..续本文上一页e wrong, then you can easily believe those kinds of thoughts: "I see no need for this kind of thing, after all, the Buddha said... the Buddha would never have allowed this, the Buddha; I know Buddhism!" Bring it up into conscious form, where you can see it, make it absurd, and then you have a perspective on it and it gets quite amusing. You can see what comedy is about! We take ourselves so seriously, "I”m such an important person, my life is so terribly important, that I must be extremely serious about it at all moments. My problems are so important, so terribly important; I have to spend a lot of time with my problems because they”re so important." One thinks of oneself somehow as very important, so then think it, deliberately think, "I”m a Very Important Person, my problems are very important and serious." When you”re thinking that, it sounds funny, it sounds silly, because really, you realize you”re not terribly important - none of us are. And the problems we make out of life are trivial things. Some people can ruin their whole lives by creating endless problems, and taking it all so seriously.

　　If you think of yourself as an important and serious person, then trivial things or foolish things are things that you don”t want. If you want to be a good person, and a saintly one, then evil conditions are things that you have to repress out of consciousness. If you want to be a loving and generous type of being, then any type of meanness or jealousy or stinginess is something that you have to repress or annihilate in your mind. So whatever you are most afraid of in your life that you might really be, think it out, watch it. Make confessions: "I want to be a tyrant!" "I want to be a heroin smuggler!" "I want to be a member of the Mafia!" "I want to..." Whatever it is. We”re not concerned with the quality of it any more, but the mere characteristic that it”s an impermanent condition; it”s unsatisfactory, because there”s no point in it that can ever really satisfy you. It comes and it goes, and it”s not self.

《Listening to Thoughts》全文阅读结束。