ACTING AS A “VICTIM” – HAVE YOU EVER?

Greetings,

I am so glad to see you again in this “My Story” corner, and today I am fond of presenting for you the article below, as a “continuation” of “Inner Strength and the Stones” article I published earlier. Here, I will resolve some questions, such as “It is easy to say but the difficulty factor is how to do it?”, from the previous article about inner strengths. 

This question is not my conjecture, but it is what I have heard from many Truly Inspired clients and followers. Of course, in that article, I have provided the solution to the question, yet to be able to do better, you also need other “tools”.

We often think of ourselves as victims when facing something unintended or annoying, but we forget that it is the things we have done in the past that have pushed us into the “role” of the victim. 

Why did I use the word “role”? That is because, in life, everyone will always encounter difficulties and unexpected things at some point. There are even people who have to deal with problems that are the same as ours. However, each person will have a different attitude and solution to each difficulty that they come across, and each person will bring out a different vibe that is unique to only each of us. From there, different results will be produced. Similarly, in the same movie, each actor is assigned a completely different face, body shape, and personality, which will create a symbolic characteristic for that specific role. Some people will perform better than expected, marking a memorable figure of the character in the hearts of the audience. On the other hand, some people only make the character to fade away further in the public’s eyes, and no one would remember them even when the movie has ended. So what is the reason for this phenomenon? Is it just simply caused by the actor or the character’s traits themselves? I am sure you have the answer to this question, right?

Back to the main question of “How to build your inner strength” that many people have asked above, and to do this requires a powerful tool. For myself, that tool is the “Cultivation of mind”. If you do not have any religion, then “cultivation of mind” means improving your mindset and your personality in order to later improve yourself. Else if you follow a certain religion, you can follow the guidance in your religious scriptures to cultivate your mind, too. I believe that no matter if we have the same religion or not, all religions would all want to only bring the most positive things to their followers.

I will tell you a story about me so you can see the change in my personality in the past compared to the present. 

I used to be a very rational person as I would not believe anything or believe in anyone if I did not observe everything directly. In addition, I was also very stubborn and arrogant about everything, including myself. In short, I was super headstrong and full of defiance.

When I was a child, although my intentions were never bad, I was very extravagant and arrogant, which led to some cases where I put myself in the role of “victim” and tried to blame someone else. That was not until a big incident happened to one of my loved ones, and I could no longer “hang on ” to anyone to correct everything unreasonably like that anymore. It was at that moment when I found my way to cultivate my mind, relying on the power of the Buddha Dharma to pray for my loved ones, and then for my life.

First, I learned how to listen to the sutras and teachings of wise masters. I have read and listened to them repeatedly so many times to the point that I have remembered by heart lots of their beautiful, meaningful suttas. Unconsciously, the beautiful words and ideas of those lectures and suttas have penetrated deeply into my mind, making me always want to thrive for the best and the most positive things for people surrounding me and myself in a very natural way, without being forced.

Cultivation of mind is not a miracle that helps us immediately change our current situation. Cultivation of mind is also a way to help us gradually correct our terrible mistakes, and always be aware of reflecting and examining ourselves, whether we did anything wrong or not, even the smallest things. When I have carefully considered everything, I will understand why the unexpected happened to me at that time, causing me to be misunderstood and entangled in such a “victim” position.

If someone asks me if I have ever done anything wrong while cultivating my mind, I will definitely say “Yes, of course.” Ten years ago, when I first started cultivating my mind, I also gradually learned how to correct a lot of my bad mistakes. Although it was just a little bit day by day, the important thing is that if I work hard, I will definitely make it.

From mind cultivation, I soon discovered a better version of myself than how I was in the past. I am always aware of developing myself every day, even though I have been “cultivating my mind” for more than ten years, I still see myself as a very small individual, who has many shortcomings. That is why I always try to discover new things and gain useful knowledge whenever I can. Moreover, you see, “cultivation of mind” has helped me become who I am today!

We often think of ourselves as “victims” when encountering unexpected events, yet we forget that it was our past actions that pushed us to the unwanted presence.

When faced with something that is not as expected, the first thing I would do is reflect back on what has happened to me. Just when I recognise a small error or stubbornness in myself at a certain time, which causes me to misunderstand and push myself into the role of “victim”, I would immediately be aware that I have no right to blame anyone.

I often ask myself “Why is this happening? Did I do anything wrong in that case?”. If it was just the tiniest act of mine ever, I will surely also take responsibility and find a way to solve it without blaming. When there is a mistake, I ought to correct it with a positive and open mind. After multiple attempts at practising, I gradually no longer have the “victim” mentality anymore.

However, dear friend, we are not always the ones to blame. There will always be some situations where you did nothing wrong, the mistake was made by someone else. Nevertheless, you are advised to forgive the person who made the mistake, and not to take advantage of the fact that you are the “victim” to have the right to blame the wrongdoer. This surprisingly goes against our normal mindset, which is: whoever does wrong should be blamed, right?

So, how to face and solve your resentment when others make mistakes? I would like to share more of my personal opinion, and also the method that I always use in daily life.

First, I always try my best to reduce the risk of unexpected things happening in my life. That means when something happens, I will be looking on to the positive side more when considering the problem. If there is a villainous “messenger” appearing in the story, hurting my feelings or causing trouble, instead of giving a quick reproach, I will thank them.

Honestly, “mind cultivation” has helped me stay awake, helped me consider problems more thoroughly, as well as helped me overcome the storms from society, without having to blame or make a big deal out of it like how I used to do back in the old days. That is because I know that these villainous “messengers” came to forge my inner strength. Do you know, your inner strength will be verified, your inner wall will grow stronger, and more stable when going through storms in life, without having to blame anyone, not to even a single person, not even half a word.

I also believe that there are not only scriptures in Buddhism, but all other orthodox religions also want to guide people to the good and benevolent, using the teachings and commandments of that religion. Your job is just to focus on learning and implementing those principles in real-life actions, and attitudes toward everything around you. In addition, if you do not follow any religion, you can still learn how to cultivate your mind and personality as I mentioned above, listen, and follow good behaviours in life. Just like a very wise Buddhist quote that my master once said: Learn to live like a child, you can be sad, you can argue, but then you can immediately return to being happy as if nothing has ever happened. If you choose to live with such a child’s mentality, that is beneficial to you, too!

When you truly understand and believe in karma, saying that everything that happened today was all “started” by our actions in the past. Or you can understand that whatever you build today will produce the corresponding results someday in the future. Therefore, cultivate your mind. reading sutras and teachings every day is a way of “psychologically manipulating” yourself. Gradually, we will be able to perfect our personalities. It is only when you have truly understood everything, that you will easily forgive others. Any time facing adversity, we will become stronger, and more stable while overcoming problems more easily. That is the reason for having who I am today, just like how you have seen me!

Let me share another experience of myself in building inner strength. I hope the story will help you become more stable and motivate you enough to have the urge of developing a better personality.

When I step into the life path of mind cultivation, I am fortunate to be led by many talented teachers. That is why I always wanted to spread this useful piece of knowledge to those who have enough grace, so I can continue the journey of sharing.

Once, I had a chance to have a conversation with a sister who had a different religion from mine, and I honestly and truly appreciate her personality and her continuous cultivation of mind. However, for some moments, she did not pay any respect to my religion. I remained silent. If I were myself many years ago, I would have been very upset, quickly criticised her, and then cut off contact. However, when I cultivate my mind enough, I use my love to sympathise and try to never judge others. Moreover, I did not feel sad or wanted to blame my sister because I understand that when people have been cultivating their mind for a long time and put great trust in their religion, they will automatically and unconsciously do anything to protect their religion. However, even though all of that is initiated from love, that protection has unintentionally taken away the politeness in life, making my sister not conscious when talking about other religions. I understand, if you are conscious enough, you will never blaspheme anyone’s beliefs or religions.

Therefore my friends, always slow down, even just for a minute, to reflect, to see if you are unintentionally/intentionally causing an impact that hurts others or misunderstandings that later allow them to make themselves a “victim” in the future or not.

If yes, even if it is only a small action, you should still accept responsibility for your behaviour. That is because just that small action of yours can take the story very far, even creating severe consequences. Do not blame anyone so you can think that others are intentionally hurting you. Let’s face the problem and recognize the lesson and value of ourselves at that time.

When writing here, I suddenly recall a very good quote that I read in the book “Many Lives Many Times” (Muon Kiep Nhan Sinh) by Nguyen Phong:

“Do not wait to witness the consequences of the law of cause and effect to truly believe in it but it is a guide to help you find your way back to benevolence”

Let’s face difficulties with consciousness, and reflect on them with our inner selves. Do not make ourselves a “victim” like how other people implement that role in our lives. That is because, even if it is just an acting role, it will result in two ways, one is to immerse ourselves deeply in that role of the victim, to let the “directors” direct us what to do freely, or, we will act that role with our true feelings. Be a professional “actor” to portray the role of difficult characters the best you can!

Much love,
Truly Inspired