Self-Reflection and Dhamma Contemplation for Personal Growth : หน้า 23/135

1. EXAMINE YOURSELF Before bedtime each night, take a few minutes to meditate upon your day. Reflect on everything you have done throughout the day, from the time you wake up, to the time you go to bed (i.e., waking, eating, working, meditating, keeping the precepts', giving alms). Reflect on how much merit you have accumulated and how many bad deeds you have committed today. Resolve to relinquish all the negative actions that lead to bad Kamd. Don’t even let one particle of your amendment linger with you overnight. Contemplate on giving up. Give up wrongdoings. Give up bad actions. Give up everything evil. Give up the slackness in your meditation. Contemplate on improving. Improve on doing more good deeds. Make the effort to improve yourself and build up good kamma every day. Think of this life as your final existence and your last opportunity to capture all the merits. September 31, 1976 *Precepts* (ideal) are the guiding principles that form the framework of Buddhist ethical conduct and the baseline of one's virtue. *Kamma* (Skt. Karma) is action or deed of body, speech and mind. Every wise action brings future consequences, including future rebirths; the consequences of past deeds largely determine one's general life situation. 2. CONTEMPLATE WITH DHAMMA When facing a difficult situation, look at it from the viewpoint of Dhamma’. Don’t be victimized by the influence of defilements. Reflect on Dhamma at all times. Wisdom gained from meditation will lead to the right knowledge and awareness. Time flies by quickly. Days, weeks and months go by, and all of a sudden a year is gone. Ask what you have done for yourself. Are you conducting your life in a way that fulfills your goals? What should you strive for? What should you refrain from? Are you doing the things appropriate for who you are? Always be mindful. Don’t become deluded in yourself. *Dhamma* (Skt. Dharmak the truth; the natural condition of things or beings; the law of their existence; the ethical code or righteousness; the whole body of religious doctrines or a system the Teachings of Buddha; the eternal truth that Buddha realized, has verbal expression of that truth, and the phenomena or the process or the immutable reality. Note: Khun Yai frequently used the term “Dhamma” to refer to the practice of meditation.