We have seen earlier in our course that our quest to achieve long lasting secure happiness will never have a secure base if it is tied to external events and conditions which are outside our control.

In any case, even if we can assemble fabulous worldly conditions we know this itself is also no guarantee for us having a peaceful mind and inner happiness.

Mental states such as worry, regret, stinginess, ill will, doubt, laziness, dullness of mind, greed, restlessness, attachment, conceit, aversion, boredom, jealousy and envy are all producers of unhappiness now and in the future. If we harbour these mental states they are drivers of unhappiness now, and because of the law of kamma they make causes for similar mental states to come back to us again in the future.

As the Buddha says in the Dhammapada, Chapter 1,

As we are truly our own guardians, to secure our own personal welfare, we need to follow a method that is built on this truth, and on the principle that we can take charge of our own mind.

We train our minds to produce the wholesome mental states such as confidence, mindfulness, friendliness, generosity, alertness, forgiveness, patience, gratitude, fear of unwholesomeness, equanimity, lightness of mind, adaptability of mind and loving kindness.

The reason that is a secure base for our happiness is because it is robust, it is resilient, it can bend with the wind rather than stress and break, it is intelligent, it is built on inner strengths which can deal with the difficulties of life much better.

Training your mind to be wholesome is the way a true platform for your happiness in this life is built. Over time through practice as your virtue platform becomes stronger your ability to handle misfortune without becoming upset increases.

Firstly, we need to be able to correctly identify what are the unwholesome mental states that arise in our minds and what are wholesome mental states that arise in our minds. We may think this would be clear enough, as we can easily recognise our own angry mind for example, when we have become annoyed.

But this is only dealing with our most conspicuous and obvious mental states, when something in our mind is so powerful we loose our mental composure and sometimes even our verbal and physical composure. If we look finer, into even our most common place daily behaviour, we can usually identify some aspect of an unwholesome mind is present.

Buddhism states that at the root of all our suffering are three mental states called greed, hatred and ignorance. The predominant way these three negative ingredients in our minds manifest to us is through our experience of our own "self" grasping nature.

Our core values and trusts do revolve around "I", "mine", "my", "me" as the basis of how we relate to the world. We are seeking to satisfy our "I" cravings and demands first and foremost (greed), and seeking to avoid the things that we have aversion to (hate), as the principle methods of maintaining happiness for ourselves.

The Buddha found out that as long as we follow these root values of greed, hate and ignorance we will never attain any lasting peace or happiness. These are the ingredients of our suffering, not our happiness.

So can you believe it if we tell you this is really the good news! It is the good news because it's the truth. If we know what the real situation is that is the best grounds upon which to find practical and realistic methods to address the problem. Actually the Buddha has already solved the problem. It is up to us to consider what the Buddha has advised us to do. As we learn and get to know the Buddhist Path we can recognise how it equips and empowers us to completely overcome our unwholesome minds. Then it is up to us how we live the rest of our lives.

The Dalai Lama writes in his book titled The Dalai Lama's Book of Transformation:

His Holiness continues:

Furthermore:

You may notice that as you read Buddha Dhamma Teachings or hear quotes such as the one we have just read that the self-cherishing attitudes of which we are so familiar are built from building blocks of various unwholesome minds. The roots of self-cherishing we have seen during this course are the unwholesome minds of greed, hate and ignorance and the branches are all the manifestations of these three such as resentment, unfriendliness, stinginess, lack of moral shame, envy, restlessness, laziness and so on.

So the self-cherishing minds, which on the surface seem the shortest most direct root to getting what we really want, which is to be happy, turn out to be sowing the seeds of our future unhappiness.

The components of our Virtue Platform work against the habitual "complex of self cherishing thoughts".

(1) Generosity and kindness

Whether it is from the point of view of making a large accumulation of good kamma needed to improve our minds and our life circumstances or from the viewpoint of overcoming the tentacles of self-centredness, the important thing is to serve others needs happily with energy and determination.

Whilst you are doing good actions, also be mindful, keep five precepts, interact with others with loving kindness and then, dedicate the merit you produce from the good you have done to a wholesome mental state you wish to develop, or to a new skill or ability you have identified will help you to be well and happy.

Our minds can improve steadily from week to week if we are making enough good causes.

(2) The five precepts can be expressed in the positive form as

1. To protect and support life.
2. To help ourselves and others have good conditions for living.
3. To be truthful, reliable and trustworthy.
4. To develop and promote harmony with others.
5. To cultivate purity of heart and mind to benefit yourself and others.

(3) Using and cultivating wholesome minds and not using unwholesome minds.

Right effort in Buddhism is described as (1) reduce the unwholesome minds which have arisen and (2) reduce the unwholesome minds yet to arise and to (3) increase the wholesome minds which have arisen and to (4) increase the wholesome minds yet to arise.

Venerable K. Sri Dhammananda explains Right Effort in his book What Buddhists Believe:

We decide to be a kinder person, we decide to relate with others we know and meet with generosity and lightness of heart. We choose to become more friendly, offer others more warmth, more love and we consider others needs and offer our help when it would be beneficial. We have gratitude for the kindness of others. We start to view other people we know as our guests.

It does not mean we become martyrs to everybody else's happiness or sacrifice our own welfare at the expense of others. That would be going too far the other way. We relate to our own needs through being kind to ourselves, rather than being greedy for ourselves. It means we are more balanced than being ego-centric, which is essentially a biased and narrow view of life. We look after ourselves and others; not ourselves without others, or ourselves at the expense of others.

In one shift we move from self-centredness toward kindness to each being we meet in our life. Other people have done this before us. So many people have made this kind of transformation in their lives. By doing it we are countering all our gross and some of our more subtle defilements and afflictions simultaneously at once!

Occasionally when we do experience strong negative minds Buddhist practice teaches us skilful methods to weaken them. Whilst every defilement of the mind has specific antidotes which are particularly effective the general method for escaping from the grip of strong unwholesome minds is described in the Majjhima Nikaya.

1. Change the object that your mind is focusing on. Particularly change to a subject that is wholesome or calming.

2. If when giving attention to a wholesome subject, unwholesome thoughts still arise, reflect upon the danger of these thoughts, that they are reprehensible and result in suffering.

3. If when reflecting on the danger of these thoughts there still arise unwholesome thoughts try not to be mindful of them, nor give them attention.

4. If when not giving attention to them, unwholesome thoughts still arise he (or she) should give attention to the removal of the source of these thoughts.

5. If while giving attention to the removal of the source of these thoughts unwholesome thoughts still arise he (or she) should, with teeth clenched and tongue pressed against the palate, restrain, subdue and suppress the mind by using mind.

The Buddha's words from the Dhammapada:

If we decide we want to progress faster in our practice on the Buddha Path and make large strides in developing our inner happiness one thing we need to find out about is how to make very powerful good kamma. Good kamma is the fuel that supports and helps our minds improve.

We saw one way to do this last week in our examination of how to increase the good merit made when we practice generosity.

Our Teacher John Hughes advised his students to focus some of our time each week on activities that are designed specifically for making large amounts of good kamma as this would really pay off in how quickly we improved. Many of his students did this and still do this as a regular thing each week.

John planned and organised our temple around this principle, to give his students many opportunities to make the right kinds of merit that would be most beneficial to support their efforts to wake up.

If you think about it for a moment, if you want your mind to improve quickly, if you want to create many good causes for your own well being and happiness then the quickest way to do it is to help others do that.

This is why many Buddhists decide to offer their help to a Buddhist Temple. Buddhist Temples exist for the purpose of helping and supporting people who are working to build their own happiness and wellbeing with the aim of attaining Nirvana, the goal of the Buddhist Path. Therefore by offering help and contributing to that activity, that process, this really becomes one of the fastest and easiest approaches for your own development.

Helping Buddhist Temples creates the good kamma needed to learn and realise the Dhamma directly in your own mind because Buddhist temples exist in the world to help beings realise the Dhamma to become free of suffering.

Offering our help to Buddhist Monks and Nuns in the same way creates wonderful good causes for our own wellbeing because of their purity and attainment, and also because they absolutely need the support of laypersons to be able to continue their practice toward enlightenment as a monk or nun.

Many Buddhist monks and nuns have given up the worldly life to concentrate their efforts and time on reaching their goal. The full support and assistance of laypersons is needed everyday to provide whatever the Monks and Nuns may need and to help maintain these special living conditions.

Finally, Master Hsing Yun writes:

The Buddhist Abhidhamma texts explain that there are fourteen different forms that greed, hate and ignorance manifest in our minds as specific mental states or mental cetiskas (pali).

They are referred to as unwholesome because they generate our unpleasant mental experiences and the kammic outcome of these fruits as all the sufferings we have ever experienced.

We have listed the fourteen unwholesome cetasikas below. Also we have listed the twenty-five wholesome mental states, which are the generators of our true well-being and happiness.

We can relate to these lists as being the mind equivalents of the periodic table of elements of matter as described from the scientific viewpoint.

Unwholesome mental consciousness.

1. Ignorance (moha)
2. lack of moral shame (ahirika)
3. lack of fear of unwholesomeness (anottappa)
4. restlessness (uddhacca)
5. attachment (lobha)
6. wrong view (ditthi)
7. conceit (mana)
8. aversion (dosa)
9. envy (issa)
10. stinginess (macchariya)
11. regret (kukkucca)
12. sloth (thina)
13. torpor (middha)
14. doubt (vicikiccha)

The twenty-five wholesome consciousness are:

1. Confidence (saddha)
2. mindfulness (sati)
3. moral shame (hiri)
4. fear of unwholesomeness (ottappa)
5. disinteredness (alobha)
6. amity (adosa)
7. equanimity (tatramajjhattata)
8. composure of mental states (kayapassadhi)
9. composure of mind (citta kayapassadhi)
10. lightness of mental states (kaya-lahuta)
11. lightness of mind (citta-lahuta)
12. pliancy of mental states (kaya-muduta)
13. Pliancy of mind (citta-muduta)
14. adaptability of mental states (kaya-kammannata)
15. adaptability of mind (citta-kammannata)
16. proficiency of mental states (kaya-pagunnata)
17. proficiency of mind (citta-pagunnata)
18. rectitude of mental states (kaya-ujukata)
19. rectitude of mind (citta-ujukata)
20 right speech (samma vaca)
21 right action (samma kammanta)
22 right livelihood (samma ajiva)
23 compassion (karuna)
24 sympathetic joy (mudita)
25 wisdom (panna)

It is very useful to have these lists to refer to as they are some of the real building blocks of our mental life. Using them as checklists helps us recognise these mental factors operating in our consciousness from moment to moment.

If we can accurately identify which state is arising in our mind, we can decide what to do next; either cultivate them if they are wholesome or apply the correct antidote practice to reduce them if they are unwholesome. This is called Right Effort in Buddhist practice.

May all beings make the right causes to abandon the unwholesome cetasikas for himself or herself, and may they make the right causes to access and develop all the twenty five wholesome cetasikas.

1.  Venerable Buddharakkhita. Dhammapada a practical guide to right living. Sukkhi Hotu Dhamma Publications, Selangor Malaysia.

2. His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the XIVth Dalai Lama. 2000. The Dalai Lama's Book of Transformation. Published by Thorsons Publishing, an Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 77-85 Fullham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB.

3. Venerable Master Hsing Yun. 1998. Being Good, Buddhist Ethics for Everyday Life. Published by Weatherhill Inc, 568 Broadway, Suite 705, New York, NY 10012.