Ātmagrāha

From Encyclopedia of Buddhism
(Redirected from Atma-graha)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

ātmagrāha (P. attagaha; T. bdag 'dzin བདག་འཛིན་; C. wozhi 我執) is translated as "self-grasping," "self-cherishing," "ego-clinging," "ego-fixation," etc. Literally, "grasping (grāha) to atman", where atman is a permanently-existing self.

It means first having a mistaken view of a permanently-existing self (satkāyadṛṣṭi), and then grasping to that concept of self.[1] It manifests as grasping to "I," "me," "mine."

The Princeton Dictionary states:

Although the self does not exist in reality, the mistaken conception that a self exists (satkāyadṛṣṭi) constitutes the most fundamental form of clinging, which must be eliminated through wisdom (prajñā).[1]

Atma-graha in everyday experience

Dzigar Kongtrul states:

First, I’ll begin with self, which sometimes goes by the name ego, or more familiarly, I and me. What is this self, really? We can investigate by trying to analyze this self, to locate it or pin it down, to see if it even exists in the first place. This can be a highly illuminating contemplation, but for the purposes of this book, I would like to focus more on our everyday experience. Let’s identify how having a self feels.
In our mind stream, there is always some kind of feeling of having a self, which is at the center of all our thoughts and emotions. One Tibetan phrase targets this phenomenon precisely: dak che dzin. Dak means “self “; che means “important” or “dear”; dzin means “holding” or “regarding.” This term has various translations, which all capture different nuances: self-centeredness, self-clinging, ego-clinging, self-absorption. I like to use all of these terms in different contexts, but my favorite translation is “self-importance.” This word may make us think dak che dzin has mostly to do with being proud and arrogant, but such pride is nowhere near the whole story. Self-importance includes both self-cherishing and self-protection. It is the source of the five main types of painful emotions, known as the “five poisons”: attachment, aggression, jealousy, arrogance, and stupidity. It can manifest as feeling like we’re better than others, but just as easily it can manifest as low self-esteem, or even self-hatred. The bottom line is that we regard this self—whatever or wherever it is—as the most important thing in the entire universe.
Self-importance can be blatant or extremely subtle. In fact, most of the time, it’s not obvious to us. It doesn’t just pop out and announce itself. And even if we can see it clearly, we don’t usually find anything wrong with it. Either we don’t have the knowledge that self-importance is a problem, or we simply don’t want to see it as a problem. But according to the Buddhist teachings [...] all the suffering we have ever experienced, all that we experience now, and all that we will experience in the future, come from self-importance.
Anyone who has been studying Buddhism for some time has probably heard this notion expressed many times. But what is our reaction to this statement? Do we take it seriously, or do we say “Yeah, yeah . . .”? Are we even open to the possibility of accepting this idea? Our tendency is to pick and choose what we would like to be the cause of our suffering. The cause we choose is almost always something outside ourselves. Basically, the world and the people in it are failing in their duty to make us happy. We can manipulate the world and even try to demand that it bring us fulfillment, but the world will always refuse to play along. In fact, having this attitude is precisely what prevents us from having peace and joy in our lives. Shantideva, the author of The Way of the Bodhisattva, perhaps the greatest work on this subject, hits the nail on the head with this famous and provocative statement: “All the misery the world contains has come from wanting pleasure for oneself.”
[...]
Our self-importance usually doesn’t display itself in an obnoxious Hollywood way. I once saw a movie in which a character declared: “I’m brilliant! No, really! Monuments should be erected in my honor!” If our self-importance goes that far, we may notice it. But in general, we take it for granted that self-importance is our guiding principle. And even when we do have an inkling of its existence, it is rare for us to slow down and penetrate it.[2]

Within the practice of chöd

In the context of the practice of chöd, ego-clinging is identified as one of four types of "demons."

Tsultrim Allione states:

Through clinging to our ego, the mind becomes afflicted by all kinds of emotional ups and downs, thoughts are seized upon, and karma is created via the actions that result. The real root problem is clinging to notions of self versus other, not realizing how much of what we consider to be external reality we ourselves project. A simple way to put it is this: where there is egocentricity, there are demons and gods; where there is no egocentricity, there are no demons or gods. We can see the demon of the ego in our reactivity, in being irritated by criticism and inflated by praise, in wanting to accumulate material things, and in being upset when we lose wealth, possessions, or status.
We see this perhaps most vividly in two-year-olds as they grab a toy and scream “Mine!” at the top of their lungs, bashing each other ruthlessly over the head. Although we learn to modulate our fixation on ourselves and on what we want or don’t want, the same “me, me, me” still occurs in us, sometimes well masked, sometimes not. The spiritual path is the journey toward letting go of the fixation on “me” and “mine,” opening to vast compassion, and offering it to all beings. In so doing, we move beyond the ego’s fixation on itself.[3]

Machig Labdron states:

Given that ego-fixation is the root of all problems and is the cause of wandering in cyclic existence, it is therefore the demon that withholds the attainment of freedom... The mind that holds on to a self where there is no self has become afflicted. Then discursive thought holds on to any good or bad mental arising and fixates on it as true existence. That is called inflation.
[In this practice] the object (that which is inflated; snyems bya) and the subject (that which inflates; snyems byed), or ‘I’ and ‘mine,’ all external and internal phenomena, are realized by the timeless wisdom of reflexive awareness (rang rig) as nonexistent, with no true reality. Then the root of fixation to true existence will be withdrawn from the object. Once inflation over thoughts of good and bad no longer arises, there is freedom from the extremes of all conceptual embellishment that causes mental creations and mental aspirations.[4]

Types of self-grasping

Self of person vs. self of phenomena

Two types of self-grasping are identified in the Mahayana philosophical schools:[1]

Artificial vs. innate

The Mahayana also categorizes self-grasping as:[1]

Videos

"I Me Mine," by the Beatles.
I Me Mine (Naked Version / Remastered 2013)
"I Me Mine," written by George Harison, performed by The Beatles. A song about self-grasping (atmagraha).

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Buswell & Lopez 2014, s.v. ātmagrāha.
  2. ↑ Dzigar Kongtrul 2016, Introduction.
  3. ↑ Allione 2008, Chapter 8.
  4. ↑ Harding 2013, Chapter 4.

Sources

External links

Retrieved from "https://encyclopediaofbuddhism.org/index.php?title=Ātmagrāha&oldid=119500"