Humbly Changing Your Ways

Teacher's Teachings, recorded and transcribed by Namo Amituofo’s disciple, Venerable HaiZe

July 5, 2026

Teachings by Teacher Practitioner Xia Lianju:

Humbly changing your ways is an important part of practice.

The arising of faults is often caused by personality traits.

Humbly changing your ways is the practical action of changing these personality traits.

Accumulated over countless lifetimes, deep-seated personality traits have been gathered.

If they manifest in this life and one finds it difficult to change your ways, they will become one of the causes for creating negative karma.

In practice, if one can clearly see the obstacles that personality traits cause to one's practice,

one can often discover problems that one could not see before.

Through the teachings of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, ancestral masters and venerable masters, or the guidance of those who have realised their true nature and true spiritual friends,

one can identify the problems in one's practice.

Those who humbly change their ways will not insist on their own views,

because they know that the world is an illusory phenomenon, and personality traits are also phenomena within this illusion.

If one insists that one is right, such a person finds it difficult to humbly change your ways.

Why struggle by holding tightly onto personality traits?

Why struggle because one cannot let go of one's pride and face, and thus cannot humbly change your ways and cannot progress?

More importantly, by losing the opportunity to see the true reality because of these false appearances,

one obstructs the manifestation of one's true self,

to allow sentient beings with karmic affinity to remain unsaved because of my personality traits,

and to continue to sink in the sea of suffering, is truly not wise.

If one wishes to progress in practice, one must apply the skills to change one's personality traits.

Those who can humbly change their ways need to subdue their own anger, ignorance, arrogance, and doubt;

let go of my attachments, my views, my opinions, my feelings, and my subjectivity;

and be able to humbly accept the guidance or instruction of others.

Letting go of the "self" in practice is an important lesson.

When one can let go of the "self", it means letting go of selfishness.

The heart no longer puts "me" first, but instead places the Buddha and sentient beings at the forefront.

Through continuous purification while chanting one Buddha-name to the end, one's character is transformed,

allowing the "me" to gradually disappear, fade away, and enter into no-self.

Those who can do this will certainly progress in their practice and reach Awakening.

Namo Amituofo