The spiritual leader of Buddhism, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, visited our country for the fourth time in September 2011. During his visit, he conducted two meetings as part of his life's mission, which is to spread the original teachings of Buddhism. Below, we will quote part of these teachings that the Dalai Lama imparts in a time of extraordinary changes.

We know that enormous material progress alone has not been able to give us the happiness we all desire. His Holiness the Dalai Lama teaches that it is necessary to develop fundamental human qualities within ourselves, such as love, compassion, empathy, patience, and contentment. These values will transform our attitude and help us find more peace and unconditional well-being.

"Disturbing emotions are states of the mind that, when manifested in the continuum of our thoughts, leave us disturbed, confused, and unhappy. Therefore, those states of mind that afflict or deceive us are called distortions or afflictive emotions." "Monks, there are beings who may not suffer physical illnesses for periods of one, two, or even a hundred years. But it is very difficult to find in the world beings who can claim to be free of mental disturbances at any time, with the sole exception of those who have destroyed the distortions." Buddha [Anguttara Nikaya (A.II:143); Samyutta Nikaya (S.III.:2)]

Buddhist Psychology describes four mental aggregates: Feeling, Discrimination, Primary Consciousness (the five senses and conscious attention of the mind), and other aspects, gathered within the Compositional Factors.

The Feeling Aggregate is defined as an omnipresent factor of the mind that classifies experiences into three categories: pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral:

When we categorize an object as pleasant, we develop attachment. When we categorize an object as unpleasant, we develop aversion and even anger or hatred. When we categorize an object as neutral, we often do not care about that object and may even ignore it.

The labeling process of the feeling aggregate usually lasts a fraction of a second. After applying a label to an object, we tend to create an opinion and a static image of the object in our mind. At this stage, usually, the seed of prejudice is sown. Once we have established the opinion that something is pleasant or unpleasant, we generally need a large amount of evidence before we are willing to change our minds - if we are even prepared to do so. Once we have categorized an object as unpleasant or bad, that object appears as if it were bad in itself, as if badness were an inherent quality.

We can label a person as "bad," but surely their friends would not agree! Therefore, we need to realize that "good" and "bad" are mere opinions, and the opinion is usually based on nothing more than a first glance and almost immediate labeling. Things and people change faster than our labels. Everyone tends to be prejudiced. Labeling is a convenient way to quickly make sense of our surrounding world by categorizing things in terms of "good" or "bad." The main problem is that we tend to react to the world based on mere (super)simplified labels.

Our mind does not naturally look inside itself, does not look at itself. It produces opinions, issues judgments, etc., but it is always outward. So, for the mind to look at itself, we need the help of knowledge that guides us in that direction. Buddhist philosophy and psychology have been indicating that direction for 2500 years.

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