This is an audiobook of Bodhi Leaves No.14 by Dr. Elizabeth Ashby and Brian Fawcett, "Pride and Conceit" narrated by Christa Michel. The print edition can be found in the Pariyatti Edition of Collected Bodhi Leaves Vol. I (https://store.pariyatti.org/collected-bodhi-leaves-vol-1).
Excerpt:
"Pride in all its forms devolves from self-esteem, which is in reality “ego-worship.” It stems, so they say, from Greed, the first of the Roots of Evil. The thought here is rather subtle: when the ordinary person thinks of greed he thinks first of what one puts into one's stomach-that second helping of plum-pudding, or eating a pound of candies in a single evening. The commentators of old were much more drastic. Greed is “delight in one's own possessions.” Hence we can be greedy about anything to which we have affixed the label “mine.” My car, my table, my cat, my best beloved. The greedy aspect of conceit is when we “take delight” in our own good qualities or capacities..
_________
"Few of us are free from pride in one form or another. We know that in the interests of spiritual development it must be eradicated. We are taught as much, and accept the teaching without question. But the method by which pride may be eliminated is a problem not easy to solve, and the indirect, sweeping precepts of the sages are of little practical help to us. It is all very well saying: “Eradicate this, and eradicate that,” but what we want to know is, “How may we go about it?”
In the first place: what is pride?"
