The Four Lessons of Liao-Fan Series #20: How to Break Bad Habits

In this teaching, Liao-Fan Yuan explains that true transformation depends on one essential power: a courageous mind. Most people fail to change not because they lack knowledge, but because they hesitate, procrastinate, and retreat. Small faults must be removed like thorns; great faults must be cut off like venom. Without the three essential minds—shame, fear, and courage—all attempts at change remain only surface-level restraint. But when these three minds arise, faults melt instantly like ice under the spring sun. This chapter shows the three levels of reform (action, principle, and mind), why external restraint cannot uproot habits, and why many Buddhists still fail despite good intentions. At its core, this teaching reminds us that correcting faults is not slow or gradual: with courage, it can happen in a single thought.

⚡ To Change Our Faults, We Must Arouse Courage — Not Hesitation or Retreat

The third requirement for correcting one’s faults is to arouse courageous resolve.
People fail to reform themselves mostly because they cling to habitual laziness and timid retreat.
We must rouse ourselves with vigor, without hesitation, without delay.

Small faults are like a thorn in the flesh—they must be removed immediately.
Great faults are like a venomous serpent biting one’s finger—it must be cut off instantly.
There must not be the slightest hesitation.
This is why the phenomenon of “wind and thunder” is considered beneficial.

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🐉 What It Means to Have a Courageous Heart

The third method of reforming oneself is to generate a courageous and vigorous mind, to advance with heroic effort, and to renew oneself.

People do not correct their faults largely because of “complacent negligence and shrinking back.”

• “Negligence” means drifting along carelessly, doing everything in a sloppy, inattentive manner—this makes faults extremely difficult to correct.
• “Shrinking back” means retreating or giving up.

Why can people not reform themselves, or why do they want to change but cannot?
Because negligence and retreat obstruct them.

Therefore, we must be all the more courageous and vigorous—never doubting, correcting faults the moment they appear, hesitating not even for a moment.
This is what a courageous mind looks like.

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🐍 Removing Faults Like Removing Poison

Small faults are like thorns lodged in our flesh—they must be removed at once.
Great faults are like being bitten by a venomous snake—the finger must be severed immediately; otherwise, the poison will spread to the heart and bring death.

At such moments there must be “not even a trace of hesitation.”
One must make a decisive and immediate cut.

This is the meaning of “the benefit of wind and thunder” in the Book of Changes (Yi Jing).
The hexagram symbolizes the phenomenon of wind moving and thunder stirring, like the growth of all things in spring.

Thus it signifies benefit, and here it describes the decisive and vigorous manner of cutting off faults.

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🌞 With the Three Minds, Faults Melt Like Ice Under the Sun

“If one possesses these three kinds of mind—awakening, fear, and courage—then faults will be corrected immediately, just as spring ice melts when it meets the sun. What worry is there that faults will not disappear?”

In other words, when these three qualities are present, wrongdoing naturally dissolves, just like ice vanishing under warm sunlight—effortlessly, rapidly, and completely.

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🌞 The Three Essential Minds for True Transformation

🧡 Know Shame, Feel Fear, and Act With Courage

To correct one’s faults, one must possess a sense of shame, a sense of fear, and a courageous, vigorous mind.

When these three minds are present, reforming oneself becomes like spring ice meeting the sun—it melts instantly.

“Ice” is a metaphor for evil karma, and the “sun” represents courageous effort.
When one reforms with courageous vigor, faults naturally dissolve.

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🪷 Two Different Ways People Correct Their Faults

🛠️ 1. Reforming Through Actions (事上改)

People’s methods of correcting faults differ.

Some reform through actions:

• If they killed in the past, they now vow not to kill.
• If they were angry and abusive in the past, they now vow not to be angry.

This is reform based purely on external behavior, forcing oneself to stop wrongdoing outwardly.

But this kind of external restraint is a hundred times more difficult, because:

• The root of the problem remains untouched.
• It is like extinguishing fire in the east while new fire ignites in the west.
• It is not the ultimate, open, liberating path.

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🌙 The Difference in Results Comes From Depth of Transformation

This passage explains the different levels of effectiveness in correcting faults:

• Some reform through actions (事上改).
• Some reform through principles and understanding (理上改).
• Some reform through the mind itself (心上改).

But all three require the presence of the three essential minds —

• shame,
• fear,
• and courage.

Without these three minds,
no matter where one begins,
no real effect can be achieved.

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🛠️ Reforming Faults Through Actions (事上改)

✅ Behavioral Change Is the First Step — but Not the Final One

Let us first speak of reforming through actions.

For example, if in the past one killed living beings, now one resolves to uphold the Five Precepts, beginning with not killing.

To refrain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, and intoxicants—these five precepts are all attempts to cut off deep-rooted habitual tendencies.

But because these habits are extremely entrenched, eliminating them is exceedingly difficult.

If one used to lose their temper or verbally abuse others, and now restrains themselves from doing so, this too is reforming at the level of actions.

This is a form of forced restraint.

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🧩 Why External Restraint Cannot Reach the Root

However, forced restraint has limits; it reaches a point of saturation.

Therefore, reforming only through actions often cannot be thorough.

“The root of the illness remains.”

Greed, anger, delusion, and arrogance are the disease-roots.
As long as these roots remain uncut, whenever external conditions arise, afflictive habits will reappear.

Some people with deep virtuous roots can still manage to suppress these tendencies.
But for those with weaker virtuous roots, when faced with severe adversity, they cannot control themselves.

Thus the phrase:

“Extinguishing in the east, it ignites again in the west — this is not the ultimate, open, liberating path.”

For this reason, faults cannot be completely eradicated by behavioral restraint alone.

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🌧️ Why Many Buddhists Want to Change But Still Fail

Therefore, although many people study Buddhism,
and although they have good hearts,
and although they genuinely wish to correct their faults and resolve to uphold precepts,

after taking the precepts, they still fail to live up to them.

This is why reforming oneself is so difficult —
because action-level restraint alone cannot uproot the deep seeds of habit.

🌿 2. Reforming Faults Through Understanding Principles (理上改)

🧠 First Understand the Principle Before Forbidding the Action

“Those who are good at reforming faults do not begin by forbidding the act;
they begin by clarifying the principle.
If the fault lies in killing, then reflect:
‘Heaven cherishes life; all beings cling to life.
To kill them to nourish myself—how could I be at ease?’”

Next comes reforming through understanding principles.
A person who truly knows how to reform faults first understands the underlying meaning before attempting to correct the action.

If one has the fault of killing, one should constantly reflect:
“Heaven possesses the virtue of cherishing life.
All creatures cherish their own lives; even mosquitoes and ants treasure survival and fear death.
If we kill them to feed ourselves, how could our hearts feel at ease?
Conversely, if someone were to kill us to feed themselves,
could we possibly accept it willingly?”

In the past, no one taught these principles, so we neglected this matter.
Now that we have received the teachings of sages and saints,
we must keep these lessons in mind and reflect on these truths constantly.

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🔥 Reflecting on the Suffering of the Beings We Kill

“When they are killed, they endure slaughter, cutting apart,
and then being thrown into boiling cauldrons—
such suffering penetrates to the marrow of their bones.”

We must also place ourselves in the animals’ position:
Imagine the moment the animal is slaughtered,
then thrown into the pot, cooked in boiling water—
all the kinds of agony it experiences.

If the one being killed were me—
killed, then cooked, and then eaten—
the pain would truly reach the bones and marrow.
How could I still bear to eat the flesh of living beings?

And when we further consider the karmic retribution,
our hearts feel chilled to the core.

✨ Coming Next...

Next week in The Four Lessons of Liao-Fan Series #21:

Master Chin Kung will share the karmic story of his own father—a real example of how cause and effect never miss. He will also briefly explain why eating vegetarian brings blessings, softens our hearts, and helps us reduce harm.

Stay tuned. 🙏 Amituofo 🙏

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📚 Source: Venerable Master Chin Kung’s lecture on The Four Lessons of Liao-Fan, delivered on April 16, 2001, on Phoenix TV