Change is hard. It really is. Have you ever hit ice with a hammer? It mostly just absorbs the blow and shrugs it off. A few chips may fly off, but not much more than that. The best way to melt ice? Put it out on the road on a hot summer day. Then it will be gone before you know it.
Likewise, if we change the way we’re viewing ourselves, others, and what we are trying to do, then we’ll naturally start to act in different ways. Once that viewpoint truly changes, then everything else will follow. So we have to input new ways of seeing things, new ways of looking at things that are more in line with a “higher” perspective.
The very last things to fall away will likely be the most ingrained habits of thought and ways viewing things, which also usually cause the worst of our problems. But if we keep working at trying to live in tune with this Buddha essence of ours, one day we’ll suddenly see through those too, and laugh at how silly we’ve been.
So try to repeat these verses three times or more, because it often takes that many times to begin to really ponder the meaning and let it sink down inside us.
In Praise of One Mind
All places of energy and inspiration,
all places where enlightenment can be realized,
are found within one mind.
Just thoroughly entrust one mind with everything that confronts me,
such that all discriminations and views
about myself and the world utterly disappear.
At that instant I combine with my inherent nature
and the past, present, and future are all the Buddha’s Pure Land.
If my mind is thus empty and pure,
I will be at ease in whatever place or time I find myself.
Wake Up and Laugh! 