Know What Things Actually Mean

It’s a wonderful feeling to confront some habit of the mind that makes you suffer until you know it well enough that you’re no longer falling victim to it. When you see that your emotional buttons aren’t being pushed anymore, you have more confidence in your practice.

But this change doesn’t come without some effort. You have to make the determination: “I’m going to really look at this unskillful mental habit. I’m going to see how it operates in my mind.” This training requires a lot of patience and, at times, it’s not fun. Yet seeing it as a worthwhile challenge can be quite helpful.

Ultimately, any state of mind that obsesses us also limits our capacity to relax into the spaciousness of the mind. That’s because whenever the mind is preoccupied or obsessed with something, there’s no space for anything else. So you can ask yourself: “What objects obsess me? What trains of thought and emotional attitudes grab my attention and take hold of my mind?” Then ask yourself: “What’s the way out? How do I free my mind from that?” This kind of inner inquiry is existential, not theoretical. It’s about our individual existence and the particular modes of suffering we experience.

The Buddha’s teachings give us seemingly abstract concepts to work with: the Four Noble Truths, dependent origination, the three characteristics of existence, and so forth. As a contemplative, you have to know what these things actually mean; that’s the only way you can find freedom from suffering.

For example, as a model for enlightenment, the Four Noble Truths are peerless. However, if you leave them strictly at the level of thought, at the level of study, they’ll never liberate you. You have to see pragmatically—through the vehicle of your own practice—how the Four Noble Truths are not only true, but ultimately beneficial for your well-being.

So we come to see that training in working with difficult states of mind is a lot like training in the craft of bookbinding: if we pay close attention, we learn from experience how to do things well.

This reflection by Ajahn Viradhammo is from the book, The Contemplative’s Craft, (pdf) p. 76.