Lama Ole’s answer:
Imagine your mind is a cigar factory. You are only producing cigars for millionaires, twenty dollars apiece. You check their color and smell; you check the sound they make when you squeeze them. If they are good enough you accept them, if not you send them off to be processed into cigarettes or loose tobacco.
That is exactly what it’s about—only accepting the best thoughts and feelings. One could also say that there should be something pure in everything that has to do with you. On the highest level, samsara and nirvana are one. Every atom vibrates with joy and is held together by love. Every thought and feeling, even the most stupid, is fantastic on the absolute level just because it can happen.
If you make sure to feel good, you will experience the world as beautiful—everything as wonderful and meaningful. Remember that everybody has innate buddha nature. Decide to experience everything as fresh and new and to see the beauty in all that happens.
It is important to understand that highest truth means highest joy. My mind works in a very simple way: I have an automatic function, a discarding function. If there is something that feels bad or strange, my mind tells me, “You don’t have to worry about that; there is no truth in it. It must be a mistake in today’s manufacturing process or some kind of contaminant.” But if there is something that feels beautiful and pleasant, my mind says, “Oh, you seem to be approaching something true!” And then my mind goes in that direction.
It functions automatically, and I always have good time. I just connect truth with joy and untruth with a lower level of functioning. Highest joy is highest truth. There is no separation.
It is important to have a feeling of surplus. If you have that, you will generally do good things. If your motivation is right, you don’t have to check every word. Every action will be well-rounded and benefit others. But if you have a sour feeling, for example, then even if you watch every word you say, you will still make mistakes. People will get mad at you because they’ll feel your vibration and reflect it back to you.
So it’s better to develop the ability to see things on the highest possible level. If you can do that, you will automatically become compassionate, loving, and beyond-personal, and you will do nothing wrong.
So, the closer to the head you catch the snake, the less it will be able to disturb you. Just try to go into the world with a good feeling. Make sure you are doing well, and wish everybody something good. If you then do, think, or say anything harmful, five red warning lights will flash up at once.
Of course, one cannot grasp at holding the highest view the same way one cannot grasp at meditation. On the outer level, we can avoid doing things that will certainly pull us down. On the inner level, we should also make sure that compassion and wisdom are present, and on the highest level we maintain the view. But actually, the experience of the highest view appears spontaneously and effortlessly by itself; one cannot force it.
You can only make sure that you always identify more truth with more joy. And this way you can develop a very fine inner sense for knowing whether you are moving away from or getting closer to your inner light, whether you are doing something honest and well-rounded or are becoming a bit distant and unclear.
The mind develops many subtle bells and red lights that help one be aware in everything that happens.