What I’ve been doing a lot lately is gratitude practice. What we know from brain sciences and Buddhism teachings is you can, in fact, train your brain. Your brain becomes more negative over time because negative experiences stick in our brains.
So you can counteract that.You can ask yourself: What good idea comes out of that recent negative experience, thought or memory? Can you apply that good idea in an even more positive way? If not, as it involves another person, does that person have to deal with it in a karmic way now?
You can easily counteract the negative experience by being more conscious of things you appreciate, the good things in your life.
So I just think, What am I grateful for in the broad sense of my life? What am I grateful for in the previous day? What am I looking forward to that I’m going to enjoy in the coming day?
It’s a good exercise. For a number of years, I was diligent about physical working out. But what I’ve learned in my sort of later years, the last ten, is the importance of what we might call a workout of the mind. It’s that idea of mindfulness, and it needs the same kind of discipline and focus that the physical side needs.
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