We don’t wake up in the morning thinking that 

we’re going to be selfish and inconsiderate today. 

And yet throughout the day, we act selfishly in many ways. We don’t answer a co-worker’s email, although we know he’s waiting for our response. We postpone a trip to the library to return a best seller, a popular book with readers. We go shopping with one friend forgetting that we had told another we’d go with her.

Here’s another thought we don’t wake up with: I’m going to make someone suffer today.

And yet, that’s what we do. We turn up the air conditioning to stay comfortable. But cooling ourselves this way contributes to global warming. This causes soil erosion on the other side of the world. Worried farmers are told that global warming is the culprit, but they have no means to stop it.

We tend busily to our affairs and forget our friend in the nursing home who enjoys such visits. We get trapped by our habits, our personal inertia, our wish for personal comfort.

We don’t mean to be selfish or unkind. But too often, we end up being so.

Pure Mind, Compassionate Heart — Dharma Lecture 5

To savor something new, 

we need to let go of the old. 

Picture in your mind a cup filled with tea. It’s your favorite Earl Grey. But today, you feel like trying another tea, one that a friend is raving over, the Dragon Pearl Jasmine. Both teas are really good, but you experiment. You mix them together. The result? A strange tasting brew.

Learning Buddhism is like this. If we try to take in new teachings when our “cup” already holds another, the diverse teachings will become muddled. We’ll end up trying to combine different forms of meditation and find that we don’t master any of them.

Study different teachings and we’ll find that while both have the same goal we need to take different paths to reach it.

Listen to different teachers and we’ll get confused with teachings explained in different ways.

Even when equally good, the practice and the teachings lose their potency when combined. Sometimes, we need to clean the cup—let go of former ideas and notions—to purely appreciate that which is new.