Own Truth

Mental Attitude

If you don’t know the characteristic nature of attachment and its objects, how can you generate loving kindness towards your friends, your parents or your country? From the Buddhist point of view, it’s impossible. When you hurt your parents or your friends, it’s your unconscious mind at work. When acting out his anger, the angry person is completely oblivious as to what’s happening in his mind. Being unconscious makes us hurt and disrespect other sentient beings; being unaware of our own behavior and mental attitude makes us lose our humanity. That’s all. It’s so simple, isn’t it?

These days, people study and train to become psychologists. Lord Buddha’s idea is that everybody should become a psychologist. Each of us should know our own mind; you should become your own psychologist. This is definitely possible; every human being has the ability to understand his or her own mind. When you understand your own mind, control follows naturally.

Don’t think that control is just some Himalayan trip or that it must be easier for people who don’t have many possessions. That’s not necessarily true. Next time you are emotionally upset, check for yourself. Instead of busily doing something to distract yourself, relax and try to become aware of what you’re doing. Ask yourself, “Why am I doing this? How am I doing it? What’s the cause?” You will find this to be a wonderful experience. Your main problem is a lack of intensive know-ledge-wisdom, awareness, or consciousness. Therefore, you will discover that through understanding, you can easily solve your problems.

To feel loving kindness for others, you have to know the nature of the object. If you don’t, then even though you say, “I love him; I love her,” it’s just your arrogant mind taking you on yet another ego trip. Make sure you know how and why. It is very important that you become your own psychologist. Then you can treat yourself through the understanding wisdom of your own mind; you’ll be able to relax with and enjoy your friends and possessions instead of becoming restless and berserk and wasting your life.

To become your own psychologist, you don’t have to learn some big philosophy. All you have to do is examine your own mind every day. You already examine material things every day – every morning you check out the food in your kitchen – but you never investigate your mind. Checking your mind is much more important.

Nevertheless, most people seem to believe the opposite. They seem to think that they can simply buy the solution to whatever problem they’re facing. The materialistic attitude that money can buy whatever you need to be happy, that you can purchase a peaceful mind, is obviously not true, but even though you may not say the words, this is what you’re thinking. It’s a complete misconception.

Even people who consider themselves religious need to understand their own minds. Faith alone never stops problems; understanding knowledge-wisdom always does. Lord Buddha himself said that belief in Buddha was dangerous; that instead of just believing in something, people should use their minds to try to discover their own true nature. Belief based on understanding is fine; once you realize or are intellectually clear about something, belief follows automatically. However, if your faith is based on misconceptions it can easily be destroyed by what others say.