Shame in Buddhism?
zenguitar
Bad BuddhistNew England Veteran
Hi Sangha, until recently I was of the mind that "shame" had no place in Buddhism. But as I was perusing the list of "51 Mental Formations" found on the Plum Village website, I found that 2 of the "Wholesome" formations are: "inner shame" and "shame before others." And 2 of the "unwholesome" ones are the "lack of inner shame" and "lack of shame before others."
http://plumvillage.org/transcriptions/51-mental-formation/
Anyone know if this "shame" is what we ordinarily understand it to be? Namely, "a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior."
By the way, I have no idea where this list of 51 Mental Formations comes from originally, it just appears on the website without any real explanation. Hmm 
Comments
"Shame" is comparable, I think, to "loss of face", which is very common in many Asian Buddhist cultures. My command of Thai was not good enough to understand if "shame" per se was addressed in Thai Buddhism, but it is certainly there in Thai culture.
I - and many like me - baulk at the word 'shame'.
I prefer 'remorse'.
Remorse doesn't hang around your neck like a mill-stone.
Much as I think TNH is a wunnerful guy' and all that, I find his thoughtful meanderings a little... 'hard to swallow'... I think he's been exposed, or more accurately, subjected himself to a high degree of Theism/Christianity. He's well known for straddling two paths, and all the good that goes with that...Kudos to him... but I can't help feeling his edges are a little blurred....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaukritya
Well yeah, especially Catholicism...soo many jokes about nuns with rulers and finger-wagging when not smackin' em. Seems to me they're the ones with the most taboo goings' on.
I was raised in the Episcopal church, baptized n confirmed, my best friend was Catholic and I occasionally went to church with her. Latin - about as exciting as the father in my church, especially when his sermons turned decidedly ... um, what's that word that means talking the nuts n bolts about religious stuff? theo-something? Theology.
If you have shame, you are capable of change. If you have no shame at all, you are likely to neglect or were just completely unaware of what you did. Remorse is a better word for it as others have stated, but I think the same reasoning applies.
I'm not familiar with the 51 mental formations. Perhaps there are 51 kinds of sankharas. Thank you for the list.
Yeah, I believe TNH once took communion at a Mass, much to the shock of some conservative Catholic clergy. But this list of 51 formations supposedly comes straight from Buddhist tradition, it's not something invented by TNH (I don't think).
Just wait until you see the lojong slogans.
Sometimes it's concepts to uproot concepts. And if the tool doesn't work for you try and see what it is meant for and a better way to take YOU to the same place spiritually.
I love lojong. It completely changed my daily practice.
To me, "shame" and "remorse" aren't quite the same. Remorse is more recognizing that you did something that you feel badly about, that you wish you could take back.It's more something we experience ourselves. Shame is something that is often put on someone else. I cannot "remorse" my children. Remorse is something I feel. I can shame them, though.
That story going around where the little boy born with Down's Syndrome was abandoned by his mother. The dad wanted to keep him, ,she said "if you keep him, we are done." and he kept the baby. Wife divorced him a week later. Mostly due to the culture of shame in her country (Armenia) associated with having a disabled child. She'd rather give up her husband and her baby than be shamed by her culture and family. Shame is, to me it seems, something we put on others.
It seems a bit of another step above remorse even when applied to oneself. If I am remorseful, that is different than being ashamed.
I have no shame!
Which is a shame
Haven't all of us met a person who genuinely had no shame?
It is beyond bizarre, when you think about it. To have 'no shame' is a huge, huge deal, it is a real loss and destructive as hell to the person without it, and anyone that person gets close to.
I was thinking about this before I read down to your post @Lobster, so I'm not bouncing off of your post at all.
I married a person who had no shame, at least, where shame really mattered. His 'shame' was limited entirely to what affected his image of himself, and that was it. The End. And he was very destructive. The lack of 'shame' prevented him from learning the most basic things about cause and effect. It did give him an 'unusual' kind of freedom, though
. In modern times, those who lack shame are sociopathic, and with that in mind the OP's point about shame in Buddhism is well made.
In the Pali Canon, hiri is often translated as shame or conscience, and it refers to a sense of shame over unskillful actions that arises out of self-respect. These feelings of guilt and remorse are actually guardians and quite skillful when properly approached from the Buddhist point of view.
Exactly so. People without shame, conscience, guilt, remorse etc are dangerous as @Hamsaka mentions. Sometimes they are bankers or sociopaths. I do feel some of our most powerful people in society have no guardians in place and need monitoring rather than empowered by their victims, which is often . . . us . . .
I would also suggest that many Buddhists and spiritual types have too much shame/guilt/remorse and unhealthy self deprecation (not to be confused with humility).
If you are doing the best you can that is sufficient
No need to self flagellate - that is just self indulgence.
(On a side-note, it would appear that this is fast emerging as a scam. What better way to garner sympathy on a global scale than to put forward a story of this kind? It seems the parents are reuniting. Many are now questioning whether in fact, they actually ever really parted in the first place....)
Thubten Chodron explains that the feeling of "shame" as we know it in the West is not quite what is meant by the Sanskrit word that is used to describe the positive mental formation it represents in Buddhism:
Thanks everyone, I wanted to clear this up. Because if feeling shame in the usual humiliating sense of the word is "good," then it seems it would also be good to make others feel shame. Which seems (to me) totally wrong and un-Buddhist.
I don't think it's our job to tell others how to follow their path in that way. We might apply remorse or guilt on ourselves, but I don't think that makes it equally ok to apply it to someone else. We don't know their history, their causes and conditions,their state of mind to be able to make that call. It's just not our place.
@federica I will have to catch up on the story. Wouldn't surprise me either if the mom had a change of heart because now the dad has half a million dollars (or more at this point) and perhaps he jumped at the chance to take her back because the idea of raising the little boy alone might be pretty daunting at this point. Who knows. Hopefully, in any case, the money actually is put in some sort of a fund that will help the boy and not support his parents.
In Buddhism, no teaching is used to apply it on one's neighbour, except for loving-kindness, compassion and sympathetic joy.
It is a path of self-development, and I have every right to measure my own progress but not judge and condemn what my neighbour chooses to do.
I have read that rejoicing at doing good things increases the good karma and regretting bad things mitigates the negative karma.
Yep, of course, that's what Jesus said too ("Judge not lest ye be judged" and so forth). But many Christians ignore this.
It's from the "Abhidharma".
Thanks @seeker242 !