“The Source of Our Problems”
Why it is so hard to maintain a continually happy and peaceful mind if we have all this potential for peace and happiness within us? The answer is because we habitually succumb to deluded thoughts that consume our mind and destroy our inner peace. There is no such thing as an intrinsically bad person. Delusions are distorted, deceptive ways of viewing our own self, others and the world around us. Anger, for example, corrupts our view of others so that they appear intrinsically bad. However, there is no such thing as an intrinsically bad person. Desirous attachment, on the other hand, sees its object of desire as intrinsically good, beneficial or absolutely necessary. If we have a strong desire for chocolate cake, then to us that chocolate cake appears intrinsically, irresistibly good. But after the third piece we begin to feel sick, and then it no longer seems so delicious — we may even find it repulsive! This clearly shows that, like all things, chocolate cake itself is neither delicious nor disgusting. Rather it is the deluded mind of attachment that projects all sorts of attractive qualities onto whatever we behold and then relates to them as if those qualities come from the object itself.
All delusions function in this way, within our mind as well as the minds of others. They project their own distorted version of reality onto the world, and we become convinced that this projection must be true. When delusions arise within us we have lost our grip on reality and cannot see things as they really are. Because our mind is always under the control of, at least, subtle forms of delusion all the time, we should not be surprised at our seemingly never ending stress, anxiety and confusion. It is as if we are continually chasing mirages, finding only disappointment when they don’t seem to fulfil our desires or pacify our frustrations.