The essential questions and answers of Buddhism: Why do mindfulness come about

Question: Since anger and other negative emotions are controlled by karma and external factors, rather than being controlled by our thoughts, why do we directly develop those who want to practice "mercy" in our hearts? ─Gentleness and other mindful thoughts?

Answer: There is a metaphor about this point, that is, ignorance is quite natural.We grow older, but we are still in a state of ignorance; then through education and learning, we acquire knowledge and abandon ignorance.On the other hand, if we are always ignorant of the state of ignorance we are in and do not consciously absorb knowledge, then there is no way to eliminate ignorance.In this case, when we talk about ignorance, we do not refer to the so-called ignorance in Buddhism, but to a state of lack of knowledge.Therefore, if we keep letting ourselves go and not trying to fight ignorance, then all kinds of opposite negative forces will certainly breed like weeds.

Similarly, although anger or hatred appears naturally from the heart, in order to overcome or eliminate this negative force, we must make conscious decisions and then deliberately cultivate positive forces such as love and compassion to fight.Because we can gain positive power from this cultivation level, we should be more committed to this.

In Buddhist vocabulary, "Nirvana" refers to liberation or a cause. This term is often described as "the other shore" or "superior realm", and those who are still flowing in the cycle of reincarnation are called "this shore".This word has another meaning, which means that an unenlightened individual can only see the obvious things in front of him and around him.Similarly, this principle refers to the fact that many negative emotions, delusions in the mind, emotional hurtful thoughts, etc. are the causes of our personal suffering.They exist in the samsara and, in a sense, belong to the "this shore", so they occur quite naturally.However, most of the personality traits we need belong to the "other shore", and the "other shore" that transcends is the things on the other shore of liberation, freedom and nirvana.Therefore, unless we deliberately cultivate these traits, they will not arise naturally.

If we can successfully "transcend this shore", we can look at the many negative habits that exist in the world from a more transcendent perspective. At that time, the delusions and other bad tendencies of the mind become "other shore".