Resolutions. Changing something in our life, hopefully for the better. There are six questions you can ask yourselves regarding decision making: "Is it beneficial? Is it not? For me? For others? Now? Or in the future?" When you make resolutions you can apply the same six questions. Trying to see what it is you are trying to do and what might be the results of what you are trying to do. Generally a person only makes a new resolution because they have already figured out what the benefits could be in the future. So generally that is pretty clear, that a resolution will always be based on the view that we think it is going to be beneficial in the future.
In choosing what is appropriate for yourself, sometimes it is not as easy to see that. That is what a Kalyanamitta, a good, kind, wise spiritual friend, is really good for. Going to a good friend, asking them what they can think, and being able to have someone you can trust for advice who will help guide you with new resolutions, is an important part of the practice.
The title of last day of our 20 day retreat is, "Do more". The title of last day of our 19 day retreat is, "Care more". I sit here, give a talk and I push everybody to do more, care more. The Ten Paramis reflection: I am pushing all of you to do more. I am a Kalyanamitta pointing out to you, "Hey, come on, you can do more, get your resolutions going, be more generous, be more ethical, be a kinder, wiser person."
So if you do have good friends and you don't have clarity on which resolution, which direction would be best for you, then go and talk it over with your good friend. It is just that same issue of doubts existing about which way to go. The number one way to resolve doubt is to talk with somebody who is wiser, who has experience with that doubt in particular, so they can tell you what they did when they got to that same point or had to make a similar decision. When you get more information of what other people did, it is much easier for you to make a decision for the future yourself.
It is interesting in a way that many of Rosemary's and my life experiences are indeed what so many of you need to hear because we have gone through much of what many of you are going or will go through. So when you meet somebody who has already gone through a certain situation and they have come out on top of it, that is another important aspect. Then you can take good advice from them. On the other hand, if they have gone through the same situation and it became a bigger problem, well, that's helpful for you, too, because then you know you don't want to go that way.
As far as making new resolutions, getting good advice from other people and asking yourself those six questions can be very helpful.
There is something else that encourages a person to actually want to make new resolutions. Because a lot of people are very complacent, a lot of people are content, they are not going to make any new resolutions for the whole rest of their life. They are just going to stay in the basically what we just call a rut of their existence and just stay stuck in that forever. So what is it that encourages you to make a new resolution at all? What stirs you on to even think about it? It's the compassionate intention of wishing to end Dukkha. So you have to continually bring up that effort to examine Dukkha, to bring up the Compassion so you wish it wasn't there, to bring up the awareness so that you can spot the Dukkha within your own life. The more you understand what you have going wrong, then the more you are going to decide that you are going to try something new and that would be your new resolution.