Pride

Senika said: "Oh World Honored One! Great Compassionate One! Explain to me, I pray, how do I to attain the Eternal, Bliss, Self, and Pure, about which you speak?"

The Buddha said: "Noble son, the entire world possesses a great pride [mana] since the beginning, which increases the proud (in itself) and also works as the cause of [further] pride and proud actions. Therefore, beings now experience the results (rewards) of pride and are not able to eliminate all the klesas [mental / moral defilements] and attain the Eternal, Bliss, the Self, and the Pure. If beings wish to do away with all defilements, what they need to do is, first of all, to end up with pride."[Note: the Sanskrit word for pride, mana, has a different semantic range from the English 'pride / arrogance'. It is derived from the verbal root 'man' (to think, believe, measure, conceive, deem, value, regard as) and also means 'measure', 'computation', 'means of proof'. The sense of 'pride' here implies processes of generating or projecting what are mental constructs implicitly falses. It refers to the process described in the previous chapter of the sutra on the four inversions (distorted views). - Stephen Hodge].

Read More on the Nirvana Sutra, Chapter 45 - On Bodhisattva Kaundinya 1.

pride.mp3