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The Path of Accumulation

 
 Geshe Sonam Rinchen once told me that the essential element in Dharma practice was converting negative minds into positive minds. The Dharma Master of Namgyal Monastery later told me the same thing. I think that this takes many forms and at a retreat I once lead I suggested that one could look at the Path of Accumulation as the transformation of negative minds into positive minds. 

 The Path of Accumulation is the first of five sequential paths leading to Buddhahood. It is followed by the Path of Preparation, the Path of Seeing (i.e., seeing emptiness directly), the Path of Meditation and finally the Path of No More Learning, which is Buddhahood. The mantra Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha in the Heart Sutra encompasses these five paths.

  Buddhism has adapted to every culture in which it has taken root. In the USA this adaptation has included a sort of "psychologization".  I think there are many reasons for this, but one certainly is the contemporary practice of psychotherapy as a means for mental transformation. So the potential connection with Buddhism seems fairly obvious.

 A retreatant showed me these notes she had taken about the process of mental transformation developed by an anthropologist by the name of Angeles Arrien:
  • Whenever my critic is usually present I have compassion work to do.
  • When I'm impatient I have loving kindness work to do.
  • When I'm competitive & jealous I have empathetic joy work to do.
  • When I'm over extended & out of balance I have equanimity work to do. 
 These practices seem like a good synthesis of traditional Buddhist and modern psychological approaches to mind transformation. I don't think that Buddhists wrote or taught about the "inner critic" which disturbs our own mental equilibrium and our relationships with others, but they would understand the process in their own language. Those of us who are doing the work of self awareness and change will recognize how we project our mental states onto those around us, that there is no fundamental difference between the critical attitudes we have toward others and toward ourselves, and that improving our relations with others depends on dealing with the critical attitudes we have toward ourselves.  The inner critic of me expresses itself as the critic of you. Looked at from another perspective, the Dalai Lama notes that actually we can't love others unless we first love ourselves. 

 So, again, it seems to me that modern psychological "work on oneself" is, for western Buddhists, practice of the Path of Accumulation, as what is really accumulated in this work are good mental habit patterns. 

 Sometimes "work on oneself" may seem self-centered. But if we understand our deep interconnections, work on oneself is seen to benefit everyone we encounter.


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