How to Reverse One's Own Habitual Tendencies of Ignorance

All Buddhist practitioners should diligently cultivate meditative concentration (dhyāna), overcome their old worldly habits, and turn their minds entirely toward cultivating the Path, without paying too much attention to worldly dharmas. These are things we have experienced over countless lifetimes; no matter how much attention we give them, they cannot resolve the great matter of birth and death. Once the great matter is handled well, all worldly affairs become trivial. Everyone should have the wisdom to recognize this principle.

Subduing and changing a habit is extremely difficult, and even being able to introspect and recognize that one has a certain habit is not easy. A habit is called a habit precisely because it has been nurtured through long-term conditioning; the accumulated habits are too deep and deeply entrenched. Almost all of our thoughts and views follow along with our habits. Without fairly strong meditative concentration to introspect and awaken to the fact that our own thoughts and views are habits that should not exist, the vast majority of people do not know what habits they have, do not know that whatever they think and ponder is wrong—that it is ignorance, karmic obstruction, and affliction—and that following along with it leads toward birth and death.

Even if one recognizes these habits of ignorance, it is still very hard to reverse and change them. This requires us to constantly alert and spur ourselves on to single-mindedly devote ourselves to the Path, to give rise to an intense aspiration for cultivation, to continually reflect on our karmic obstructions of birth and death, to contemplate the true meaning of life, to recognize the genuine system of values, to see through the falseness and unreality of worldly dharmas, to quickly leap out of the fiery pit of birth and death, and then turn back to save more fellow practitioners and compatriots on the Path.