We want peace in our environment, with the people we work with, the place we live, and the community we live in. Our responsibility for that is to take care of our ethical behaviour. That is kind of the bottom line. Of course, to do that, one must take care of one’s mind. It is much easier to take care of and avoid the harmful actions of the body and speech than it is to transform the mind. That is why we start out by working with our bodies and speech and learn to restrain those harmful actions. When we do this, we have less regret, less remorse, and the mind is clear so that we can start working on the mind itself and transforming it.

Especially at the beginning, it takes a lot of effort because not only is the mind uncontrolled, but so are our actions of body and speech. Therefore, we start with the body and speech because those are easier and then we progress to working with our mind. When we are working with our body and speech, we are also trying to work with our mind. We start with what is easier instead of expecting ourselves to be instant Buddhas or have instant samadhi. We start with what is going on in our daily life by refraining from harmful actions and using them to reflect on what is going on in our minds.

“365 Gems of Wisdom” e-book is out now!