Hear From A Monk - Be mindful or be a fool (Wisdom Talk)

Suppose we are living with a moody person who has extreme negative mood swings — during those dark moods, they tend to be both deceptive and perceptive. Because they are deceptive, they often try to fool us, in ways that range from frivolous to outrageous, leading to consequences ranging from trivial to terrible. And because they are perceptive, they observe us with a hawk’s eye, quickly learning our weaknesses and remorselessly exploiting them for carrying out their deceptions. Suppose further that we had no alternative but to live lifelong with such a person. What a scary predicament!

Unfortunately, that’s already the predicament we all are susceptible to. We have inside us our own mind which, as the Bhagavad-gita (06.05) warns, can be our most dangerous enemy. Why is the mind so dangerous? Because it is both deceptive and perceptive.

The mind is deadly deceptive: it makes us believe that insignificant…