The three viruses that cause mental sickness
There is something called “Unhappiness in the Mind” and this something called unhappiness in the mind, we call them different names. If you compare human to a computer, a computer has two things: hardware and software.The body can be compared to the hardware and the mind could be the software. If the software contains viruses, the computer will not work properly . There are also viruses in the mind as well which cause the mind to function incorrectly. There are three major kinds of viruses/impurities in the mind.
1.Greed
We will become whoever we surround ourselves with. Your friendships, just like everything else, affect your life. Surrounding yourself with positive people will give you positive energy. On the other hand, surrounding yourself with negative people will drain your energy and make many things negative. Then you might have a question: what type of people should I not trust in life? Lord Buddha said there are four kinds of fools in the guise of friends.
Another scenario to elaborate how greed controls human mind could be like “ This is my dress. This is the latest fashion and now I wear this to my work place and there is another woman who wears exactly the same dress.” How are you going to feel? Are you going to feel overjoyed that, hey! yes this is a very nice dress; and that lady wears exactly the same dress as I wear today. That’s great!” or are you going to feel like “ What !? I drove 30 Km away just to get this dress on a day that has a very special discount rates, so I can get it very cheap because it’s the latest fashion, because I wanted to look marvelous in the dress, so everyone else can see how beautiful I am but how about her?, why is she wearing exactly the same dress? That is called greed.
This virus, actually makes us feel like “I want more”, “I want to have everything alone”, “I want”, “I don’t have enough” or “my happiness depends on that thing”, “The more I have, the happier I am”.
2. Anger
Anger is usually triggered when we want to have something but we can’t have it, or we when we don’t want to have something but we keep getting it. Some people may have been in a situation like “I don’t want to be stuck in traffic, but now as I’m driving on this road, with so many cars, I am going to be late for sure” Many of us would even feel a little frustrated in this situation. That frustration is created by anger.
What if instead you feel like, Yes! we have a road and there are so many people who are in the same situation. We all wanted to be reach the office as quickly as we can, but we cannot. So, it’s OK. In this kind of situation it would normally be hard for anyone to think this way.
3. Delusion
Delusion is something that makes you misunderstand. Suppose there is a reality that people don’t want to accept, so they would prefer to live in their own world because they don’t want to accept the truth, because accepting the truth hurts them or by accepting the truth they are going to lose something, they are going to feel sad, they are going to be in trouble, so they prefer to live with misunderstanding. As a result, they are in the delusional world, and this is in their own mind.
When the mind is weak, the mind will be controlled by those viruses. When your mind is weak because you absorb so many problems, so many things that you face in your day, you will be controlled by greed, by anger and by delusions.