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beings.”
    Studying Right Thought has helped me go deeper into the difficult lesson in life that deals with our thoughts and the concept that in the early stages of our journey we are seldom aware of our true thoughts. Our true thoughts are buried deep within our minds underneath the monkey-mind chatter, the habitual and the unconscious thinking. In order to reach these true, inner thoughts we must learn to still the mind through faithful meditation practices.
    The Buddha said that the broader the student’s consciousness, the more profound is his experience of the teaching. Intellectual learning must be applied to one’s own life, into one’s own practice.
    Knowledge, practice and a compassionate heart must all be united in a true teacher. It is taught that there are ten qualities all true teachers embody. They are: (1) Disciplined mind. (2) Calm mind. (3) Calm being. (4) Knowledge that exceeds students’. (5) Enthusiasm for teaching. (6) Vast learning. (7) Realization of emptiness, a commitment to practice compassion. (8) Eloquent and skillful teaching. (9) Deep compassion toward students. (10) Resilience and ultimate patience with students.
    The student’s qualities need to be (1) An open mind. (2) An objective mind. (3) The intelligence to discern what is accurate from what is inaccurate. (4) Enthusiasm.
    The essence of spiritual practice is to be a better person and to refrain from harming others.
     
I think when tragic things happen, it is on the surface.
It is like the ocean. On the surface a wave comes,
and sometimes the wave is very serious and strong.
But it comes and goes, comes and goes, and underneath
the ocean always remains calm.
     
—HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA
     
And we must learn to always remain calm at our depths, like the ocean at its depths.
    The Buddhists say all things and events lack self-existence. The teaching states that all things are impermanent and are an illusion. One of the greatest insights I have ever taken away from the Dalai Lama was when he said, “We can say something is an illusion, not because my writing tablet, desk and pen are not here, but we can certainly say and agree that they are impermanent.” Therefore, anything that is impermanent can be said to be an illusion because it is impermanent. It will not last forever.
    The next logical conclusion is that the mind eventually reaches this level of awareness. The ultimate nature of reality is the emptiness of all things and events—the absence of independent reality. Nothing can cease the continuation of consciousness or mind. Emptiness is not nothingness. It means it does not have its own origination. This is the Middle Way. This can be most challenging for our Western minds to comprehend.
    The mind can be likened to the ocean viewed from an airplane at 35,000 feet. It looks completely calm, yet when you near the surface, you find much turbulence if a storm is in progress. So, too, our minds appear to be calm and serene, but when we look inside, there can be much monkey-mind chatter and much turmoil and raging turbulence.
    Our lifelong task is to learn to still the mind—to free the mind of angry thoughts, sad thoughts, depressed thoughts, separate thoughts, lonely thoughts, hateful thoughts, thoughts of attachment. The only means of doing this is constant practice and observation, replacing an angry thought with a calm thought, a sad thought with a joyous thought. We must practice deep meditation.
    After much practice, the troubled mind can be put to rest, and then the basic nature of the mind can rise. Our basic nature is serene, clear, calm.
    In order to have Right Thought, Thich Nhat Hanh says that we must embody the Four Immeasurables—Love, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity. They are the very nature of a noble being, an enlightened being. We must stop feeding our negative states of mind. How? We cease from calling violence “entertainment.” We cease speaking endlessly of ourselves as the victim. We begin to