What is the self cherishing attitude?
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It's described in a couple of pages of The Complete Foundation: The Systematic Approach to Training the Mind by HH the Dalai Lama.
I paraphrase:
- It is the one object of all blame -- the source of all miseries therefore the only object to be blamed for all misfortune.
- Normally we blame others because we are self-righteous
- Problems come from the kind of body we assume, which is contaminated and a product of actions -- we possess that body because of attachment to self -- therefore it's attachment to self that gives rise to suffering.
- "The self-cherishing and self-grasping attitudes abide strongly fortified in the mind, we have never been able to shake the in the least."
- It leads to wars (globally) and problems within the family.
It also leads to arguments between people with one assuming they have more truth than the other.
The chronic disease of cherishing myself
is the cause of unwanted suffering
Perceiving this, may I be inspired
To blame, begrudge, and destroy
This self-cherishing demon.
When I read a bit of https://www.google.com/search?q=%22self-cherishing+attitude%22 it seems to include both what Theravada calls "conceit" (e.g. "I am better than you") and other vices, e.g. attachments (and I don't know about comfort-seeking too ... and presumably "becoming" and "birth" and so too).
It possibly doesn't include "the view of a real personal identity" which (as in Theravada) might be stated as a separate problem.
"Bodhicitta" is maybe meant to be the antidote, to the "self-cherishing attitude". I've also seen on video his holiness say that he sees himself as "not special" and "just, like everyone else" -- because otherwise he would be/feel imprisoned (in/by his identity).
Combining the last two paragraphs above, I wonder if sunyata rather than Bodhicitta is the antidote to "the view of a real personal identity" -- but sunyata (without Bodhicitta) isn't enough by itself to get rid of the "self-cherishing attitude".
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