Taming the Mind in Response to Circumstances

He who would subdue demons must first subdue his own mind; once the mind is subdued, all demons withdraw and listen. He who would master the untoward must first master this qi; once the qi is balanced, external violence cannot invade.

—Cai Gen Tan (Vegetable Roots Discourse)

In Buddhism there is a term called duizhi (counteracting). When a young monk has vexations, the old monk has him counteract the vexations. How is this "counteracting" to be translated into modern language? In Buddhist terms, counteracting means using the Way (the Dharma) to cut off vexations. The Way (Dharma) is that which can counteract; the vexations are that which is to be counteracted. This translation is long-winded, and I do not like it. I prefer to translate duizhi as "taming the mind in response to circumstances." Here "circumstances" refers to a person's good or bad state of mind at a given moment.

It is not that I now have no vexations; in my life various problems often arise and for a time trouble me. At such times I recall the word duizhi, identify my present state of mind and vexation, and apply the Dharma to counteract it, so that my mind can become calm. With more of this training, over time, fewer and fewer problems can trouble me.

Of course, I am a dull and clumsy person, and my skill in taming the mind in response to circumstances is not very good. All these years, cultivating left and right, cultivating up and down, cultivating by day and by night, I have not yet reached the stage of being able to completely cut off vexations. But the dull have one advantage: they do not urgently demand of themselves that they immediately cut off all vexations; they only require that, when vexations come, they tame the mind in response to circumstances once and remove the present vexation—that is enough. To force oneself to reach a certain stage is itself a kind of attachment.

When taming the mind in response to circumstances, what matters is inner introspection. The Dharma came from ancient India; Indians are the people most endowed with the spirit of self-examination, who value spiritual life most and disdain material life. When we tame the mind in response to circumstances, the first thing we must look at is the problems within ourselves—such as greed, anger, delusion, pride, and doubt. If we do not raise the thought ourselves, the outside world cannot invade our spiritual world. As the saying goes, a strong fence keeps the dog out. If the outside world can invade our heart, it must be that our heart is not yet strong enough, that the fence of our heart is not sufficient to keep out the dog from without. We need, after keenly feeling the pain, to build the fence of our heart firmly, so that we do not repeat the same mistake a second time.

If the mind is strong enough to master the self, so that the self is not mastered by the outside world, then a person will not easily lose himself in a restless outer world. If the mind is not yet strong to this degree, then there must still be weaknesses within the heart; these weaknesses should be overcome, so that our spiritual world becomes fuller.

When taming the mind in response to circumstances, we should be grateful to those who bring us the opportunity to reflect on ourselves, and to those who cause our heart to produce a "circumstance." In this world that numbs people, whatever kind of circumstance another person causes in our heart, it is a rare karmic bond between us and them. Ordinary people cannot raise even a ripple in our heart.

For a person to defeat others is no great skill; the hardest thing is to defeat one's own various deluded minds. To defeat oneself tests one's own skill in taming the mind in response to circumstances. If a person can, in an instant, defeat his various negative emotions—or, better still, not produce any negative emotions at all—and can keep himself calm and composed from start to finish, with no inner disorder, then his or her ability to tame the mind in response to circumstances has reached the highest stage.

Having reached this stage, the benefit is enormous, not only to oneself but also to the people beside one.