Many times I have mistaken the awakening for the judgment about what is good or bad. I look at my own personality with its deeds, together with my own observations and those of others, and I come to the conclusion that is bad. I try to change my personality by replacing it with one that I and others assume to be good. I go from one mistake to another, from one extremity to another, feeling satisfied or dissatisfied with myself. I have mistaken my bad personality for my good personality as both are mine.
So, who am I really?
I am pure, and by nature either good or bad. I am the one who knows that I am awakened at all times and try not to fall into delusion after delusion. When I judge myself as bad, I forget my true self. I let myself be drawn into the sense organs, the innate characters, and the habits that I have been learning from others around me since I was a child. When I see others making a judgment that such personality is bad, and approving of a better one, I act and behave exactly as is expected of me and believe that is my true self. But in reality I only change from a corpse to another.
Do I want to live for my own life, or to please others and have their praises?
If I only
want to have others’ praises, I will continue to be a corpse.