Yesterday I was eating an apple at home. I was outside so I threw the apple core into our garden.
I live with a flatmate who saw what I did. “What are you doing?” she yelled at me.
Shocked at her negative reaction, I replied “putting the apple in the garden”.
“That’s not good!” she shouted.
What could be wrong with putting apple in the garden? I thought to myself.
“Food scraps attract predators like rats and mice, which can come into our house”, she said.
I had never heard such crazy news.
So, under my breath I said “I can’t do anything”.
She heard me and went inside.
I was extremely angry.
I went to my room and checked my phone.
Within one minute she had messaged me. “We live in a reserve so we are not meant to throw stuff in the bush”
And she backed it up by posting an article from the government which read:
“Food scraps can take years to break down and they feed predators like rats and mice”.
I was furious. I felt like she was out to get me.
I looked back on my mind through meditation that night. I started to see objectively why the situation happened.
Even before the apple event, I was already holding a lot of negative mind towards her. In a way, I created the whole situation.
I did not have the true mind inside me. I had false mind inside me. I was not humble. It was just a matter of time before my cold attitude towards my flatmate came back on me.
Meditation taught me I am living inside my own mind world.
The method to go to heaven while living is to cleanse the self-centred body and mind from this great universe and even cleanse the false conceptions of the universe. Then the pure universe remains. This existence is Truth.
Through introspection, I could also see my mind that thinks “I am right”.
I thought that throwing apple in the garden was absolutely the right thing to do.
However, when I see from my flatmate’s perspective, I can see she is right. Our house would benefit from having no mice as well.
It’s a small example and seems like nothing. However, meditation has helped me accept my reality. If I didn’t find meditation, I would have got so angry to the point I would have moved house. I would have tried to change my external environment, which would probably create more stress as I would have to find another place to live.
Being able to accept my reality has improved my happiness.
Why not try meditation so you can accept your current life?