How to Awaken to the Thoughts of One's Own Mind

If you want to understand yourself, to know whether your mental activities are wholesome or unwholesome, defiled or pure, what should you do? Why is it that many people can continuously follow their defiled mental activities and afflictive mental activities, engaging in defiled karmic actions? It is because they lack awakened nature and lack the power of awareness; they do not know and do not consider what the result of each mental activity and thought will be, what retribution it will bring. They only want to vent their emotions, and feel satisfied as long as they feel comfortable in the moment. As for the fact that they may later feel very uncomfortable, extremely uncomfortable, they simply cannot be bothered with that—this is the foolish ignorance and shortsightedness of sentient beings.

How can one awaken to one's own mental activities and thoughts? First, one must believe in and accept cause and effect, then understand cause and effect clearly, knowing that all bodily, verbal, and mental actions have their causes and effects. When conditions and causes ripen, one will certainly experience the retribution of good and evil. Everything one has done toward people and matters must ultimately be borne by oneself: doing good brings good retribution, doing evil brings evil retribution—this is the law of cause and effect from which no one can escape. In that case, one will deliberately pay attention to one's own bodily, verbal, and mental actions. However, because the power of meditative concentration and the power of wisdom are insufficient, one will often still habitually engage in unwholesome bodily, verbal, and mental actions without being aware of it.

This requires cultivating meditation to supplement the power of concentration and to raise the power of introspection, making the mind more refined and the observational power more acute, so that one can capture one's own thoughts at any moment, and can observe the deepest thoughts and ideas within the mind, or afflictive thoughts. In this way, one can achieve a deep and thorough understanding of oneself. Even if one cannot quickly correct unwholesome thoughts, cannot subdue one's afflictions, as long as one knows them, over time one will certainly slowly and secretly change oneself—so much so that one may even be surprised by one's own transformation.

One can cultivate the contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) of the four foundations of mindfulness, which equally cultivates meditative concentration and wisdom—the equal cultivation of Samādhi and Prajñā—to increase one's power of concentration and power of wisdom, and to raise one's awakened nature. Then, in daily conduct and dealings with people, reflect back upon one's own thoughts, reflect on the true ideas deep within one's mind, and then ask oneself: what benefit does doing this bring to others and to myself? What consequences will it have? Is this result liberating for me or binding? Am I willing to bear this result in the future, and can I bear it?

Observing one's own mind and the contemplative practice of the four foundations of mindfulness follow the same principle: the four foundations of mindfulness begin with meditation and end with wisdom, with wisdom as the goal. Only when wisdom arises can one eliminate self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi), realize the fruits, and attain liberation. Observing one's own thoughts works the same way. What is the result of observation? The result is the arising of the wisdom of knowing oneself and knowing the consequences. With this wisdom, one will inevitably be able to subdue and eliminate afflictions, and in the future enjoy the happy retribution of wholesome karma. The arising of thoughts and intentions determines a person's fortune and misfortune: evil and unwholesome thoughts invite misfortune and damage merit; wholesome thoughts generate merit and avert disaster. Many people, when encountering all kinds of favorable and adverse circumstances, do not know what exactly caused them. Those with coarse minds do not even want to think about what caused them, believing that adverse conditions arise naturally, not knowing that they are drawn by one's own karmic actions. Because one's evil deeds lead to unwholesome karma, merit cannot endure and misfortune cannot be avoided; one bobs and drifts in the ocean of suffering that is life, rising and sinking according to circumstances.

If one does not observe one's own mind, wisdom cannot arise. Because the mind consciousness performs the observation of thoughts without stirring, it presents the dharma in direct perception/valid direct cognition to the manas, letting the manas face it as it truly is. After facing it, the manas will pay attention to and focus on the dharma, and there will be deliberation (manana). After deliberation in accordance with the Dharma, there will be a result. If the mind consciousness does not observe and the mind is scattered, the manas will not abide on the observed dharma; then one neither knows the dharma nor realizes the dharma. If the mind consciousness observes in a scattered way without meditative concentration, the manas will likewise be scattered and engaged in grasping, unable to gather on the observed dharma, unable to observe and deliberate on the dharma as it truly is; then one neither knows the dharma nor realizes the dharma. Therefore, the Chan masters of the past and the disciples in the Buddha's time, although they did not understand the dharma of the manas, were still able to see one's true mind/awakening to the true mind and realize the fruits—precisely because they all possessed profound meditative concentration.

If one does not observe one's own mind, the seventh and sixth consciousnesses will not direct their mental engagement toward this dharma, and there will be no subsequent operation of the mental factors of contact, feeling, perception, and volition, nor will the mental factors of concentration and wisdom appear—naturally, one would know nothing. Without observing one's own mind, one will flow along with one's thoughts: "I am the thought, the thought is me," trapped within it and unable to extricate oneself. The single word "knowing" is extremely important. Thoughts are like thieves: when a thief comes into the house, one must know and be aware, watching him. When the thief knows he has been discovered, he will be too embarrassed to steal and will slink away in defeat.

Therefore, when circumstances arise, one must know; when thoughts appear, one must know. Do not run after circumstances, do not let thoughts continue to flow on, and thereby maintain right awareness. If one did not know before, one was as foolish as a dog chasing a thrown clod: seeing someone throw a stone, it chases after it; hearing a sound, it barks wildly, not knowing it is merely the wind blowing the grass. People and foolish dogs are no different: all day long they take circumstances as real, giving rise to thoughts and intentions, conflicts/disputes/gossip of self and others, "I am high, you are low," fighting until heads are broken and blood flows just to compete for a mouthful of food—sentient beings are both pitiable and lamentable. In order to change oneself, one must diligently practice the work of observing one's own mind.