Evolution Of Mind States

[camerata]

Evolution of Mind States

Pandit Bhikkhu

For most people, the mind wanders away continually from the meditation object, which should be something neutral, like the breathing.

Why does the mind wander away? What part of the mind wants to stay with the object and what part of the mind likes to do something else? Seeing the mind do things that you have not instructed it to do is called the ‘non-self’ aspect. Meditation is all about training the mind, or in the language of the suttas, ‘taming’ the mind.

You do this by bringing attention back when you catch the mind wandering – which is Zen is likened to taming a bull. While the bull is bigger and more powerful than you are, if you grab it by the ring in its nose, it will follow. Likewise the mind’s nature of straying here and there is stronger than you are. You have to take hold of it in just the right way to bring it under control. If you try to force it, you will find it much more powerful than your ‘Will’.

Yet after some time, you get moments when the mind is very present, and awake. While the awareness is still weak, it shows how the mind should be, how the mind is when it is at rest. Normal people in the world never know this – they only know the mind that leaps around, which seems to be normal to them. They look at a meditator and wonder what they are doing; maybe they think the meditator is just spaced out in some zone or trance. Actually the meditator is more fully present.

Full Dhamma talk notes.