In her live Vibe with Venerables episode (Episode #11, recorded on 15 June 2025, US Pacific Time), Venerable Damcho read some excerpts from Venerable Thubten Chodron’s book, Open Heart, Clear Mind.
The passages excerpted:
“Generally we’re attracted to people either because they have qualities we value or because they help us. If we observe our own thought processes, we’ll notice that we look for specific qualities in others. Some of these are qualities we find attractive, others are those our parents or society value. We examine someone’s looks, education, financial situation and social status. If we value artistic or musical ability, we look for that. If athletic ability is important to us, we check for that. Thus, each of us has different qualities we look for and different standards for evaluating them. If people have the qualities on our “internal checklist” we value them. We think they’re good people who are worthwhile. It appears to us as if they are great people in and of themselves, unrelated to our evaluation of them. But in fact, because we have certain preconceptions about which qualities are desirable and which aren’t, we’re the ones who create the worthwhile people.
In addition, we judge people as worthwhile according to how they relate to us. If they help us, praise us, make us feel secure, listen to what we say and care for us when we’re sick or depressed, we consider them good people. This is very biased, for we judge them only in terms of how they relate to us, as if we were the most important person in the world.
Generally we think that if people help us, they’re good people; while if they harm us, they’re bad people. If people encourage us, they’re wonderful; if they encourage our competitor, they’re obnoxious. It isn’t their quality of encouragement that we value, but the fact that it’s aimed at us. Similarly, if people criticize us, they’re mistaken or inconsiderate. If they criticize someone we don’t like, they’re wise. We don’t object to their trait of criticizing, only its being aimed at us.
The process by which we discriminate people isn’t based on objective criteria. It’s determined by our own preconceptions of what is valuable and how that person relates to us. Underlying this are the assumptions that we’re very important and that if people help us and meet our preconceived ideas of goodness then they’re wonderful in and of themselves. After we’ve judged certain people to be good, whenever we see them it appears to us as if goodness is coming from them. However, were we more aware, we’d recognize that we have projected this goodness onto them.
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Emotional insecurity makes us continuously seek something from others. Our kindness to them is contaminated by the ulterior motive of wanting to receive something in return. However, when we recognize how much we’ve already received from others, we’ll want to repay their kindness and our hearts will be filled with love. Love emphasizes giving rather than receiving. Not being bound by our cravings and expectations from others, we’ll be open, kind and sharing, yet we’ll maintain our own sense of integrity and autonomy.
Attachment wants others to be happy so much that we pressure them into doing what we think will make them happy. We give others no choice for we feel we know what’s best for them. We don’t allow them to do what makes them happy, nor do we accept that sometimes they’ll be unhappy. Such difficulties often arise in family relationships.
Love intensely wishes others to be happy. However, it’s tempered with wisdom, recognizing that whether or not others are happy also depends on them. We can guide them, but our egos won’t be involved when we do. Respecting them, we’ll give them the choice of whether or not to accept our advice and our help. Interestingly, when we don’t pressure others to follow our advice they’re more open to listening to it.”
