How to Change Destiny?

We Change Our Thoughts to Change Our Destiny.  However, it is hard to change our thoughts, and the change of our external experiences lags behind. The difficult part is to keep positive thinking through life before things turn positive.

It a loop.  If everything goes well for you, you are happy, and if you are happy, everything goes well for you - a positive loop, a chicken and egg dilemma. However, if you are in a miserable loop, how to make yourself feel happy?  You need to learn to maintain the happy mindset independent of your external experiences, since your experiences follow your mindset.

I Changed My Destiny, How Did I Make It?  In Do I have a destiny , I mentioned I used to encounter hardships with career and relationships before I started practicing Buddhism. I was smart and hard working, however I felt I was simply short of the touch of luck.  I was asking myself what's wrong with me, why I was simply short of luck? Now I realized I was in a negative loop, and negative emotions lead to negative behaviors, as well as negative outcome no matter how hard I tried.

There is a Chinese saying, whoever deserves sympathy must have some condemnable character.  We all have different character flaws, which lead us to suffering.  I myself used to be obsessed, angry and greedy, which hurt many people and shaped my fate.

My friend Warren handed me the book Changing Destiny (PDF), and the book changed my view point towards life and myself.  Mr Yuan Liao Fan. Mr Yuan, a prominent high-ranking officer and administrator, born during the Ming dynasty in the 16th century, in Jiang-Su Province,  China, went through the same experience as I did.  He elaborated his experience in Liao-Fan's Four Lessons - Change Destiny.  These lessons were originally written for his sons, to whom he related that through cultivation and practice of virtuous deeds, he had changed his own destiny.  The principals of this book is illustrated in short video series Liao Fan (youtube video) and Liao Fan's Four Lessons (PDF) .

I still couldn't sense the change in my character after reading the book, although agree with all the points in the book.  However, I started monthly donations to charities and templates for printing sutra.  Later on I changed myself through reciting sutra - a core pure land Buddhism practice.  Through cultivating good virtues and practicing good deeds, I turned my fate for better.  Everybody has a different path in changing destiny, and everybody can do it although requires resolution. 

First, Accept Suffering as Retribution for Previous Wrong Thoughts and Wrong Deeds.  We need to accept our living condition before cultivating Change.  I accepted my hardship, after my friend Warren convinced me of the existence of fate.  

Consider one of the major obstacles in life - Poverty.  Poverty is retribution for past stinginess and greed.  Wealthy people are benefiting from their cultivation of wealth from the past, however, if they stop cultivating wealth through continuous giving, there can be one point they magically lose all the money.  We receive what we give, if we failed to give wealthy, we have to accept the fact of poverty - blame nobody but ourselves for suffering

Secondly, Reduce Bad Karma Through Repenting.  Sometimes we may not understand what did we do wrong, but as long as we understand suffering is always caused by our own fault, we can still repent.  We don't know everything about ourselves, we don't know what happened in our past lives, and are forgetful about this life as well.

I start to remember that in my childhood, my brother and I used to catch dragon flies and other insects and kill them just for fun, and now I feel so scary about it.  For that I am sure there is a passive impact on our lives, however it is hard to identify the suffering caused by killing dragon flies.  But when I experience suffering, I repent for all the known and unknown bad thoughts and bad deeds.  Repent is like cleaning up the poison our heart holds, so that a healthy change is possible.

Thirdly, Cultivate Virtue and Good Deeds to Change Destiny.  Wealth is cultivated from generosity.  If you think you are poor, gives money to others living in even worse condition, and you will grow wealthier over time. We can always find people wealthier than us, and people poorer than us. There are homeless people living on the street, or malfunctioned African kids, that you can help out.

The impermanence of our lives is reincarnation. Reincarnation happens at every moment, not just after life. We never step into the same river again, because both our external environment and ourselves are constantly changing, and changes can be a good thing if we understand how changes occur.  Our present virtues and weaknesses determine both our next lives, and tomorrow.

Do you wonder what is your fate?  Knowing your fate is not as important as you think, as long as you believe there is a fate which was made by your own past, and you can change your future for better by changing your present thoughts!