Whether you are physically ill, troubled in your mind, insulted by others, or bothered by enemies and disputes, in short, whatever annoyance, major or minor, comes up in your life or affairs, do not lay the blame on anything else, thinking that such-and-such caused this or that problem.
Rather, you should consider:
This mind grasps at a self where there is no self. From time without beginning until now, it has, in following its own whims in samsara, perpetrated various nonvirtuous actions. All the sufferings I now experience are the results of those actions. No one else is to blame; this self-grasping attitude is to blame. I shall do whatever I can to subdue it.
Skillfully and vigorously direct all dharma at self-grasping, as Shantideva advises in Entering the Way of Awakening:
What troubles there are in the world,
How much fear and suffering there is,
If all of these arise from self-grasping,
What will this great demon do to me?
…
For hundreds of lives in samsara
You have caused me trouble.
Now I recollect all my grudges
And shall subdue you, my selfish mind.
