The Types of Human Personality in Buddhism
As per the Visuddhimagga, the human personality dawns six intricate facets, each of which has a bad/good or negative/positive or a yin/yang for modern reference. These six types have been summarized into three distinct pairs of personality type. The negative characteristics are called Unwholesome, while the positive traits are known as the Wholesome. The three pairs of personality are as following:
Greed/Faith
Anger/Wisdom
Confusion/Balance
When asked to develop the mind of equilibrium, the Sutta Nipata (Buddhist scripture), encourages its believers to gain control of their thoughts. While figuring out your Buddhist personality, you must realize that, each sentient being, that ever existed on the earth has all these characteristics, inherent within him. Which simply refers to the fact that, all the three types and all its six aspects are existing parallel to one another. It’s up to you to analyze and question yourself as to which category you fall in, and which traits manifest the most in your thoughts and action.
The Twin Centric Combination of Traits
You must also be aware of the fact that, while judging your personality, you must remain unbiased. You will need to let go of all inhibitions and fear, and not worry about the outcome. As I mentioned earlier, none of the traits are evil, and are a part of our being. We all have our quirks and drawbacks, as well as our positive attributes. The Path of Purification wants that we allow our positive personality to take charge and keep the negative aspects at their bare minimal. The idea is to eventually renounce the negative aspects of our personality, so that we progress as humans and achieve the fullest of our potential. In order to bring forth your positive side, every personality is required to meditate on specific aspects, which shall be discussed in this article.
Buddhist Personality Test
Let’s find out which Buddhist personality type you fit in and which ones dominate your being through the chart mentioned below. Try our quiz to figure out who you are…
When colleagues ask you to join them for a movie, what do you say?
A) Great, that’s a plan. Let’s go!
B) I don’t even know them that well, I don’t think so…
C) OK, if you say so, but do I really want to go? Don’t know…
When you see a posh new car entering the driveway, what do you think?
A) WOW! I want that car for myself…
B) Why do people have to flaunt so much?
C) There is no way I can ever afford something that good…
You see a happy couple lost in each other. What would be your thoughts…?
A) You’ll be jealous and will inadvertently envy the two…if you do not have a healthy relationship.
B) It’s inappropriate for people to get too cozy in public…
C) You’ll feel dejected and lonely for not having someone special in your life but all the same, you’ll be happy for the couple.
You received a bonus on your salary. What will you do with the extra money?
A) Splurge within the next few days on extravagances.
B) Save and put the money in a separate account, even though there are a few things you really want to buy for a long time.
C) Spend the money on useless things that you gain no pleasure out of it.
What would you do if you found out that your boyfriend/girlfriend cheated on you?
A) Not worry so much as you can easily move on and will find someone else.
B) Be furious and extremely hurt, and end up verbally accusing the other of deceit.
C) You’ll blame yourself and think that there must be something wrong with you and that you were not good enough for him/her.
Answer Key
A) If all your answers were (A), then you are greedy.
B) If all you answers were (B), then you are angry.
C) If all your answers were (C), then you are confused.
D) A combination of A, B and C will show that you have a bit of all these traits in you.
However, one of the three traits will dominate the rest. It will be that dominant trait that you will need to tame more intently.
Manifestation of Your Positive Self
1)The Greedy Soul That Found Faith
The greedy personality is always associated with the one who has faith. These people like to enjoy good life, such as new possessions, expensive lifestyle, excessive friends, money, and class. They are possessive about love and jealous by nature. The flip side to this trait is that when the greed overtakes the person, they can become power-hungry and will continually seek the attention of people. They will want to be the center of attention and can go to the extent of harming others for personal gains.
“If beings knew, as I know, the results of sharing gifts, they would not enjoy their gifts without sharing them with others, nor would the taint of stinginess obsess the heart and stay there. Even if it were their last and final bit of food, they would not enjoy its use without sharing it, if there were anyone to receive it” ~ Itivuttaka 18
Meditation for Faith, requires such individuals to focus on impermanence and expiry of life itself. They need to understand that the life they are living is bound to end and so shall temporary happiness be gained from greed. Realizing that everything has an end and will come to its end, is the only belief which will break the cycle of addiction, that the greedy mind revels in. According to all Buddhist beliefs, greed is a sinister addiction of the soul, which inhibits its victims from experiencing true harmony with themselves and the world. If you find yourself in this dilemma, you are requested to meditate and imagine that each and every part of your body is gradually shutting down or dying. It’s a difficult form of meditation which will require that you steel yourself for this daunting task. The feeling of death overcoming your being, will gradually help you understand that greed is not worth it, and death is inevitable. Thus, leading a philanthropic and charitable life is more fulfilling to your soul.
2)The Angry Soul That Found Wisdom
Anger makes people weary and suspicious of everything around them. The angry personality is always critical and judgmental, ever willing to condone the actions of others and find faults in them. Though, this attribute when tuned to the right direction becomes an asset, as it helps these individuals steer clear of negative influences and bad decisions. They are very adept at figuring out the true characteristics and intentions of people, because of their strong sense of intuition or inkling. However, because of their quick and rash irritation or animosity with the world, these people often suffer from unhappiness. They expect the world to be up to their mark of perfection, which strains their relationship with dear and near ones and others. They complain and crib about the lack of order in their relationships, as well as in the thoughts and action of others around them. They feel like misfits and feel hurt that others are making the world a bad place to live in.
“Conquer the angry man by love.
Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness.
Conquer the miser with generosity.
Conquer the liar with truth.”
~ The Dhammapada
Meditation for wisdom, will help bring out the sharp sense of intellect that the angry personality harbors. Through meditation they can harness on their deep insight to things and learn to forgive and accept others for who they are. Wisdom allows magnanimity, which teaches such people to love. Much like the quote from Dhammapada, mentioned above. These individuals need to let go of their pain and resentment, that they know; deep within has no justification. If you find yourself within this abyss, you will need to seek forgiveness from within, from yourself. Meditate and simply enjoy the feeling of kindness and love that you feel from within you. Your objective is to treat people with respect, kindness and love, without expecting anything in return. All you need to do is feel good about your own actions.
3)The Confused Soul That Found Balance
This personality type, as per Buddhist teachings, is a person who goes with the flow, and keeps changing his course depending on who influences him the most. Such people are confused and do not know what they want out of their lives. They get easily influenced and listen to people and trust them too much. They are fickle-minded, easily distracted by everything around them and are easily swayed by opinion. They often, doubt their own potential and are conflicted about their ideologies. When something goes wrong, they question themselves and place the blame on themselves. The biggest drawback of this personality is that they find it very difficult to make decisions pertinent to their lives and keep dilly-dallying with their time. They are self-conscious and have low aspiration levels.
“Half the spiritual life consists of remembering what we are up against and where we are going… And the other half is taking complete personal responsibility for getting there!” ~ Ayya Khema, “When the Iron Eagle Flies” ~ Joshua Bryer
These individuals must meditate and learn to focus all their attention towards one sole objective. They must assimilate all their scattered thoughts into one single purpose, and make that their goal. This has to be done through simple, steady and deep breathing, thereby allowing the mind to relax and gain steadiness. If you find yourself stuck in this limbo of a personality, through focus and meditation, you’ll find yourself becoming more aware of the things you wish out of your life and how to achieve them.
Prisoners of Pleasure
You can only understand it viscerally, when you have trudged on the pleasure path for long and lost yourself completely, vacillating between a pleasurable high and boredom, feeling empty inside. One classic sign of a pleasurable sensation is no matter how much you engage in it, you are always left feeling just as empty, as you did before. In my experience, what helps us cut through the veil of ‘maya (illusion)’, ‘mara (the symbolic lord of the realm of desire in Buddhist philosophy)’ or pleasure, is the fact that you have got a very limited time to live.
Would you spend your time being seduced by any kind of pleasure, when you know you’ve got a few days to live? What is most important to you? The pleasurable sensation right now or the lasting satisfaction and happiness you would get from doing things for people who really matter to you. Asking these questions, brings about a paradigm shift in our attitude towards life. Do you want instant gratification and pleasure, for a lifetime of pain, or would you rather take efforts right now, towards lasting peace later? It’s all about the choices we make.
Identifying pleasure and happiness as inherently different things, is only the first step. If happiness is not pleasure and continuing pleasurable sensations, what is it really? Does it lie in ordering all external conditions to our liking?
If that is your idea of happiness, then you can look forward to eternal dissatisfaction, for external things are never going to be under your complete control. Like your body and your mind, they are all in a constant flux. Everything will wither away and all that will remain are your deeds. Death and impermanence are a reality, one has got to come to terms with. Nothing lasts. Period. Choose your priorities now and make amends. It is never too late. Impermanence has a way of separating all that matters from all that doesn’t. Think about it, meditate on it. This is all that you ever need to know. That’s the message of Buddha, the man who was one of the firsts to make a breakthrough in understanding the meaning of true happiness.
Peace and happiness can only be found in ordering and balancing the mind, which is the mediator, between our external and inner worlds. The Buddha says ‘Mind is everything. What you think you become.’ and ‘Peace comes from within. Don’t seek it without’. Let go of anger, greed and delusion, for they wreck everything. Cultivate wholesome thoughts of compassion, generosity and kindness within. If you analyze what the great master says, you will find wisdom and the power to achieve true inner peace and happiness in the luminous quality of the mind, which is ‘pure awareness’.
However, the master can only show you the way, it is we who must strive on our own, to achieve inner peace. The secret is to look within, watch our minds, cultivate compassion and concentrate on the present moment, to give it our best. Learning to meditate on these truths everyday and bringing them into practice, will surely put you on the right path. To conclude, I leave you with another one of Buddha’s liberating thoughts,
In this world of violence, the most vulnerable creatures are perhaps the children. They have not yet acquired the ability to discern between right and wrong, and they are much less analytical when it comes to their living conditions, to different circumstances and often difficulties they have to deal with. And since parents are ever busier, trying to earn a living and focusing on the material aspects of their lives rather than what actually goes on with their children and their fragile minds, children may fall victims to different unpleasant situations that can result in traumas they are likely to carry along with them sometimes even all the way to adulthood. The thing is, children tend to be very emotional and to associate certain things, activities, persons, and places with certain feelings, be them positive or negative, depending on the harm these elements may actually bring to them. The problem is, you cannot really make a child speak to you openly about his problems, since verbal communication is not their major type of expression. Children like to express themselves through the games they play.
Playing means to kids what speaking means to grown-ups. It is a good environment for them to express their feelings, to explore human relationships, to confess their wishes, describe their very own experiences, and to achieve a feeling of fulfillment.
Children’s problems are generally of an inside nature, they do not exit outside themselves. In the process of growing up, many of the children’s problems are related to the fact that grown-ups are incapable to understand and actually respond to what the child is feeling or trying to communicate. This “communication gap” is expanded by the persistence with which adults try to convince their children to adopt the means of communication employed by grown-ups. In order for children to communicate verbally, they need a more developed skill to express themselves, and therefore they may find it rather intimidating, uncomfortable and restrictive to communicate in such manner.
Children best respond to action and activities, which are their primary preoccupations, and because of that game therapy can enable the therapist to enter the child’s world. Games help children tell adults what exactly has happened, revealing their experiences and the feelings associated by the children to these experiences. If the child was taken to therapy due to his aggressive behavior, the playing environment provided by the therapist can offer the opportunity to experiment aggression so while the child is hitting a doll or trying to shoot the therapist with a toy gun, he can also learn self-control using the proper therapeutic procedures for defining his limits.
Given the opportunity to externalize their feelings and needs, children will do it in a manner similar to the adults’. Although the dynamic of expression and the means of communication are different for the children, the expressions (fear, anger, satisfaction, joy, frustration, contentment) are similar to those of the adults. Children may encounter serious difficulties in expressing what they feel or how their experiences have affected them. However, if they are left in the presence of a caring, sensitive and empathic grown-up person, they are likely to reveal their inner feelings through toys and through the materials they choose, through what they do with them or how they play with them, as well as through the stories they interpret. The game therapy process can be seen as a relationship between the child and the therapist, in which the child uses the game in order to explore his personal world and to realize the contact with the therapist in a way which ensures the child’s safety. Game therapy gives the child the opportunity to externalize, by playing games, his experiences and the feelings associated to them. This process allows the therapist to experiment, in a personal, interactive manner, the dimensions of the child’s inner universe. This therapeutic relationship ensures a dynamic therapeutic relationship together with the child’s healing.
In order for the game therapy to have good results, the therapists must necessarily be specialists in this field. Apart from their university psychology studies, ideally they should follow an MA in the field of child psychology and to have therefore knowledge on the subject of game therapy for children.