Have you ever kept track of the positive and negative thoughts that heavily influence your frame of mind throughout each day? From a Buddhist standpoint, our endless chain-thinking actually has the power to enhance or diminish our overall happiness and well-being. Meditation is a very practical technique to help us become aware of this habit, moment by moment.

Kadampa masters of the past devised a convenient way to develop their mindfulness while meditating in remote caves. They would place 2 empty bowls in front of them. For the arising of each positive thought, they placed a white pebble in the designated bowl. For each negative thought, a black pebble was placed in the other bowl. At the end of each day, they would count all the pebbles and scold themselves if the black pebbles outnumbered the white. In this way, they gradually trained their minds to completely abandon destructive negative thoughts, which lead to disturbing emotions and unhappiness, and cultivate a positive outlook.

Our Kadampa Counters are a convenient and highly portable method for weaning ourselves from negative thought patterns that hijack our innermost happiness and our positive perception of others.