20. Exaggerating and Debasing

This pattern refers to the mentality and behavior of knowingly or unknowingly overstating, aggrandizing and exaggerating or understating, excessively downplaying or putting others down.

Examples are:

• Your fart is so bad. It can linger for hours. Mine is hardly noticeable.

• I am not fighting with you. I am just passionately ‘reasoning’ with you.

• You went to a concert performed by an old friend tonight. Although everyone thought it was a great show, you didn’t think it was that great. Rather, you thought that if you had had the same opportunity, you would have done better.

• You feel pleasure and satisfaction when you criticize others or put others down.

• He may seem very successful but he is actually very ‘low-functioning’ when it comes to hands-on things in everyday life.

Related patterns include: Avoiding and Hiding, Competitiveness, Making Unnecessary Comparison, Unfounded Suspicion, Polarized Thinking, Self-Centeredness, Fixed Expectations, Stubbornness, Over-Generalization, Negativity and Pessimism, Double Standards, Approval Seeking, Urge to Control, Envy and Jealousy, Tormented by Loss and Gain, Resentment and Revenge, and Responding with Negative Emotions.

This pattern makes one unable to hold a fair and objective view towards oneself and other people and things.

• Cultivate Wu Xin, especially Gongjing and love. This will help build the foundation necessary for working on this pattern. Work on its related patterns.

• One Technique and One Attitude can be used to help one see things more clearly and develop a new pattern for viewing everything.

• It is important to understand that the world we see, whether it is good or bad, beautiful or ugly, is largely the reflection and projection of our Xin and consciousness. When we are not very happy about what we see, it is advisable to go inward to search for the root.

• Learn to accept yourself. Accept the whole of you, including the parts that you dislike or even hate and the parts that you don’t want to look at. Fully accept the totality of your life.

• It is important to know that flattering yourself and putting down others will eventually lead to self-debasement and putting yourself down.

• It is important to truly realize that you and I and everyone and everything are not fundamentally different. Treating other people well IS treating ourselves well. Treating ourselves well IS making the world a better place. The world is a totality and an indivisible ‘ONE’.