You can learn to use your mind as it is supposed to be used: as your ally.<\/p>\n
The greatest gift of being alive as a human being is the full use of our mind. The mind is not our enemy; it is not something to be silenced by force.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A sane mind is naturally quiet but not empty. After some time practicing Self-Directed Attention, you will probably notice that there are often moments when there are no thoughts present and the mind is like a calm lake where there are no ripples. That is a very pleasant state that can be enjoyed fully for as long as it lasts, but that quiet mind is a passing state. The natural state of the mind is to be always in flow.<\/p>\n
Practices that seek to empty the mind only produce only temporary states of silence, which are quickly replaced by mental turmoil, however long the state of silence may persist.<\/p>\n
We usually see the mind to be the enemy and thoughts as a disturbance that must be eliminated, but that is taking things as they currently are as inevitable<\/em>. The truth is, you can change your mind.<\/p>\n The mind is our interface with the world. A sane mind that is not controlled by fear is the perfect tool. Practices that aim to clear the mind without addressing the root cause of the disturbance only achieve temporary effects. They must be repeated over and over to maintain those effects in place.<\/p>\n But it is possible to get to the root cause of the problem and eliminate it once and for all. With just one look at the feeling of being me<\/em>, the root cause of all your purely psychological difficulties dissipates instantaneously. Once that cause disappears, no more diseased mechanisms are generated because the ground of your mind is now sane. The only thing left to do is to rid yourself of the remaining old mechanisms that will keep fighting for a while to stay in place.<\/p>\n By developing your understanding of how your mind’s mechanisms are formed and how they function, you finally become the master of your own mind. And by developing your<\/em> control of your<\/em> attention you take the reins of your life in your hands.<\/p>\n You have absolutely no say over the circumstances of your birth, what kinds of opportunities you are offered or denied, who comes and goes in your life, or what thoughts come to you. All of those things are out of your control.<\/p>\n The only thing you can have any control over is your attention and that is the greatest power you can have. Attention is the Holy Grail. There is nothing else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You can learn to use your mind as it is supposed to be used: as an ally. The greatest gift of being alive as a human being is the full use of our mind. The mind is not our enemy; it is not something to be silenced by force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[81,6,22,7,80,9,79],"class_list":["post-904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-ally","tag-attention","tag-blog","tag-mind","tag-sane-mind","tag-sanity","tag-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5SwXW-eA","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.justonelook.org\/natural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.justonelook.org\/natural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.justonelook.org\/natural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.justonelook.org\/natural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.justonelook.org\/natural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.justonelook.org\/natural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1135,"href":"https:\/\/www.justonelook.org\/natural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions\/1135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.justonelook.org\/natural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.justonelook.org\/natural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.justonelook.org\/natural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}