Be Aware of Bad Thoughts

When our mind is not calm, first we have to check where the wandering thoughts or worries come from.  All worries and emotions are associated with ego.

Sometimes, we think we have a lot of problems, but we do not know how to fix them.  It’s because we do not really want to face them.  If we realize that negative emotions and thoughts are deadly to our physical body, our life and our wisdom, we will put them down right away.

Negative emotions are like poison.  Why would you take poison little by little?  It is because you don’t know how powerfully the negative thoughts or emotions can affect our physical body and mental situations.

Typically, people use their own thoughts, negative thoughts, to hypnotize themselves.  This makes them think that they are right and the other person is wrong.  At first, you probably have one negative thought, one evil thought.  Gradually, you start to create and generate more and more negative and evil thoughts.   The first evil thought is like a newborn baby. But after a period of time, you give the newborn baby food, one negative or evil thought after another one.  Slowly, the evil thought becomes an adult.  When negative thoughts are mature like fruits ripened on the tree, they dominate your life.  They will make you think that what you are doing is right.  Even though you make mistakes, you just don’t have the ability to change the situation.  The negative emotions are so powerful that you don’t have the strength or ability to correct the mistake.  You just repeat the same problem.

Be aware that all types of negative emotions have the possibility to turn into evil.

When you have negative thoughts, put them down right away.  We should teach kids early before they turn bad.  We should correct our own negative thoughts at the very beginning before they become negative emotions.

When the negative emotion turns into evil, it is very difficult for you to turn it around.  It is because the evil or negative thoughts are so powerful that they attach to your mind very closely.  You are not aware of them, not even notice them.  Negative thoughts, evil thoughts, or negative emotions just hide behind you. You never see them, but they dominant your life.  They make you think that you are right, this is right, and that is wrong.  The evil thought controls your life.

Can you see someone who always follows right behind you?  NO!  Only at the moment when you turn and look back, you might see them.  Because of our self-attachments and selfish ideas, we always look forward to our own benefits. When will you look back?  Only very few chances will you look back.  Most people just move forward and their life is dominated by selfish ideas.

I tell students, when your mind is not calm, you should stop the wrong thought right away.  Otherwise, you are feeding the evil food.  It will poison your mind.  So, first, when we have wrong thoughts, put them down.  Then, we still have a chance; when we have angry emotions, stop angry emotions.  Then we still have a chance.  But, when the angry or negative emotion turns into evil, it is going to be very difficult to stop.  At this case, you can only be taught by your own deadly karma.

When we have negative thoughts, we will encounter hindrances.  When we have negative emotions, we will encounter more serious hindrances.  When we have evil thoughts, we will encounter deadly situations. This is very important.  All hindrances are teachers.

When we practice meditation, we have lots of wandering thoughts.  But, we do not follow the wandering thought.  If we follow the wandering thought, it means that we feed our mind with wandering thoughts, and your mind just wanders.  If your mind keeps on generating wandering thoughts, your mind becomes a wandering mind.  If your mind keeps on generating jealous and hateful thoughts, your mind becomes evil.

You are the only one who can generate your own thoughts; you are the only person who can educate yourself; you are the only person who can feed your own mind.  Do some introspection and realize that you already have some wrong food in your mind.  The wrong food is like poison in the mind and you need to take it out piece by piece.  Thus, at this moment you need to stop negative thoughts right away.  By doing introspection and repentance, it will help.

When we practice repentance, we need to be very sincere.  We need to show our sincerity.  The idea of repentance should come from the bottom of our heart.  It is not only a thought.  True introspection and true repentance comes from realization, which means every single thought, will manifest the phenomenon corresponding to the thought.  Repentance means to really realize the cause and effect.  It is nothing to do with what you have learned about right or wrong.

So, first you should realize that the negative thought is hurting you, and negative emotions are hurting you; the evil thoughts will kill you.  All types of negative thoughts will have a huge impact to your mind.  We have wrong thoughts little by little; and we poison ourselves little by little too.  All negative thoughts make a person become extremely selfish.

Based on right teaching and understanding, we can do reflection, introspection, and see if our thoughts are wrong, if our emotions are wrong.  Use right teachings as guidance, you are able to realize if you are wrong or not. If the right understanding is taking the lead, we are closer to the happiness and joy.  If the wrong or evil thoughts take the lead, we will encounter a lot of unhappy things.

If you are not happy with your life, if your life is full of problems and emotions, but you still trust yourself and use your negative thoughts to find the happiness, to practice and to find your own future, it will all be in vain.  You can gain nothing because the foundation is wrong. This is very important.  We need to have right understanding.

If what we are thinking is right, we should have the happiness.  If we are not happy, this is the hard evidence that we are wrong.