What You Carry

The Buddha said, “What we are is what we have thought for years”. Many wise men and philosophers throughout the ages have agreed with that saying as we might have heard the similar sayings e.g. "We become what we think about", "A man is what he thinks about all day long", and "A man's life is what his thoughts make of it" etc. It is true that people are carrying what they think around the world and they see the world as they think. Therefore, some see the world with optimism, but some see it pessimistically. Their world appears as they think. This reminds me of a story entitled ‘The Whole World Stinks’, which may add more understanding about this. Here is the story:

One day, a grandfather was visiting his son’s family. Because of the long journey he was tired, so in the afternoon he lay down to take a nap. His grandson decided to have a little fun with his grandfather by putting Limburger cheese on Grandfather's moustache. Soon, grandpa awoke with a snort and charged out of the bedroom saying, "This room stinks." Through the house he went, finding in every room the same smell. Desperately he made his way outside only to find that "the whole world stinks!"

So it is when we fill our minds with negativism. Everything we experience will be negative and everybody we encounter will be negative, just as we hold it in our mind. It is like the old man who carries the bad scent with him, so everywhere he goes will be smelly.

If, on the contrary, we fill our minds with positivism, everything we experience will be positive and everyone we encounter will be positive. It is like what the Buddha said, “What we are is what we have thought for years”. This is indeed so, isn’t it?