Changing your personality traits is a vital, non-negotiable task for every practitioner. It is a form of self-discipline and self-supervision that you must undertake with the utmost sincerity. Many of us believe that we are practising diligently, yet we remain tethered to the very habits that keep us trapped in the cycle of rebirth. To truly progress, we must look inward and identify the specific traits that cloud our original nature.
Recognising the Shadows Within
What exactly are these personality traits that hinder our spiritual growth? They are the subtle and overt manifestations of our ego that arise in daily life. Consider these common patterns:
Emotional Volatility:
When things do not go your way, or when others do not follow your instructions, you immediately change your expression, become angry, and fall into fits of rage.Stubborn Subjectivity:
You possess a strong sense of subjectivity, firmly believing that you are always right and others are always wrong. You find it difficult to accept the perspectives or opinions of others.Negative Focus:
You tend to focus on the negative rather than the positive. You frequently make unreasonable demands of others and are quick to point out their faults.Defensiveness:
When you make a mistake, you do not feel gratitude when others offer guidance or reminders. Instead, you react with anger and resentment toward those who try to help you.Ingrained Habits:
Greed, arrogance, doubt, and the habit of ignoring good counsel have become ingrained patterns that you repeat without thinking.Mental Restlessness: Your mind is easily troubled, restless, and filled with a sense of injustice, preventing you from finding peace.
These are but a few examples of the personality traits that keep us bound to the world of suffering. As students of the Hsiang Kuang Buddhist Centre, you must take the time to reflect deeply upon your own character.
The Mirror of Self-Reflection
Ask yourself these difficult but necessary questions to gauge the state of your practice:
Do you possess the awareness to recognise the existence of these personality traits within yourself, and are you willing to face them and change your ways?Can you stop these traits from arising again, preventing them from stirring up storms and causing you to create more ?Are you able to distance yourself from the sufferings of birth, aging, sickness, and death, and escape the cycle of rebirth?Is your chanting of a continuous, flowing stream that never stops? Is your practice strong enough to subdue your wandering thoughts, delusions, and personality traits?Can you achieve in this very lifetime?Can you, through chanting Namo Amituofo, be reborn in the Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss in this lifetime?
Furthermore, consider how far you are from Awakening. Is it right before your eyes, or does it feel like it is on the other side of the world? Is your heart, your vow, and your conduct truly in sync with the Buddha-heart, the Buddha-vow, and the Buddha-actions?
Walking the Path to Awakening
You must engage in diligent practice and purify your body, mind, and spirit. You must work quickly to change your personality traits. If you can reach a state where these traits no longer arise—where they are transformed into nothingness, leaving the mind as still as water, without waves, firm and unmoving—then you are truly engaged in diligent practice. This is what it means to truly change your personality and to have genuine faith in the Buddha.
The greatest beneficiary of this transformation is you, for you are finally stepping onto the path toward Awakening. If you can sustain this state, ensuring that these turbulent personality traits no longer manifest, you will find that the moment of Awakening is at hand.
