Reflections of the Mind

  Every time I reflect on Buddhist teachings, it's as though everything is so reflective of one's state of mind that there are really no problems that need resolving. I am not saying that there are no "problems" (or challenges) but more that one does not necessarily need to rush to stamp out a problem if it's really coming from the state of one's mind. This is because the actual problem itself stems from my thinking about things, not from actual things in themselves.
  This sounds a bit Kantian (and abstract), but I remember hearing a story about a monk who was being interrogated by prison guards, and whose only fear is that he would under the direst torture give in to anger. Whose anger? His own, in a sense. A prison guard's emotions are their own emotions, and thus they have little to do with me. However, this does not mean that I take a contemptuous or dismissive approach to the guards, since they too are also on my mind. So I do need to take care of those guards. However, the point is that I don't treat the guards as separate from me.
   Sometimes, a body metaphor might help. I have yet to feel that my left hand is having a fight with my right. I have never felt that way, although some neurologists have reported conditions in which people don't experience one of their limbs as a part of their bodies at all. In these rare cases, one sees the body as something outside of oneself or one's mind. But for the most part, the body is seen as something that is part of awareness and is not of any surprise to me. Well, the challenge is, can one extend this idea to face any situation? Can one see that even if their body is feeling pain, that this pain is not some kind of "invader", and that it actually does exist as part of one's awareness? This is hard to practice, but I feel challenged to try.