Training the Mind

All human evil comes from this: a man’s being unable to sit still in a room. – Blaise Pascal

Unless we train it, the very nature of the mind is to keep on hopping from one thing to another, almost at random. The mind can be very usefully employed, but it has to be trained for its job. Too much of the time the mind is engaged in negative thinking, either about others or about ourselves – a destructive occupation. Training the mind means establishing and maintaining sound shop standards: good, creative, consistently kind thinking, and no around-the-clock activity, either. When the mind has nothing productive to do, we need to learn how to close up shop and let it rest.



The Thought for the Day is today's entry from Eknath Easwaran's Words to Live By.
(Copyright 1999 and 2005 by The Blue Mountain Center of Meditation.)