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THE SCAPEGOAT FOUND 
THE MIRROR INSTEAD
A bittersweet truth about wrong thoughts

The weather is terribly hot. A scapegoat. The workplace makes me stressed. A scapegoat. If only I had known better, I wouldn’t have married you. A scapegoat. If only my parents hadn’t treated me such. Another scapegoat.

Every story the mind tells carries a tone of “if only.” Anything except itself, the finger points. So frequent is this narrative that it becomes a convenient truth to live with. If only the weather, my friend, my salary, my health, my boss, my country. The scent is familiar, like the recognizable burnt taste, however excellent or perfect the food may be camouflaged.


The Wake-Up from Familiar Upset

Being angry is a weakness, my meditation teacher used to say again and again. Yet here I am, living without a day passing without an upset. Isn’t it familiar to you? Something or someone triggers this upset. Why can’t the world be fair to me? Why can’t anyone do what they are supposed to do, or rather, do for me?

This is not the problem of the world. No, not the world. It is the problem of everyone, including myself. More precisely, only myself. There is no problem out there. Anything out there is a scapegoat.

You may wonder, is poor leadership not a problem? Is one country bombing another not a problem? Treating others unkindly, is that not a problem? In relation to our mind, no. On their own, these are conditionings. If they affect us, it becomes our own learning. That is a bitter pill to swallow, even seemingly insane—but it is only because we have been living by the perspective of scapegoats.


Seeing the Scapegoat Mindset

The scapegoat mentality consistently offers two erroneous, contradictory points of view. Firstly, it is outside of me, hence it is obviously nothing to do with me. Secondly, my complaint about another is not about me but about others.

Yet, if one were to reflect honestly, if it has nothing to do with us, why then the need to complain or even point a finger? The very fact that we engage with the situation, even only by thought, already means it has something to do with us in a subtle way. Otherwise, it would simply pass without requiring our attention at all.


Awakening to the Mirror of Mind

Any mental formations directed to the world are mental activities of our own mind, and thus are what we are experiencing. If one is able to notice this, one will begin to realize that each scapegoat introduced is a mirror of our mind. But because we often don’t notice it is coming from our mind, whatever we complain about seems to be “out there” rather than “in here.” When the effect is engaged, the cause is ignored. When the effect is traced to its origin, the cause is clearly seen—and it must come from our very mind.

It is time for wisdom to enter the mind. Only then will one see a mirror—a clear one, unavoidable. At the moment, the mirror does not reflect well because the scapegoat has taken over. In fact, the mirror is hidden from sight. We may not find it at all. But that does not exempt us from the truth that it is there, patiently waiting to be seen.

It is like saying, since I could not see, hence it doesn’t exist. That is a deception. An excuse to turn away from truth and make our own. It seems an easy way to be freed from suffering. Yet unknowingly, this untruth sets us into suffering, for truth itself never hurts—only our deceptions do.


Defilements and Wisdom

The scapegoat is none other than thoughts directed outward to the world—thoughts loaded with meanings that can only arise from our own mind within. Each thought is a construction based on unquestioned assumptions, and is thus taken as real.

“It is their fault.” On the surface, this may sound true, but upon reflection, it draws us back to our own mind—the weakness of defilements. Only wisdom does not act in this way. Defilements live on scapegoats, whereas wisdom lives by the truth. Our journey through scapegoats must be reversed to fully reveal the mirror before we can truly say we have reached the end of our spiritual endeavor. Until then, every unquestioned thought, every unmindful comment, is a sign that we are still under delusion’s spell.


The Path Through Bitter Truth

Thus, in the initial journey, every spiritual seeker must face this bitter truth, and to reverse that perspective requires patience—enduring failure over and over again due to forgetting and the strong tendency of the scapegoat mentality.

Only when consistent awareness is given priority, and truth is revealed again and again, will the mind cease clinging to scapegoats. Instead, each time a scapegoat arises, it will be seen as a mirror. Only then can the inner mess of scapegoats gradually come to its end. The delusion that drives us to act on them will diminish, or even disappear entirely. At the very least, when the scapegoat mentality is clearly known, its effect on speech or action cannot take hold. It is utterly impossible for something not present in the mind to emerge as speech or action—unless misperceived by another, which again is their own scapegoat.


The End of the Scapegoat

The victimizer is the victim herself, deflecting hidden guilt by making another guilty. Seen rightly, this guilt is nothing more than a mistaken perception—one that requires no further projection. Otherwise, it propels down the rabbit hole, losing the very cause it was supposed to correct, undermining oneself of redeeming the error and trapping oneself further. In that seeing, the scapegoat and its causes come to an end.

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21 September 2025

The Scapegoat Found The Mirror Instead.mp3

*Falling for Feeling Instead of Seeing Correctly*
The Issue of Every Practitioner

The Predicament of Awareness

Awareness is always at the expense of giving up pleasure, and this is what a worldly, sense-pleasure being is unwilling to depart with. Being subjected to sense pleasure all the while, as part of our hardwired conditioning, it is never easy to undo this deep-seated tendency. For this very reason, our unawareness is more often the norm than awareness at any given moment.

Even if we recall to be aware, it rarely lasts for more than a fraction of time, as the mind conveniently slips back into its latent tendencies. Such is the dilemma of worldlings on the spiritual path: falling again and again, until eventually one realizes deeply that unless the bull is taken by the horns and consistency is established, the tendency will keep recurring. One must see clearly that without such determination and persistence, the mind will always return to its old ways.

The Nature of Feeling: Bodily and Mental

Just take a simple example of a mosquito bite and its follow-up itchiness. The desire to scratch is much more common than simply being aware that it is just another bodily sensation. Seldom do we notice that by scratching, we are drawn toward pleasure-seeking as a relief from displeasure—both being the work of craving—attaching and clinging to feeling in order to become something else, rather than remaining with the raw nature that is taking place.

Here we need to make a clear distinction between bodily feeling and mental feeling. In Pāli, bodily sensation is referred to as sukha or dukkha vedanā (pleasant or unpleasant bodily feeling), while mental feeling is described as somanassa and domanassa (mental pleasure or mental displeasure), which arise out of preference and aversion. Without this distinction, the mind easily entangles the two, reacting not only to the physical sensation but also to the mental stories that are spun around it.

This reminded me of a statement once mentioned by a meditation teacher. When asked by his disciple in his final hours how he was dealing with his body’s severe ailment, he simply replied that if one goes after the feeling, one has to inevitably experience the suffering that comes along with it.

Wise and Unwise Attention

In this case study, it gives a glimpse of the way attention works, in terms of wise (yoniso manasikāra) and unwise attention (ayoniso manasikāra). Using the mosquito itch as a simple example again: the bodily sensation is unpleasant (dukkha vedanā)—that is simply the nature of that particular sensation. The training of awareness is learning to notice this suchness of nature, sometimes referred to as dhammānupassanā. The outcome of such a state is usually equanimity, or at least non-reactivity.

Whereas, if such awareness is not present in the mind, due to lack of training, then the preference for sensual desire will take precedence, with dislike (an unpleasant mental feeling) arising toward the object—the itch—and thus the movement toward scratching it (seeking pleasant feeling). Compared to one who is able to notice suchness, this situation—caught between unpleasant and pleasant feeling—is still a state of suffering, for it is reactionary. This is exactly what the earlier case study was pointing to: when one goes after feeling rather than remaining with the suchness of nature, suffering follows.

It also shows that it is not the case that a well-trained mind does not experience physical suffering, as is often misunderstood, but rather that its way of attending to it is not what an ordinary worldling would normally do.

Observing the Dualness of Perception

I have at times been given the possibility of seeing this dualness of perception at work. Returning to the example of the mosquito itch: if there is sufficient awareness, the itch remains simply as a sensation, though it carries unpleasantness by nature. There is some degree of non-attachment toward it. But if conditions shift and awareness is temporarily absent, the mind begins to throw tantrums—rejecting the itchiness, being aversive toward the mosquito, or even resenting the environment one is in. The contrast between these two experiences is vast. In this way, one can directly understand that the object itself is not truly the problem, but rather the way the mind relates to it.

It is important to make known that this is not a matter of the bearableness or unbearableness of the object, but a training of the mind in knowing how to observe reality, after having understood the right knowledge of the nature of mind and bodily processes. This way of practice is strikingly different from the usual ways the mind reacts—if not rejecting, then tolerating or enduring when it cannot get rid of the sensation. The key difference lies in Right View or Right Understanding, of nature as it is.

Mental Training and Willingness

It is a mental training of seeing things correctly rather than a training in endurance—learning how to direct attention toward the right way of seeing, rather than the wrong way of projecting meaning onto the object.

This mental training requires willingness from each of us, grounded in the understanding of its long-term benefits—especially in relation to pain management, which no one can ultimately escape, since it is in the very nature of the body. Yet even more critical than this is the non-forgetting to be mindful, rather than indulging in sense pleasure, as mentioned earlier in this article.

What I have come to see is that it is precisely the pull of defilements toward sense pleasure that distracts us from developing mindfulness consistently. The shifting back and forth—being mindful, then forgetting to be mindful—is not caused by anything external but arises as a conscious decision of the mind itself: choosing sense pleasure over mindfulness. Until this is clearly understood as unbeneficial, the mind will continue to follow the path of sense pleasure. This remains a work in progress for all meditators, especially those treading the path of insight and purification.

Summary

In conclusion, when one forgoes being mindful of seeing things as they truly are—the onset of ignorance—the process of the 12 Dependent Origination unfolds, with feeling becoming the object of craving and pursuit. The cycle cannot be broken once it has already started; it begins with ignorance. Only with right seeing can the cycle be truly broken. In no way can it be interrupted in the middle; it can only be addressed at the very beginning.

FALLING FOR FEELING INSTEAD OF SEEING CORRECTLY.mp3

Bringing together the different traditions that speak the same language - be mindful of our thoughts.

Timeless Teachings on the Snare of Thought.mp3

A deep yearning to find out who or what am "I". In short, the mind. 
Note: Unless stated on the title bilingually, all talks are in English. For a full recordings visit: https://mega.nz/#F!gcdECQCZ.

The Scapegoat Found The Mirror Instead.mp3

Wisdom into Understanding the Mind

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