Through the power of mental qualities like intention and attention, we can create any state of mind that we choose to with practice. Without denying the existence of unpleasantness and difficulty, we don't have to let that be our focus. We can consciously create and project out into the world something that's more positive, skillful, and wholesome, based on values like patience, kindness, compassion, and goodness. If we attend to that—if we attune our perceptual process to those qualities, and when they're arising, focus on them and dwell in them—then that becomes the nature of our experience.
Ajahn Karunadhammo
Monastic
Ajahn Karunadhammo is a monk from Abhayagiri Monastery in Redwood Valley, CA, a monastery in the Thai Forest Tradition of Ajahn Chah. He has been fully ordained since 1998, and teaches every now and then at the monastery and about once a year at Spirit Rock.