"Poverty" Mentality

 I have heard the expression 'poverty' mentality in many contexts, and recently, I found a very curious example of it while reading Dzogchen Ponlop's Mind Beyond Death. Dzogchen Ponlop observes how easily spiritual practitioners can get caught up in the idea that they have to keep accumulating various levels of experience in order to achieve a certain state in their practice, particularly around the time of death. He remarks, "Poverty mentality results in our mind becoming distracted and neurotic. The whole point of this spiritual journey is to develop a sense of sanity and to have a clear, one-pointed mind as opposed to having a mind that is split into many directions due to our narrow understanding." (p.154-155)
     When I read this passage, I am thinking how important it is not to attach a self to what we know. When I believe that some piece of knowledge leads me to 'progress' or to build my understanding, that building already prevents other kinds of understanding from arising. It also inadvertently contributes to the idea that there is something permanent to be striven for in the world. For example, those who believe that the world is slowly 'progressing' toward a more liberal or enlightened viewpoint, have already pre-determined the direction that society must go to get to that point. Though the theory sounds quite good on paper, I wonder if history will reach that static point in the end. And it also somehow contributes to the notion that one's mind and experience needs to be added to in order to reach some perfection in the future. This only makes the present seem to be a stepping stone for something else.
   Whenever I feel a negative emotion such as anger, another desire immediately comes up:  I want to project it outward or make the feeling more relieving and pleasant. Or I want to change anger into something else. It's possible to do these things, but Dzogchen Ponlop suggests that through meditative practice, one can also become aware that anger is just one of many manifestations of the mind. He remarks, Whether we are elated by happiness or dejected by sadness, we are experiencing mind.(p.171-172), When I realize that fully, I don't reject the anger in favor of a more 'enlightening' feeling. In fact,I don't attach any particular feelings to being enlightened at all. With this mentality, I am no longer seeking some emotions which I favor over others.
     It seems that poverty mentality is not just limited to how we view emotions, although Dzogchen Ponlop explores the role of emotion a great deal in his book. In his book Think Better, Tim Hurson notes that the psychological testing industry in North America is a 3 billion dollar industry (as of 2008, the time of his writing, see p. 61). What do psychological tests do? I agree with Hurson that they provide a temporary sense of 'this is who I am', rather than considering that people change their thinking patterns quite frequently , depending on their situation, motivation and interests. The longing for a fixed personality seems also to stem from the desire for security. If I don't have some specific thing that I can be 'known for' that makes me stand out in a group, then I consider myself as having no value. But over the longer view, it seems that people are no so straightforward, and nor do they need to be. But only when I let go of measuring myself in these stringent ways will I see that the mind has a greater pasture in which to roam.



Hurson, Tim (2008), Think Better: Your Company's Future Depends on it..and so does yours. Toronto: McGraw Hill

Ponlop, Dzogchen (2006, 2008), Mind Beyond Death Ithaka: Snow Lion.