To make profits from selling precious stones, you need to know the characteristics of the stone. This knowledge will allow you to set reasonable and profitable prices. Similarly, to effectively train our minds, we need to understand the characteristics of the mind.
- Distracted: The mind tends to linger on desired emotions, making it a challenge to achieve stillness. It’s like a fish out of water struggling to return.
- Restless: The mind doesn’t stay with any emotion for long; it constantly seeks new and interesting things. This restlessness prevents us from staying still for an extended period, leading to wandering thoughts, much like a monkey jumping from branch to branch.
- Hard to Keep in One Place: The mind is often tempted by external perceptions such as images, sounds, aromas, tastes, and sensations. This includes internal perceptions like our thoughts. Throughout our lives, we allow our minds to jump into these things. Consequently, when we start practicing meditation, focusing our attention on a single point becomes challenging.
- Hard to Control: The mind craves freedom, and attempting to control it leads to discomfort and stress.
By introducing your mind to get familiar with comfortable feelings, it will gradually calm down and find stillness on its own. Initially, during practice, you may experience brief periods of stillness followed by wandering thoughts. When you realize your mind is wandering, gently guide it back to the comfortable feeling repeatedly. Don’t get annoyed or discouraged; simply practice like this repeatedly until you achieve more extended periods of peacefulness.
Someone once said, “Where there is a thought, there you can train your mind.””
