Hrī

Hrī (P. hiri; T. ngo tsha shes pa ངོ་ཚ་ཤེས་པ་; C. can; J. zan; K. ch'am 慚) is translated as "self-respect," "conscientiousness," "healthy shame," etc. It is mental factor which can be defined as the attitude of taking earnest care with regard to one's actions and refraining from non-virtuous actions.^[1]^[2]

Hrī is identified as:

One of the twenty-five beautiful mental factors within the Pali tradition
One of the eleven virtuous mental factors within the Abhidharma-samuccaya of the Sanskrit tradition
One of the ten omnipresent wholesome factors within the Abhidharma-kosa of the Sanskrit tradition

Distinguishing between "toxic shame" and "healthy shame"

The term hrī is sometimes translated as "shame." However, contemporary Buddhist teacher Tara Brach makes the distinction between "toxic shame" and "healthy shame." According to Brach, toxic shame is feeling bad and thinking "I am a bad person." She contrasts this with hrī or "healthy shame," which is a recognition that my behavior has been unhealthy or harmful in some way, and also believing that "I can do better," I can change my behavior. ^[3]

According to Brach, it is critical to see the difference between these two types of shame. "Healthy shame" (hrī) was described by the Buddha as one of the "guardians of the world." It helps us to stay aligned with our values and keeps us from betraying the trust of ourselves or others. However, according to Brach, if we do not attend to feelings of "toxic shame," then it won't matter how well we behave; we will still be stuck in reactivity and feeling like a "bad person." According to Brach, in order to reduce the reactive feelings of "toxic shame," we need to practice seeing clearly how these feelings arise, and then bring love and compassion to that situation.^[3]

"Healthy shame," according to Brach, is an uncomfortable feeling that let's us know that we need to adapt our behavior in order to be in harmony with ourselves and our community. It has a positive function; it helps to bring us into alignment with our values. But the presences of "toxic shame" undermines our capacity to take in constructive feedback;^[3] it undermines our ability to recognize our own harmful behavior because we take our unskillful behavior as confirmation that "I am a bad person," rather than focusing on the behavior itself, and then working to modify the behavior. In order to overcome "toxic shame" we must bring love and compassion to the feelings of "toxic shame," and in this process connect with, and develop trust in, our basic goodness (see buddha-nature).

Traditional explanations

Pali tradition

A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma describes hiri (Pali) together with ottappa (Pali) as follows:

Shame (hiri) and fear of wrongdoing (ottappa): Shame has the characteristic of disgust at bodily and verbal misconduct, fear of wrongdoing has the characteristic of dread in regard to such misconduct. They both have the function of not doing evil, and are manifested as the shrinking away from evil. Their proximate cause is respect for self and respect for others, respectively. These two states are called by the Buddha the guardians of the world because they protect the world from falling into widespread immorality.^[4]

The Visuddhimagga (XIV, 142) describes hiri (Pali) together with ottappa (Pali):

It has conscientious scruples (hiriyati) about bodily misconduct, etc., thus it is conscience (hiri). This is a term for modesty. It is ashamed (ottappati) of those same things, thus it is shame (ottappa). This is a term for anxiety about evil. Herein, conscience has the characteristic of disgust at evil, while shame (ottappa) has the characteristic of dread of it. Conscience has the function of not doing evil and that in the mode of modesty, while shame has the function of not doing it and that in the mode of dread. They are manifested as shrinking from evil in the way already stated. Their proximate causes are self-respect and respect of others (respectively)...^[5]

Nina van Gorkom states:

Moral shame and fear of blame always arise together but they are two different cetasikas with different characteristics. The Atthasalini (I, Part IV, Chapter 1, 125.127) gives a similar definition as the Visuddhimagga of moral shame and fear of blame and illustrates their difference. The Atthasalini explains that moral shame (hiri) has a subjective original, that its proximate cause is respect for oneself. Fear of blame (ottappa) has an external cause, it is influenced by the "world"; its proximate cause is respect for someone else (1 See Also Chapter 14, where I deal with their opposites, shamelessness and recklessness).^[5]

Sanskrit tradition

The Abhidharma-samuccaya states:

What is hri? It is to avoid what is objectionable as far as I see it and its function is to provide a basis for refraining from non-virtuous actions.^[1]

The Necklace of Clear Understanding descriibes hrī together with apatrāpya as follows:

The difference between self-respect (hrī ) and decorum (apatrāpya) is that, despite their similarity in avoiding evil actions, when the chance of doing evil actions is close at hand, self-respect means to refrain from evil actions in view of the consideration, "This is no part of mine." Decorum means to refrain from evil action by having made others the norm in view of the consideration, "It is not appropriate to do so because others will despise me." The primary realm of restraint is the fear that one's guru and teacher and other people deserving respect would be annoyed.^[6]

The Khenjuk states:

Tib. ངོ་ཚ་ཤེས་པ་ནི་བདག་གམ་ཆོས་རྒྱུ་མཚན་དུ་བྱས་ཏེ་ཁ་ན་མ་ཐོ་བ་ལ་འཛེམ་པ་ཉེས་སྤྱོད་སྡོམ་པའི་རྟེན་བྱེད་པའི་ལས་ཅན་ནོ།
Dignity is the attitude of refraining from unwholesome actions (or misdeeds) on account of one's own [conscience] and [trust in] the Dharma. Its function is to support one in refraining from negative actions.^[7]
Conscience means shunning misdeeds either because of oneself or the Dharma. Its function is to support one in refraining from negative actions.^[8]

StudyBuddhism states:

Moral self-dignity (ngo-tsha, a sense of saving face) is the sense to refrain from negative behavior because of caring how our actions reflect on ourselves. According to Vasubandhu, this mental factor means having a sense of values. It is respect for positive qualities or persons possessing them.^[9]

Alternative Translations

self-respect - Herbert Guenther, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, Rangjung Yeshe Wiki
conscientiousness - Erik Pema Kunsang
moral self-dignity - Alexander Berzin
sense of shame - Rangjung Yeshe Wiki
moral shame - Nina von Gorkom
healthy shame - Tara Brach
dignity - Rigpa wiki
shame - Bhikkhu Bodhi

Videos

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Selected videos:

Shame, Healing and Transformation, with Tara Brach - 07/01/2020

Description: Being at war with ourselves blocks us from evolving our consciousness and living from our hearts. This talk distinguishes between toxic and healthy shame, as well as shame about our individual self and our group identity. We explore how, with self-compassion and courageous honesty, we can respond to negative, painful feelings about ourselves in a way that serves awakening and alignment with our deepest values. [The speaker equates hiri with "healthy shame,"; this is specifically mentioned around the 14min mark.]