Asmimāna

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asmimāna (T. nga'o snyam pa'i nga rgyal) is translated as "egocentric conceit," "conceit of 'I am'," "pride of thinking me," etc.

Asmimāna is identified as:

The Khenjuk states:

Egocentric conceit is to think "I am!" while regarding the five perpetuating aggregates as "I" and "my."[1]

Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics (Vol. 2) states:

Pride of thinking “me” is a grandiose mind that, based on perceiving one’s own aggregates, thinks “me.”[2]

StudyBuddhism states:

Egotistic arrogance... is a puffed-up mind that thinks “me” while focusing on our own samsara-perpetuating aggregates (nyer-len-gyi phung-po).[3]

Saṃsāra, Nirvāṇa, and Buddha Nature states:

The conceit of "I am." This differs from the view of a personal identity (satkāyadṛṣṭi), which is the conceptual view holding a permanent, true self. After this view is eliminated, the thoughts "I am this" or "I am that" no longer arise, but the thought "I am" is still present. Even though a non-returner knows this to be mistaken and does not hold onto the idea "I am," the thought "I am" still arises spontaneously.[4]

Practical Ethics and Profound Emptiness states:

The conceit of thinking “I am” is based on grasping the I as truly existent. It misapprehends the five aggregates, believing they truly exist, and then grasps a truly existent person in dependence on them. Based on this misapprehension of the aggregates that are the basis of designation of the person, this conceit proudly thinks, “I am.” In fact, both the aggregates and the person are empty of true existence.[5]

The Buddhist Dictionary states:

asmi-māna: (lit.: ‘I am’-conceit) ‘ego-conceit’, may range from the coarsest pride and self-assertion to a subtle feeling of one’s distinctiveness or superiority that persists, as the eighth fetter (saṃyojana, q.v.), until the attainment of arahatship or holiness. It is based upon the comparison of oneself with others, and may, therefore, manifest itself also as a feeling of inferiority or the claim to be equal (see māna). It has to be distinguished from ‘ego-belief’ (sakkāya-diṭṭhi, q.v.) which implies a definite belief or view “(diṭṭhi) concerning the assumption of a self or soul, and, being the first of the fetters, disappears at attainment of stream-entry (sotāpatti; see ariya-puggala).
Even when the five lower fetters have vanished in a noble disciple, there is still in him, with regard to the five groups of clinging, a slight undiscarded measure of the conceit ‘I am’, of the will ‘I am’, of the proclivity ‘I am’ (SN 22:89).[6]

Alternate translations

  • conceit of "I am" (Gethin 1998; Thupten Chodren 2018)
  • pride of "me" (Thupten Jinpa 2020)
  • egocentric conceit (Erik Pema Kunsang 2000)
  • egotistic arrogance (Berzin)
  • "I am" conceit (Nyanatiloka Thera 2019)

References

  1. ↑ Mipham Rinpoche 2000, s.v. Chapter 13.
  2. ↑ Thupten Jinpa 2020, s.v. The Six Root Mental Afflictions.
  3. ↑ Berzin, s.v. Mental factors.
  4. ↑ Dalai Lama & Thubten Chodron 2018b, s.v. Chapter 3: True Origins of Dukkha, section "Underlying Tendencies".
  5. ↑ Jampa Tegchok 2017, s.v. Seven types of conceit.
  6. ↑ Nyanatiloka Thera 2019, s.v. Asmimāna.


Sources

External links

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