Self-Reflection and Self-Renewal

The past mind cannot be grasped; the present mind cannot be grasped; the future mind cannot be grasped.

—From the Diamond Sutra

The human mind is changeable; one thought lasts but an instant, and after that instant passes, a new thought arises. Neither others nor we ourselves can escape this law. Thus the Buddhist sutras say: "Take care not to trust your own thoughts; your thoughts cannot be trusted. Only when you have become an arhat may you trust your thoughts."

The reason for this phenomenon is that human beings are constantly reflecting on and renewing themselves. Every person, at every moment, reflects on himself; the next moment he will want to adjust himself and become a new self. This process is self-reflection and self-renewal. Even the great scoundrel who grows worse and worse is constantly reflecting and renewing himself; the difference is only that the outlook on life he reveres is that of seizing the day and of selfishness.

Therefore, in the Sutra of the Awarenesses of Great Beings, the Buddha held that all things in the world are illusory, fragile, and unfathomable "impermanent." Impermanence means no constant state, instability, and ease of change.

Before a person finds his own nature, he lives in muddle; he needs to continue self-reflection and self-renewal until he returns to the self-nature of the true self—that is, until he accomplishes the highest fruition of Hinayana Buddhism, the fruit of arhatship—before his original nature can be manifested.

Each of us may often have the feeling the ancients called "awakening that today is right and yesterday was wrong." Sometimes we feel we have seen through some affairs of the world, but actually we should not conclude too early, because this very "seeing through" may later be denied by ourselves. For as long as life does not cease, we may continue to reflect and renew. In the future, we will still have the feeling of "awakening that today is right and yesterday was wrong," and at that time we will deny our present selves.

A person of mature mind always retains a measure of doubt toward himself, because in the process of maturing he inevitably finds that his past judgments are always going wrong. Only by having tried these errors can one awaken and know that one is always in the process of self-reflection and self-renewal.

In this world there are no firm thoughts, only firm faith. And faith is a direction; for a person to reach the state faith points to, he must endure a thousand hardships, undergo countless self-reflections and self-renewals, and weather long trials and setbacks, before he can become a qualified self.