In honour of the 14th Dalai Lama's 2007 Australian Tour, the general public will soon have opportunities  to hear and meet one of the most recognisable people in the world today, the spiritual and political head of the Tibetan people, His Holiness.  This event causes me to reflect on why its healthy to learn to step back from what we're taught to feel happy for no apparent reason.  Whenever your mind may evolve toward thoughts of negativity or worry, it is such times when you can learn to calm a restless or mischevious mind.  Take initiatives to gain access to your higher self.

I would invite you to consider the following:

The Eight Verses for Training the Mind

By Geshe Langri Thangpa

With a determination to accomplish
The highest welfare for all sentient beings
Who surpass even a wish-granting jewel
I will learn to hold them supremely dear.

Whenever I associate with others I will learn
To think of myself as the lowest among all
And respectfully hold others to be supreme
From the very depths of my heart.

In all actions I will learn to search into my mind
And as soon as an afflictive emotion arises
Endangering myself and others
Will firmly face and avert it.

I will learn to cherish beings of bad nature
And those oppressed by strong sins and suffering
As if I had found a precious
Treasure very difficult to find.

When others out of jealousy treat me badly
With abuse, slander, and so on,
I will learn to take on all loss,
And offer victory to them.

When one whom I have benefited with great hope
Unreasonably hurts me very badly,
I will learn to view that person
As an excellent spiritual guide.

In short, I will learn to offer to everyone without exception
All help and happiness directly and indirectly
And respectfully take upon myself
All harm and suffering of my mothers.

I will learn to keep all these practices
Undefiled by the stains of the eight worldly conceptions
And by understanding all phenomena as like illusions
Be released from the bondage of attachment.