Are those who haven't attained enlightenment 'psycho'?

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First, the word "psycho" is actually slang, so it's not proper to use in any intellectual discussion. The word you are thinking of is "psychotic", which technically refers to a person who suffers from or behaviour that stems from a psychosis.

The term "psychosis" is very broad and can mean anything from relatively normal aberrant experiences through to the complex and catatonic expressions of schizophrenia and bipolar type 1 disorder. In properly diagnosed psychiatric disorders (where other causes have been excluded by extensive medical and biological laboratory tests), psychosis is a descriptive term for the hallucinations, delusions, sometimes violence, and impaired insight that may occur. Psychosis is generally the term given to noticeable deficits in normal behavior (negative signs) and more commonly to diverse types of hallucinations or delusional beliefs, especially as regards the relation between self and others as in grandiosity and pronoia/paranoia.

This definition could easily be interpreted loose enough to include all people with wrong views or conceit, but as the term is used in modern psychology, it wouldn't actually include most "ordinary" beings. So, as with all terms, it depends on who is doing the defining.

So, that should pretty much answer your first question - "psycho" is slang, but "psychotic" could be used to describe a non-enlightened person, though it would be quite a bit broader than what is generally accepted to be the meaning of the term.

As to your second, fairly unrelated question, in regards to how it relates to your first question, the fact that ordinary people are mentally deranged means that sometimes indeed you will be unable to make them understand you. In fact, really the only one you should be worried about understanding you is yourself. There is nothing in the path to enlightenment that requires you to be understood by others.

Upvote:1

I think Avidya is probably more direct than "psycho" . ignorant of the 4 noble truths.

1) I would use Avidya instead. 2) I'm not sure about this question. I'm guessing, practicing Buddhism is strange in other people's eyes (at least people around you)? sure, but no need for argument. one characteristic of a stream enterer is avoiding quarrel or distructive confrontation.

Upvote:3

This is exactly the kind of dualistic thinking that has to be dropped on the way to enlightenment. "If I'm good, the rest of the world is crazy / and if the rest of the world is good, I must be the crazy one" - this is a kind of emergent-coarising ("if this is, that is, if that is, this is") that you need to figure out in your meditation.

Upvote:4

The commentary of Majjhima Nikaya ‘Papancasudani’ says that – “All worldly beings are deranged”, “Sabbe puthujjana ummataka”

So even if you get a green light by the contemporary mental health standards, you can still be called a psycho according to Buddhism as long as you are not enlightened. The level of insanity varies from person to person.

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