“The best discipline is taming your mind stream.

The self-centred attitude makes our mind very narrow because we only focused on ourselves and getting our way or getting rid of what we do not like. The mind does not take into consideration the big picture. You do things and say things out of that narrow mind. Afterwards when you realise how limited and unkind the self-centred attitude has made us, the self-centred attitude chips in again and criticises us for being such a jerk. Wherever you turn, the self-centred attitude has something that it pulls out of its pocket to make us miserable.

One Geshe I met when I was in Dharamsala talked about how narrow our mind goes, and how it makes everything that happens to “me” blow up out of proportion. He was very sick one year, and when he was just lying there because he could not do very much, he questioned about the big picture. He was thinking that there was more going on — what is in front of him, what is at the back of him, and what are on both sides. He said that what is in front of him is his future lives. What is at the back is his previous lives. What are on both sides are other sentient beings’ experiences. He said that when he started thinking about all of that when he was lying there so sick, his mind relaxed because he saw that whatever suffering he was having was actually quite small compared to the big picture of all sentient beings, and even the big picture of his own past and future lives.

Similarly, to get so excited over present happiness is also out of proportion because, compared to the past and future lives and all sentient beings, it is just some small thing. Why get too excited, why get too down, neither of them makes much sense. This big picture is a real thing that counteracts the complete blinders that the self-centred attitude puts on us.

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