Practice 3 · Meeting Your Mind (Two Rounds)

First Round

Find a posture that is both comfortable and easy, like a mountain resting on the ground.

Close your eyes. Allow the world to be forgotten.

Begin to count your breaths:

• Inhale – one
• Exhale – two
• Keep on till you come to ten... then begin again at one.

Your thoughts will roam, it never fails. An idea will come up. A sense will pull at you. A sensation in your body will call for attention.

Once this occurs, do not struggle with it. Merely notice: “Ah, the focus of my attention has been lost.” Then, as tenderly as putting a feather back on a table, return to your breath.

And as soon as a thought, sensation or emotion enters the limelight, ask yourself: Did I choose it? The answer will always be no. Then redirect the limelight to the breath. This is no struggle with the mind, but rather a drill: learning how to get back.

Sit in silence for ten minutes, counting your breaths and returning whenever you notice you have wandered.

Second Round: Meeting Your Mind

Settle in. Locate a place where your body can rest and not require your attention. Shut your eyes, and take a few slow breaths to arrive.

Now greet your mind. Not as a force to conquer, but as a collaborator with whom you will learn to work. Imagine that you have encountered a good horse, but a stubborn one, one that you will lead with steady hands, not with force.

Step 1: Lighting the Spotlight

Bring the focus of your mind to your breath. At once, you start to receive its details: the coolness of air coming in... the warmth going out... the swell and fall of your belly. This is what your mind does best: to gather information.

Step 2: The Question That Changes Everything

Something else will soon come: thoughts, feelings, sensations. When they do, stop and question yourself: Did I make this choice?

No. These entries are automatic. You didn't summon them, they simply showed up. That is the autopilot of the mind.

Step 3: Coming Back to the Breath

Having realized that, come back to your breath, softly. Not to punish yourself for having gone astray, but because it is the simple business of getting your mind back where you have decided to place it. This is manual control, which you are training with each return.

Two Truths to Keep in Mind When You Practice

• Mind content: Whatever comes, anxieties, plans, memories, are mere echoes of your present life and hoarded knowledge. They are not dangers, not issues to be addressed at this point. You need not fight them; you see you did not pick them out... and go.
• The motive of well-being: Watch: each and every change of your mind is in the service of one thing, the desire to feel better, or the desire to escape suffering. Changing your position, thinking of someone you love, imagining something you want to achieve in the future, it is all the same movement toward comfort. Look at it as it is... and go back.

Let's Begin

Breathe and observe for the next five minutes. See the effortless nature of thoughts arising, and the effort it takes to come back. Here is where the art is cultivated, where every return is a repetition, like raising a weight, for the mind.

Sit in silence for five minutes.

Continue. Your mind may offer you escape routes: “This is boring,” “We have done enough.” Just take note of them as more automatic material. Be aware of the autopilot in action, and resume your chosen focus.

Sit in silence for five more minutes.

Closing

Let go of your concentration on the breath. Thank your mind, yes, really, thank it, before you open your eyes: for showing up, for revealing itself. This partnership is just beginning. When you are ready, open your eyes gradually with that awareness.