Practising the Dharma means transforming our minds. Mental transformation is difficult and does not happen quickly. We have a lot of old habits, one of which is telling ourselves, “I can’t change, my bad habits are too ingrained. I’m just an angry person/attached person/self-centred person. I’m hopeless. There’s no use trying to transform my mind.” Such discouragement is actually laziness because we will not practise the transformative techniques if we give up on ourselves. We should realise these incorrect thoughts for what they are, rather than assuming they are true and following them. Otherwise, we will be back in the same old hole with all our negative and incorrect thoughts; we will continue to blame our unhappiness on others, making ourselves and others miserable.

Being able to identify what is a correct thought and what is an incorrect thought on the conventional level is important. While ignorance of the ultimate nature of reality is the root culprit that underlies all our incorrect thoughts, first we should focus on identifying cases of attachment, anger, arrogance, jealousy, doubt, and wrong views that arise prominently in the mind. Instead of bowing down to these mental afflictions and following their instructions, we must call them out as the thief that has been stealing our virtue and making us so miserable. Then we can call up our forces of wisdom and compassion to counteract these incorrect
thoughts.

All the meditation, service, and studying involved in Dharma practice are for building our capacity to identify the difference between beneficial and unbeneficial mental states and to know the techniques to enhance the former and release the latter. Learning or reciting mantras or making offerings just for the sake of doing them may put some good imprints in our mind stream and is better than watching TV or playing computer games. But the real Dharma practice is about confronting and applying counterforces to incorrect and unbeneficial thoughts when they arise. Doing this will bring happiness, not doing it will bring misery. Patience with ourselves is necessary when we do this inner transformative work since we are not going to get it all at once.

“365 Gems of Wisdom” Volume One (January — March) e-book is out now!