A. The root of fortune and disaster is your discriminating mind. Is fire, for example, fortune or disaster? It can be disaster when it leaves people miserable by devastating all they have accumulated and built all their lives and taking the lives of their beloved in a moment. It can be fortune when it makes people happy by being used for cooking food and heating their places when it is cold.
However, fire has neither intention to benefit people nor intention to harm them. Fire itself is neutral; not fortune, not disaster. Its value is solely determined by our views. Likewise, everything is neutral in essence. Whether it is fortunate or disastrous is up to how we see it. This is why the Buddha said that everything is from our mind.
©Boo Ahm
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