[Embodied]

Hi all,

I see the psychic self as something inconsistent and not to be taken too seriously. Seeing that extremes are often an effective way to ilustrate the absurdity of a given contexte ,i will make use in this case of two extreme psychological categories: «hero» and «coward» .
I knew once two guys, one was the prototype of what is commonly called «hero»: never no one has ever saw him showing fear, whatever the situation. While the other guy nerves were much less stable.The former was what is commonly viewed as “inborn hero”. As for the latter i don’t know if one can say that he was an “inborn coward”.

Yet to me both the inborn hero and the inborn coward are but a fiction.

There is not a psy-individual which is a hero or a coward , seeing that they came to this world already as hero or coward. They didn’t made any conscious effort to outweigh any previous bio-psychic condition. Summing up , both «states of affairs» or aggregates incarnated in a given body and later a wrong self-perception will push one to identify himself to the hero personage or to the coward one.

Consequently, there is heroism but no Name being a hero, the same as for «cowardliness». Now let’s suppose that the latter diligently strives and succeeds, partly or totally, to outweigh such condition, can this be envisaged from a dhamma perspective?

“Filling-the-gaps” comments welcome…! Thanks.

[Lal]

It is true that there is no “unchanging self”, like a “hero” or a “coward”.

However, at a given time, a person has certain “gati” or habits/character. And one’s behavior at that time is influenced by his/her gati.
See: “The Law of Attraction, Habits, Character (Gathi), and Cravings (Asavas)” and “Habits, Goals, and Character (Gathi)“.

There are more posts on how to change one’s gati for the better. In fact, this is the key to making progress.
See, “How Habits are Formed and Broken – A Scientific View” and “Patisandhi Citta – How the Next Life is Determined According to Gathi“.

This has been discussed at various levels in many posts. You can also use the “Search” box on the top right to find more posts on gati (I have spelled it sometimes as gathi, so use both words).

Don’t hesitate to ask questions if something is not clear. It is a good question and understanding the issue can be quite helpful.

[Embodied]

Thanks i’ll check. Another “concept” that came suddenly to my mind which seems to be related with my post is the one of gandhabba or am I wrong ?

[Lal]

Yes. All these are inter-related.

[Author]

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