Self-Reliance
“We must be both our own doctor, as well as the patient. We must prescribe and take our own medicine. Now, in being our own doctor, in checking up on our thoughts, actions, and speech, we must administer an X-Ray on a daily basis, an X-Ray to pinpoint problem areas for the day. What have we done today that clashes with others? What have we said that doesn’t sit well with other people? We have to check ourselves in order to find out. Sometimes our thoughts side heavily with ourselves. So we must realize that we are being a dictator. We shouldn’t use ourselves as the standard. This is how we teach ourselves. We are who reminds ourselves.”
How to Contemplate the Truth
“Wisdom arises from frequent thought, contemplation, and analysis of reality that adheres to The Three Common Characteristics: Impermanence, Suffering, and Cessation of existence in a supposed form. All things arise from a cause will be extinguished once that cause is extinguished. This is a classic dhamma contemplation. Let us build an accurate understanding of how things arise, exist temporarily and must inevitably deteriorate and cease to be. Everything shares these three common characteristics. There is only a discrepancy in the time it takes for each thing to cease to exist as this is contingent on the extinction of its cause. Some things arise quickly and are extinguished quickly while some things take longer to deteriorate. Regardless, it will ultimately cease to exist.”
Luang Por Thoon Khippapanyo
May 20, 1935 – November 11, 2008