The Book of Joy

Dharamsala, and we went to prepare for the April visit. Our return flight
from the cloud-covered Dharamsala airport was canceled, so we
embarked on a bumpy and winding expedition to the nearest airport,
holding tightly to the hand straps in the car as we bounced up and down
and were tossed from side to side. We tried hard not to get carsick, and
distracted ourselves by telling each other humorous stories from our
travels—stretching each story as long as possible during the bone-
shaking six-hour journey.
“We have perceptions about our experience, and we judge them: ‘This
is good.’ ‘This is bad.’ ‘This is neutral,’” the Dalai Lama explained.
“Then we have responses: fear, frustration, anger. We realize that these
are just different aspects of mind. They are not the actual reality.
Similarly, fearlessness, kindness, love, and forgiveness are also aspects
of mind. It is very useful to know the system of emotion and to
understand how our mind works.
“When a fear or frustration comes, we have to think, what is causing
it? In most cases, fear is simply a mental projection. When I was young
and living in the Potala, there was an area that was very dark, and there
were stories about ghosts there. So when I was passing through this area,
I would feel something. This was completely a mental projection.”
“No,” the Archbishop said with a frightened face. “There were ghosts
there, man.”
The Dalai Lama laughed and said, “When a mad dog approaches,
barking and gnashing its teeth, then you need fear. That’s not a mental
projection. So you have to analyze the causes of the fear. With
frustration, often you see someone, and you have a mental projection
even when his or her face is neutral. Similarly, when you see someone’s
actions, you have a mental projection even when their behavior is neutral.
So you have to ask yourself if your frustration is based on something real.
Even if someone criticizes you or attacks you, then you have to think:
Why did this happen? This person is not your enemy from birth. Certain
circumstances caused the person to be negative toward you. There may be
many causes, but usually your own attitude is an important contributing
factor that cannot be ignored. You realize that this happened because you