It helps to remember, as Shantideva says, that everything is habit, both positive and negative. As all habits are formed, they can also be “unformed”—deconstructed or dismantled. Letting go of bad habits and forming positive ones is a process. Most negative habits are established unconsciously, and due to that lack of awareness they can become quite destructive. Our first priority is to become self-aware of our habits and patterns. We want to withhold judgment and learn to observe ourselves in these moments like a neutral but interested third party might do. This nonjudgmental observation creates a basis for us to change our behavior and therefore our habits, for habits are nothing more than compounded patterns of behavior that are created and uncreated. Our recognition of them can lead to their making and unmaking.

There are four factors that allow a habit to be formed or unformed. They apply to both positive and negative habits. The first factor that allows a habit to form is repetition. When we do something over and over again, it creates a brain pathway that makes it easier to repeat next time and the next time and so on. We all know how this works with negative habits, of course, but the same is true when creating positive habits. There is power in repetition—it just depends on whether it is in a positive, supportive direction or the opposite of that.

The second factor that allows a habit to take hold is intensity, meaning doing something in a heightened way, with more force than usual. Deeds leave an imprint based on their consistency and their force. We can observe these two factors in action across various areas of our lives and see for ourselves if they hold true for us in both positive and negative directions.

The third factor that contributes to something becoming a habit is the lack of a counteragent. This refers to doing something repeatedly or with force and without the presence of anything that might interfere with or stop that activity. On the negative side of things, this could refer to allowing ourselves to easily become irritated at the slightest provocation and never applying any self-reflection or lojong—meaning “mind training”—which could counter the flow of that activity, speech, or state of mind. On the positive side, it could be a commitment to rejoice whenever we encounter something that triggers feelings of jealousy. The lack of a counteragent here is our not giving in to the temptation of envy, and instead following through with rejoicing in the happiness or good fortune of others.

The fourth factor that allows a habit to form is the availability of the field. For instance, if someone is struggling with alcohol addiction and there are bottles of wine sitting in the cupboards at home, that is the availability of the field. Or, if we are working on developing our loving-kindness practice, the availability of the field would be sentient beings and learning to consider them all as equal in their wish to be happy and free from suffering. The availability of the field refers to the material or substance to which we are habituating ourselves. It can be a physical substance or a mental area of interest. It is the subject matter of our habits, in both the positive direction and the negative.

Many people think that they are helpless in the face of their habits, and it can feel that way when there is a strong force to a habitual pattern that has built momentum over time. But habits are not intrinsic entities, and we are not helpless.

Many of us feel stuck in our negative habits, but these four factors show us how dynamic and fluid habits are. We do not come into this world with the habits that we now have; they are not intrinsically with us from birth. Negative habits are formed unconsciously. They are things we have learned to do out of ignorance. Positive habits, on the other hand, need to be practiced with some effort and vision, and we therefore need to be patient with ourselves. Many people think that they are helpless in the face of their habits, and it can feel that way when there is a strong force to a habitual pattern that has built momentum over time. But habits are not intrinsic entities, and we are not helpless.

With regard to negative habits, applying the four factors that form habits in an opposite manner—that is, ceasing to engage the habit repeatedly or consistently, lowering the volume of our intensity if we do engage in the habitual activity, applying a counteragent when the habit is present, and removing the availability of the field—can dismantle almost any negative habit.

We have been habituated to our narrow self-absorption for a long time, so the activities of that mindset come quite easily to us. Like dropping a bucket down a well, it takes no effort. Gravity simply pulls the bucket to the bottom. We have all had the experience of saying hurtful things or acting out in ways that, when we look back, we can’t fully comprehend: Why did I do what I did, or say what I said? In that moment, however, it seemingly just happened. In that moment it may even have felt good to say the hurtful thing that we said or lash out in the way that we did. In that moment, the force was just there, and we went with it. Most of our unvirtuous deeds, words, or thoughts are like this. It all comes so easily in the moment of our unconscious, habitually reactive mind. But remember, we are not helpless. We can put these four factors to the test as a way to begin forming positive habits and, likewise, apply the opposite of these four factors to slowly decrease the momentum of our negative habits.

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From Diligence: The Joyful Endeavor of the Buddhist Path by Dzigar Kongtrul © 2024 by Mangala Shri Bhuti. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO.