Our Daily Lie

When we are listening to the dharma, meditating or practising, if our way of thinking is along the lines of, ‘May this be good for me. May things turn out well for me.’ then our motivation is poor. If we take that as the foundation for our study and practice of the dharma, it’s not really going to work. And if by chance there is some sign of progress for the practice, you can be sure that it will be only temporary.

Let’s take a look at how very strange and amusing the way we go about our practice is. Let’s say we are reciting mantra or meditating, which is something beneficial and virtuous. So how do we start? We say, ‘I’m going to do this practice for the benefit of all sentient beings.’ This is what we say with our mouths. But when it comes to the virtue which is to be taken on, how is it that we are thinking? As if putting everything into our own pocket without giving anything away, we think, ‘I will take all the benefit and you don’t get anything!’ All along our mouths are saying, ‘For the benefit of all sentient beings…’, but what we are really thinking is, ‘…. may my mind become happy…may this help me.’ In this way we go about our practice and that makes us the biggest liar in the world!

When we look at what’s actually going on, it’s pure self concern, and that doesn’t bring much of a beneficial result. Why is that? It’s because we are not doing the practice properly as taught in the dharma, we fake it. In fact, the practice doesn’t become practice, instead it becomes something which sends us in the other direction. Because all of our difficulties and problems stem from this very strong sense of ‘me’.

The dharma teaches us to give up self-cherishing and to cherish others. If we were to do it as it is taught, if we can remember that the reason why we are studying and practising the dharma is so that we will have the ability to help others, having the thought that ‘through this may all sentient beings benefit,’ then our dharma practice would be genuine and become something through which both ourselves and others would be greatly benefited.