Once, there were two monks after being ordained by their teachers traveled the globe to practice the teachings given by their teacher. While they were on their way back to meet their teacher, the two monks passed by a village which was flooded. They reached a river which they had to cross; the river was bursting with flood waters. A young lady stood by the bank of the river with her daughter.
The monks began to cross the river; the young lady approached the monks for help. The first monk refused to help as it was against his principle to touch women as this was the advice given to him by his teacher. The second monk did not think a second to help and carried the lady and her little daughter on his shoulder to cross the river.
The lady thanked the monks and they parted their way. The first monk was very unhappy with his friend’s decision to help the lady. The two monks reached their teacher and were asked to give a brief explanation on their travel. The teacher was very pleased with their travel and their practices. The first monk was unhappy and said ‘Master, I have to confess that on the way here we has to cross a river , a young lady had asked for help to cross the river as the waters were high . I refused but he referring to the second monk carried her across the river and had broken the rule of our celibacy by touching her.
The Master replied “He has only carried her across the river and left her there but you have carried her all the time in your mind till this very moment, you have failed!”
From this story, we can realize that what matter is how we think and what we think. Holding on to negative thoughts and finding faults with others is just going to make the situation even worst. It creates negative emotions in us and by spreading these negative thoughts it affects others as well. How we manage negative thoughts? Understand first from where the thoughts are rising from. Generally negative thoughts are from the past, or our surrounding and the people we deal with in our daily life. Understand we do have a choice with our thoughts.
If a thought causes any distress to yourself or to others, it is best to give up that thought. Carrying that negative thought may just result to further complications to oneself. Many times we blame the society and the people around us for the negative emotions that we have to deal with. Remember the choice is in our hand. We have to develop the right way of thinking and drop unwanted thoughts.
Negative thoughts will just continue to breed unhealthy thinking patterns. We have to make an effort to stop and make a positive choice. Divert the mind to positive thoughts every time the mind sinks into a negative emotion. Know that there is none to blame on the situations that we are in. Make the right choices of thoughts. Do not bring the thought out into speech before thinking well about the thought. This will take time and practice, but eventually peace if yours.
5 key points
- Change the way you think
- Know that you have a choice to think
- Focus on solutions there in none to blame on the situation you are in
- Think well before you make a decision to verbalize your thoughts
- Practice changing a negative thought to a positive one
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