Who do you turn to when you need advice? Generally, our instinct is to go to someone who we think will agree with our point of view: we don’t actually want advice, we want reinforcement. That’s all very well, as long as we were giving ourselves good advice in the first place … but be realistic, how often does that happen?! Are we allowing our need to have someone on our side outweigh our desire for helpful feedback?

Don’t fret, you can have both! Buddha is always on your side; but he won’t tell you that you’re right. That is, he won’t agree with your delusions. If our view of the situation is distorted by our own frustration or preconceptions, Buddha will tell it to us straight: ‘You’re wrong about everything, but don’t worry, I love you anyway, and together we’ll be able to sort this out.’

That’s the sort of advice we need – the sort that cuts through our delusions and encourages us the work with our mental attitude rather than just diving into finding practical ways to manipulate the situation.

And that is the reason all our meditation centres and books and teachers exist: Buddha has given them to us as a means of receiving advice directly from his heart.