Nine ways to suffer

Enneagram teaching posits nine passions (from passio, meaning ‘to suffer’). These are anger, pride, deceit, envy, greed, fear, gluttony, lust and, taking up the rear, sloth. Most men assume their dominant passion is lust. Most men are wrong. Fear-based men vastly outnumber men who love to fight. We dance with each other. Lust leads. Fear follows.

Snakes in the grass

We are encouraged to follow our passion, but this betrays a misunderstanding of what passions are. The word derives from the Latin for suffer. A Sufi teaching says there are nine of them, each one disguised as a virtue.

Me and mine

Why on earth are humans in this predicament? Same as always—selfishness, mainly.