When you are doing the thought training practice sincerely, you pray to have problems, and you pray to have difficulties because all those situations act as fuel to increase your bodhicitta. This is so because when we have problems, we look at them and see that they are the result of our own negative karma and that was created under the influence of the self-centred mind. The problems are due to that self-centred, self-preoccupied mind. With these problems come the difficulties, the painful feelings that arise in the mind.

We should give all of that suffering, all the physical and mental discomfort, to the self-centred attitude and say, “You’re the one who created the cause for it. Now you experience this.” We give all our suffering to the self-centred attitude because it is the one that is responsible for the sufferings. In that way, because that self-centred attitude is not who we are, our minds can remain happy as we give the problems away. In that way, too, because our mind remains peaceful, we stop creating more negative karma which will result in more problems.

When we get upset by our problems, we get angry, frustrated, and resentful, we create more negative karma, which brings more problems, all under the influence of the self-centred thought. By giving all the pain and inconvenience to the self-centred thought, we stop the continuum of creating negative karma and instead destroy our real enemy, the self-centredness. That enables us to cultivate bodhicitta in our mind in a much stronger way.

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