Oh yeah, Tilakkhana contemplation has definitely helped with my outlook on life. I was very bummed out when I essentially had the rug pulled under my feet from my last place of work, but I found it very hard to be angry towards the people involved. I experience patigha every now and then, but it kept coming back to me, “What do I have to gain being angry towards this person? When has adding more lobha or more dosa to my experience made me more happy? The people who wronged me were just as helpless as I was before I was exposed to Dhamma. Actually, who wronged me? Who was I that was wronged? They did lots of work to get this part of the universe shaped to their liking, is it really worth it on my part?”
It’s curious seeing how the undercurrent of ignorance under lobha and dosa is always some variant of trying to get something to work to my liking. I still have these schizophrenic greed fantasies of getting to play a Paganini caprice after five or ten more years of dedicated practice, knowing well this runs under the assumption that the six sense bases are of nicca nature.
I also find it interesting how many monks whose dhamma talks I listen to also used to be STEM heavy before they took up the robe. There’s one who did postdoc work after his biochemistry Ph.D (pretty much my field) and then realized that he could do a lifetime research fellowship of studying the mind without needing a grant or equipment. :3
