In “The Childish Person” from the Dhammapada we read:
Childish, unthinking people
go through life as enemies of themselves,
committing detrimental actions
that bear bitter fruit.
Glenn Wallis, in his notes about his translation of the Dhammapada, explains that “childish” in this context as several meanings: “childlike” is certainly relevant, but the Buddha also meant a “person who ambitiously pursues material fortune, being pushed along by an ever-strengthening current of “I, me, mine.” (125) (Other translations render “BÄla-vaggo” simply as “the fool”, but I prefer Wallis’ less vitriolic “the childish person.”)
Later, in “The Practitioner”, we find a similar notion:
Do not carelessly swallow a copper ball and,
burning, cry out, “This is pain!”
All too often, we cause ourselves the pain we’re certain has exterior source. And nowhere is this more evident than the middle school. In that setting, it might sound like this:
| Teacher | You display your buttons for anyone to see. You don’t hide anything, and so if teachers wanted to pick on you, you make it easy for them. I know exactly what I could say to get you upset, and so I virtually control you. |
| Student (in a very disrespectful tone) | Oh no! No! Let me just tell one thing. You don’t control me. You don’t. Ain’t nobody in the world controls me. I control me. |
| Teacher | I just did it. I got you angry. I just got you to mouth off. A teacher would be justified for writing you up for the tone you used with me. If you were really in complete control of yourself, you would have sat quietly, thinking, “Right. Let me show this joker who’s in charge of me.” |