How to Make Good Use of One's Own Thinking

Answer: To resolve this question, one must first understand why sentient beings attach themselves to another person's body and what they intend to achieve by using someone else's body. Then one should contemplate what happens to the body after a person dies, and whether it is still of any use to sentient beings. Following this order of contemplation, once everything has been contemplated clearly, one will understand whether various kinds of sentient beings still remain in the body after death.

When dealing with all kinds of problems, we must have a clear line of thinking; our contemplation must be logical, and this matters far more than solving the problem itself. If one's contemplation lacks logic and one's thinking is unclear, then even if one can solve one problem, other problems will remain unsolved, and one will have to rely on others to solve them. Yet relying on anyone is not as good as relying on oneself—self-reliance is the foundation. If your own contemplation lacks logic and your thinking is never clear and lucid, then you must analyze why this is so, what causes your contemplative power to be insufficient, and then find ways to resolve that cause, so as to give yourself a very powerful mind capable of solving many problems—whether crucial ones, or simple, fundamental ones.