie Curie...

They are people who both rendered great service to humanity and had a noble, venerable character.

In contrast to those eminent characters, there are also ordinary kinds of people who think only of personal gain: devious, wicked, deceitful, hot-tempered, stubborn, narrow-minded... Their number is so large that prisons are crammed full, so that America has had to accept the setting up of private prisons. The state wants private operators to hold prisoners in accordance with policy and to receive payment from the government.

The law acts only when there are signs that a crime has been committed, imposing sanctions so that the person does not reoffend, but it is hard for it to change an evil mind that has taken deep root in a person's subconscious. Many offenders commit a crime straight after being released. Some pretend to be well behaved to have their sentence reduced and be freed earlier, but the moment they leave prison they return to the path of crime.

This world seems to have become hell when "Man is still a wolf to man". The struggle to grab advantages appears everywhere. In the family, in school, in the fields, in enterprises, in society, between nations, between big companies... Everywhere there is tearing apart, scheming, cheating, cursing, killing, even at the level of cruelty of war that destroys vast regions.

Faced with such heartbreaking scenes, many people dream of a new world in which people know how to love one another and live happily together, like the Papuan tribes on the island of New Guinea. All year round they work to find food and also enjoy themselves, dancing and singing together, and they often visit the graves of those who have passed away. They live in freedom and die in the loving remembrance of the tribal community. They live in the gloomy, silent mountains and forests, yet remain united and loving, cheerful and happy. That is something worth our reflection.

Ethicists have cried out in the world for people to be more moral, but their cries are lost like an echo in the desert. People are as dissolute and wicked as before.

Many religions have come into being to create a sacred, mystical atmosphere that brings people to morality through the gateway of mystical faith. They believe that the gods always watch over all their actions, will reward them when they do good and punish them when they do evil. Each religion has its own gods, but all are alike in rewarding good and punishing evil. Later, however, more and more new religions have appeared with strange aims. Even now in India there is a religion that has smashed all the old values and praises liberation by way of indiscriminate sexual freedom, except for those with AIDS. Religion has gradually lost its sacred value because it no longer stands firm in the position of building morality for society. Sometimes some religions become a thorn that irritates sociologists and scientists.

As we know, thought is the cause and action is the result. Only when there is a will to do something is there an accomplishment. Sometimes the wish appears in this life and the deed appears only in the next. Lama Govinda in his previous life was a German writer who died young and had cherished the intention of seeking the truth in Buddhism. In this life he was born in Colombia, left home to follow Buddhism, studied in Ceylon, went to study in Tibet, and wrote many famous books.

So character is the cause and action is the result. A good character will surely produce good actions in the future, in this life or the next. A person who constantly nurtures noble aspirations will surely carry out noble deeds. Therefore cultivating character is extremely important for everyone. Not only must we cultivate our own character, but we must also help those around us build theirs.

However, as said, character is not the first cause; it is still the result of a cause before it. Once we grasp this earlier cause, we will have methods to reform character more effectively.

For example, admiring the contemplative bearing of a saint will give us a similar contemplative bearing in the future. Praising a great person's compassionate mind also creates a compassionate mind in ourselves in return.

So if people read much about the wonderful moral anecdotes of famous figures, and some admiration arises in their hearts, that is precisely the source that creates good character for them later.

Criminals held in prison for a long time seem never to hear stories of great saints. They witness only countless stories of crime, deceit and killing one another, in which the strong and the cunning are the victors. Kindness is never mentioned. When they talk, each of them recounts his own horrifying exploits to win the admiration of others. Bathed in such an atmosphere, it is no wonder that few, on finishing their sentences, become honest people. Admiration for hardened, wicked and selfish gang bosses creates a repulsive character in them. And so prison will never be a place where people are reformed into gentle, good persons.

Starting from admiration of a character in others, that character will come to exist in us. There was a man with a hot temper, and he too was very troubled by this bad habit. But whenever he flared up he could not restrain himself. Once he happened to read the story of the Japanese Zen master Hakuin, who kept his composure when he was falsely accused of having made a girl in the village pregnant. When the baby was born, it was handed over to him. He calmly went to beg milk for the baby, although all his fame and glory were gone. Later the girl, filled with remorse, confessed that the baby's father was a young man who sold fish at the market. Her parents came to apologise to him and ask for the baby back. He was as calm as if nothing had happened.

The story moved the man. He drew a picture of Master Hakuin and hung it in his room to contemplate. A few years later, among his friends he became known as a calm person who never lost his temper when facing adversity.

The difficulty in reforming people's character is how to make them feel moved and full of admiration before some extraordinary character. They need the practical example of those around them; they need to read much about the holy lives of great figures of the past.

In Sand and Pebbles there is also the story of a thief who, after leaving prison, went to ask to be ordained by a Zen master from whom he had earlier tried to steal, simply because, when robbed, the master's mind remained at ease and full of forgiveness. Throughout his time in prison, his admiration had probably ripened and grown strong.

Sometimes we condemn the censorship of cultural products in the West as far too lax. Unwholesome stories have dealt heavy blows to humanity's morality. Selfish, utilitarian and vengeful ways of living that are exalted have done immeasurable harm to generations. Why do people forbid drugs and toxic foods... yet, in the name of freedom of speech, allow evil to flood into human minds through books, newspapers and films?

Weeds always grow easily. Food crops are always hard to plant and tend. In the same way, the human instinct of self-attachment, selfishness and pleasure-seeking sprouts and develops very easily, while an altruistic, gentle, forgiving mind is very hard to nurture and keep. Harmful cultural works are like barrels of fertiliser poured on the field of weeds of malice in the human mind. One does not know when the world will manage to control the works that harm the morality of humankind!

Besides the karmic cause of admiring the noble character of the Saints in order to form noble character in ourselves, there is a second karmic cause that is no less effective: RESOLVE.

If you are a person of faith, kneel sincerely before the altar, send your whole reverent heart up to the Supreme Being and offer that being your earnest resolve.

"From now on and for ever, I vow to give up every selfish, narrow, cruel, hot-tempered, greedy and envious thought... I vow to love all beings with the warmest love. I vow that my whole life will be lived only for everyone, to love and serve all, and even if I must give up this body, I will smile cheerfully. This is my sincere vow; may the grace from above enlighten me."

If only once a day you kneel before the altar and make a similar resolve, before long a wonderful character will appear in your mind. The darkness is retreating, the light is taking its throne.

If you are a person with no faith, no religion, no trust in any founder or any spirit, it does not matter! So long as you believe that all people have a spiritual space that interpenetrates one another, so long as you believe that all things share one Absolute Fundamental Nature, that is enough! You can still sit quietly within yourself and tell yourself:

"From now on I will give up all selfishness, narrowness and cruelty; my mind will spread love to all beings. I will live to bring peace and happiness to all beings."

With the power of the mind, that resolve is enough to transform your character and also to infect the minds of many people living nearby. And the Fundamental Nature has already created a new karmic result: an extraordinary character, gradually appearing in your physical person.

In another aspect, criticising others' character also creates a similar character in ourselves. For example, we often criticise others for lack of humility. Later, suddenly some signs of conceit and arrogance show up in our own behaviour. Or we deride people's selfishness, and then in a moment of lost control narrow-mindedness suddenly appears in ourselves.

So a person who understands the Way is very reserved in criticising others. If there is a chance to teach a bad person, speak to them directly. Otherwise, avoid talking in a roundabout way, sending messages, or broadcasting people's faults widely.

Sometimes in a previous life we were not hot-tempered, but only because we attacked others' hot temper too much, in this life we suddenly have an uncontrollable hot temper.

Besides the deeper causes above, character is also the practical result of some mentalities and views.

For example, when attachment to self grows strong, we become hot-tempered, conservative, stubborn, ambitious... A Vietnamese proverb says, "Old age brings quirks, as the earth brings weeds." Old people often develop strange habits that their children and grandchildren find hard to bear and cannot understand. In the end people have to accept it as a normal phenomenon that must occur, as earth must grow weeds. The reason is very simple: as people grow older, with more children and grandchildren, and see that they hold a senior position as grandfather or grandmother, everyone they meet greets and respects them. Over time the self-attachment and self-importance inside are gradually reinforced. Then that mentality of self-importance brings serious disorders of character such as conservatism, stubbornness, sulking, boasting...

Or some figures suddenly become famous with resounding success and are admired by many. If they cannot restrain their conceit, they too easily develop some odd quirks. This is something that theatre impresarios constantly have to put up with from famous actors and actresses. They make demands, sulk, all sorts of things.

Or some scholars read philosophies that exalt the "absoluteness" within oneself, deny the relationships around, and hold that only the absolute within oneself is most important. This philosophical view too easily produces a mentality of arrogant self-importance and brings disorders of character such as being eccentric, haughty, strange, contradicting and opposing whatever anyone says...

Besides psychological causes, there are also pathological causes that lead to changes in character. Some disorders of the endocrine glands also disturb a person's psychology and character. The pituitary, thyroid, adrenal and pancreatic glands and so on clearly affect human psychology. A person with an underactive thyroid is usually listless and dejected. Conversely, a person with an overactive thyroid is usually lively and restless. Sometimes certain desires, cravings and conceit are aroused entirely through a disorder of the endocrine glands and not through a mistake in psychology or views. So in these cases medical intervention is necessary, rather than merely giving advice to the patient.

Diseases of the internal organs such as stomach ulcers, weak lungs and liver failure also cause irritation and tension in the nerves of the brain, affecting character. The patient can still use will and skill to hold back their psychology from being excessively disturbed, but that is still not enough to end the illness. Outside medical intervention is needed to treat the physical illness.

Today scientists are gradually delving into all the functions of the brain. They find that each region of the brain is responsible for one psychological state. If the "irascible region of the brain" is larger than normal, then clearly this person is very hot-tempered. If the "region of the brain for desire" is smaller than normal, then clearly this person has few base desires.

However, why one region of the brain is large and another small is still something to be investigated. It may be that the mentality of craving desire itself makes the desire region grow beyond normal.

Or a person may have a large "region of the brain for conceit" but know how to transform their mentality into humility, and then this region shrinks with their own self-reform.

So subjective psychological causes together with objective pathological causes act jointly to form a person's character. To reform people to become nobler, we must grasp many sides of the question before we can achieve results.

Telling a person to stop being hot-tempered and cruel is useless! It is only because their endocrine glands are seriously disturbed and need appropriate treatment.

However, treating the physical illnesses is still not enough; we must also instil a noble mentality so that they educate themselves. A person's subjective psychology is the factor that lasts.

A hypnotist can act on the deep consciousness of a robber to make him stop his malice. But that is only temporary. In the long run the malice will return. The robber himself must become conscious of his wrongs and resolve to perfect himself. And this work can only be done through true education.

If in future every prison had hypnotists and psychiatrists in charge, perhaps the number of offenders who reoffend on completing their sentences would fall, because they would have been reformed on both fronts: the objective action of hypnosis and medicine, and true education to bring about subjective reform in themselves.

Imprisonment, beating and threats never make people transform their character. Moreover, in an environment made up entirely of wicked people living together, that malice resonates and is amplified ever more strongly, and in the end prison is itself a furnace for training crime.

At some point people will regard offenders as sick persons, sick in character, like psychiatric patients or patients with bodily illnesses...

Most patients with bodily illnesses are advised to use medicine and surgery (objective action) and to train themselves in exercise and health-preserving practice (subjective action). Likewise, patients sick in character must also be given medicine and hypnosis (objective action) and be educated to become conscious of their own morality (subjective action). In addition, they need to be in an environment free of bad contagion, just as bodily patients avoid infection.

With such a fresh view, we will feel more love for people and be more tolerant when facing the bad (those sick in character).

Researchers also report that at the time of the full moon, people are more easily agitated than usual.

Besides the basic issues above, occasionally some people suffer from "multiple personality" disorder. Sometimes they see themselves as a writer. Then the next day they see themselves as a famous woman prophet... Many have explained this as the phenomenon of spirit possession: their bodies have been temporarily borrowed by wandering spirits. However, that explanation is not complete.

Some outstanding actors, when playing a role, enter it completely. They genuinely see themselves as the character written in the script and perform perfectly. In a lifetime as an actor they have entered so many roles, and each one they played as if real. That is the cause of "multiple personality" illness in the next life. There is nothing strange about it at all. They are living again each role they played in the previous life. What matters is that in the previous life they had suggested to themselves too strongly that they were the character being played in order to attain a high level of acting. That self-suggestion produced a personality for the next life. Many different roles, with many instances of self-suggestion, produced the result of "multiple personality" that surprises psychiatrists.

Apart from the sense of noble or base character, there are also people with serious disorders of character, whom people usually call mad and whom medicine calls mental and nervous illnesses, with complex distinctions. The mad can no longer maintain normal harmony with the society around them. They are strangely agitated from within, then express strange words and behaviour outwardly. Some, in a fit of madness, are extremely violent, ready to smash and kill everything around them. Some, in a fit of madness, babble as if talking to an invisible person. Some forget all relations with the people around them and seem to be lost in a world of illusion of their own.

Some psychiatric patients think they are gods descended to earth. Others declare that they will not deign to love anyone although the whole world is asking to marry them. Some fall into terrible sexual perversion. Others suddenly crave to kill a great many people... There are countless strange states of mental illness that are hard to explain.

Body and mind are one unified whole, affecting each other very closely. Disorders of character like those above are clearly variations of the brain or of certain regions of it. When some region suddenly swells (a brain tumour), it becomes powerfully active on its own and presses on the regions around it. Its powerful activity immediately drives distortions in thought, speech and action. For example, the region of delusion suddenly becomes larger than normal, making the person constantly feel tense (raised intracranial pressure), unable to sleep, and constantly confronted by flickering illusions around them, or hearing many voices in their ears urging them to do wrong.

The measures needing to be taken are medicine, hypnosis or surgery to resolve the acute condition. Afterwards, education is used to awaken the patient's own alert subjective awareness for a lasting solution in the long term.

Some people, through concentrating their thoughts too much because of a heavy workload, or through practising seated meditation in the wrong way, or through excessive ambition, an excessively strong mentality of conceit, or excessive superstition... can all bring about variations in the brain that lead to the state of mental and nervous illness.

We need to live at ease, in accord with the right Dharma, in accord with science and in accord with morality. We need to reform ourselves, freeing ourselves from a mentality of ambition for power or excessive self-importance. In Mr Jin Yong's story The Six Meridians Divine Sword, the character Gusu Murong finally goes mad because of an overwhelmingly strong craving for power that he could not achieve. Every day he went out to the edge of the fields, bought cakes and handed them out to buffalo-herding children so that they would call him "great king", to satisfy somewhat his dream of ruling the world.

An excessive mentality of superstition, such as believing that ghosts and spirits hover around to beg for food or to bestow protection, also causes madness to appear in many people. In psychiatric hospitals, those who went mad through superstition are quite numerous.

However, these are only proximate causes; the true, deeper cause is still karma from the past. Why, of two people with the same ambition for power, does one go mad and the other not? When two people are both superstitious, one goes mad and the other does not! Two people practise meditation by the same method, but one goes mad and the other does not? Why does a brain tumour appear in one person and spare others?... The real cause still belongs to karma from the distant past.

The karmas that cause madness are listed as follows:

One, slandering the right Dharma and attacking the truth so that people fall into wrong views is the gravest wrongdoing. Some people, to defend their own doctrine, have opposed all other philosophies without restraint, including some that are quite genuine and reasonable. Denying the truth is the gravest wrongdoing.

Two, attacking those who embody the truth. A person who embodies the truth may be a Saint who has attained the Way, may be a philosopher who thinks rightly, or may be someone who does not say much but lives a life of lofty virtue. Attacking such people is the second gravest wrongdoing, enough to make madness appear.

Three, in a state of intoxication from stimulants such as alcohol and drugs, a person has made a great deal of trouble. They have practised being mad with alcohol even though they were not yet mad. But that too is a cause that brings about the karmic result of madness later.

Four, cruelly teasing the mad, for example by throwing stones, mimicking their gestures and cursing them.

Five, too much malice, always wanting to harm others.

Broadly, these five karmic causes are the basis for causing madness later. Besides them there are many secondary causes.

So character is a varied and complex matter. We need to consider it from many aspects to gain a comprehensive view, so that we know how to love and help others rather than constantly criticising them. Someone with low character is really only a form of illness, more abstract than a physical illness. And if it is an illness, there must be a cure that combines objective action with subjective awareness. As for a person who is mad and no longer aware of anything, their relatives must make a great deal of merit to pray for them, since they themselves cannot help themselves in any way.