Your mind is the source of both happiness and suffering.

Lord Buddha said: You yourself are protector, and you yourself are enemy. It means that whether we want to be good or bad is in our hand.

The great master Chandrakirti said that the mind generates everything. Since our mind generates both happiness and suffering, it is the source of happiness and suffering. But we generate sufferings more, for we are getting used to attachment, desire, anger, greedy.

Given the fact that our mind is the source of happiness and suffering, we are ignorant of it, and we seek happiness with help of materialism. Of course we imagine, plan and act in order to get rid of suffering and enjoy happiness. Nevertheless, we often land in suffering.

We want happiness and we do not want suffering. To this end we should, to begin with, understand that such feelings stem from our own mind. After knowing the mind as source of happiness and suffering, we have to engage in the mind training. Generally we are not interested to provide training to our mind, but are excited to give training to our pets. We might say we don’t need the mind training because we are healthy. Truth to be told, we look fine, but we are not fine indeed.

The mind training is to tame and control our unruly mind. And many masters compare our mind to the wild elephant.

There was a king who ruled his subjects with affectionate love and compassion. The subjects abide by the king’s order like a garland of golden flower. A man called Kundudrol caught a large elephant in a forest. He took the elephant to the palace, and shouted, “Please take a look at the elephant which is worthy for the great king’s ride.” The king and his retinues came out and looked at the elephant. The king was pleased to see the elephant, and he ordered Kundudrol to train the elephant and offer it to him.

He trained the elephant—so much so that it became calm, lovely and powerful. Kundudrol offered the elephant to the king with a hook, saying that the elephant was properly trained. Delighted, the king rode on the elephant, accompanied by Kundudrol. They passed through villages, and eventually arrived at a forest. Smelled of a female elephant, he ran faster. The kind was terrified and scolded to Kundudrol: “You said the elephant was well trained. What happened now?” With folded hands Kundudrol said that he was skilful in training the body of elephant, and that to train the mind, only Lamas are skilful. In this story we learn that it doesn't work unless mind is tamed.

Even the wild animal like a tiger, its body can be trained, not her mind. If people have not controlled their minds, we can't take granted that they would not harm us. Nor can we trust ourselves: we do things we pledge not do, and we don't do things which we pledge to do.

There is another example. Mind is boss and we are his servants, and we serve what our mind thinks and want. Without freedom, we simply carry out the order given by our mind.

Today we praise someone, but criticize him next day. We like something now and dislike it later. Although we think give up something, we, simultaneously, keep doing it. It is because of that our mind controls us. Mind is boss whose servants are us. Therefore, we must turn our boss into servant, let him serve what we think and want; and then we will enjoy genuine happiness and satisfaction, regardless of external conditions.

Concerned merely about our body – and to display beauty - , we apply varied cosmetics, nutritious food, expensive exercises, or sometimes plastic surgery and so on. For which we spend plenty of money and time. Yet we subject to illness, unhappy, stress, etc. Despite that our bodies are clean and healthy, we lie about dirt inside like a glass which is clean outside, but unclean inside. So it is important to train our mind, for our mind is producer of happiness and suffering. And to train our mind is to be mindfulness regarding negative thoughts and actions.

The mind mostly follows the external conditions and atmosphere. During my childhood we said he is like summer weather when he is moody. In summer, rain falls; it stops suddenly; sunshine; and verse versa. Similarly, our mood subjects to change frequently. And we have cheerful mood and have nice conversation, whereas we look bloomy and complain in the afternoon. Maybe our mind is like summer weather.

Above all, we have to turn our mind into a reliable and stable, for which we ought to control or tame our mind, that is, to restrain any negative thought when it is about to arise.

Atisha said: "When we are among others, we should examine our speech; when we are alone, we must examine our mind." If we contemplate on this word and apply it daily, it is helpful to control our mind.

Let's identify our secondary mind which gives us pain, for example anger. It gives us pain. To stop anger we should apply patience which is an antidote of anger. Think about disadvantage of anger, such as, how it makes us unhappy, and how it destroys harmony. Think, feel and act! In time it will be a part of your daily life. It needs practices, and it will come naturally.

Then, identify another negative thought, apply its antidote, and practice it to become familiar. In this way we are controlling our wild mind.

For mind training, moreover, we require compassion and love. To develop them, we ought to acquaint with them. When we see a poor, we develop compassion, wishing him to free from suffering. Compassion induces love, wishing the poor to enjoy happiness. The compassion and love are the best method for controlling and training our mind.