Sit calmly. Breathe. Let your mind be still. Let your body rest. Let your energy flow naturally throughout your body, bringing loving kindness to yourself. Let your brain be silent, your thoughts cease, your worries titrate down to nothing more than a simmering breeze. In this manner temper your suffering, reduce your anxiety, turn down your inner patter, your judgments, your condemnations of self and other. None of these things really exist; they are mere inventions of your mind seeking resolution, but you will not find resolution there. The mind is a dead end street. Instead let your spirit find you once again in the house of your physical body where it has been wandering and waiting. Let it greet you and take you down the streets of calmness, even as you become active again. Let yourself be whole in this way, in companionable silence within the quiet self!
Let the day be smooth and easy like a gentle breeze. Let your heart be calm. Let your breath be your guide to stillness as it takes you deeper and deeper into yourself and your life. Breathe. Just breathe.
Let wisdom be your guide. Let silence be your anchor. Let calmness balance you. Let these three things settle in your body. Let them rise from your heart and let them settle back into your heart. Let them be stilling. For when things feel impossible, when darkness threatens, when love feels distant and forgotten, hold within you the wisdom, silence, and calmness that have stilled the turmoils of the ages and find your own stillness there. And then wait in your stillness for the things that bring turmoil to pass, for all things pass.
When your mind wanders bring it back to safe anchoring with calmness of breath. Like a boat gone loose from its moorings guide it gently back to calm emptiness by tying it fast to the dock of yourself and in your mind’s eye sit beside it. As you watch the water’s rippling surface feel the gentle breeze upon your skin, the sun upon your head, and know that you are safe. Breathe in calmness, breathe out disturbance, sadness and pain. Breathe in purity and goodness, breathe out madness and evil. Breathe in love, breathe out hate. Use your mind in this manner for calmness, peace, and love. It’s within your power, the power of your own breath!
When a frustrated student asked how to contend with his mind, whose meanderings had undermined his attempt at meditation for three hours straight, the teacher replied, sternly, “What your mind does is not your business!” *
Put attention where it matters most… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
The guidance was simple: let the mind do what it wants; place your attention on your breathing. You are not responsible for your thoughts; they have a mind of their own. However, you are responsible for where you place your attention. Hence, every time you notice your attention drawn to a thought, gently return your attention to your breath.
The fact is, we are of two minds: the mind that generates the thoughts and the mind that decides where to place its attention. Don Juan Matus explained it like this: “Everyone of us human beings has two minds. One is totally ours, and is like a faint voice that always brings us order, directness, purpose. The other mind is a foreign installation. It brings us conflict, self assertion, doubts, hopelessness.” **
Our meditation student was being coached to develop his true mind’s ability to place its attention on the breath, to withdraw its attention from the thoughts generated by the foreign installation, the mind that is truly not “his business.”
The objective of meditation, as well as the shamanic practices of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico, is to free the true mind from the dominance of the thought-story dramas produced by the foreign installation that, like the true reality portrayed in the movie The Matrix, steals our vital energy for its own sustenance.
However, the battle to free the true mind must be carried out with utter gentleness lest it be caught in the clutches of a foreign installation trap that absolutely thrives on inner conflict. The foreign installation mind catches us by feeling offended, inadequate, inappropriate, unworthy, unloved and unlovable, etc., all the myriad of ways the self has failed or been failed by others. There is no end to the stories generated by the foreign installation to trap our attention and feed off the energy of our ensuing inner conflict, as we sit captivated and live through the intense thought-story drama generated for our entertainment and attachment.
The foreign installation mind cannot be fought directly. The wisdom of the guidance—that this mind is not your business—is the freedom to not worry about it or pay any attention to the fact that it exists. It’s not about trying to control or change it either. It’s simply about taking attention away from it and placing it where we choose.
In the shaman’s world, it is this behavior—the refusal to engage in the dramas of self-importance generated by the foreign installation—that ultimately frees the self from the dominance of the foreign installation.
Simply put, when we don’t attach to the dramas of self-importance, our energy is withdrawn from the predator’s grasp, that is, the foreign installation that feasts upon our frantic energetic reaction to its thought-story dramas.
This is the true meaning of mindful detachment, as we learn to place our attention on being fully present, freed of attachment to the dramas that generate inner conflict, the product of the foreign installation mind. “Your” mind is not your business, but where you place your attention IS your business.
Fully present, in the moment… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Fully repossess your own mind. Do it calmly, with no judgment as to the number of times your attention is drawn to the wares of the foreign installation. That mind will continue to carry out its business, while you simply begin to more fully realize that you don’t have to shop there any more. Eventually, that merchant will move on, as you refuse to fund it with your vital energy.
Have no attachment to how long or short it takes; focus on placing your attention calmly where you want it. It’s as simple as that!
Freeing the mind, Chuck
* Excerpt from:Journey of Insight Meditation by Eric Lerner, p. 80
** Excerpt from:The Active Side of Infinity by Carlos Castaneda, p. 7
