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+ | ====== Cutting New Paths in the Mind ====== | ||
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+ | Summary: | ||
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+ | When we're taught to meditate, there' | ||
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+ | And when you recognise you have these patterns you have to learn how to counteract them, so they don't arise or if they do arise you can let go of them quickly. That's what this aspect of Right Effort is all about. And it does require planning. You want to be able to observe the mind: What kind of thoughts does it engage in, [to] bring on that ability to stab yourself? What's the line of thought, what's the reasoning, what's the agenda behind those patterns of thinking? And then very deliberately sit down and think in other ways, learn how to counteract whatever the reasoning there may be behind them. And you want to break these things down into manageable bits. | ||
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+ | Last night I heard someone talking about how she'd been on a retreat, and had been dealing with large archetypes in her mind, and perhaps they were taught that they were dealing with archetypes so that they could have a sense that what they were dealing with was important work. But when you think of patterns in your mind as being archetypes, i.e. parts of the collective unconscious, | ||
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+ | So remember it's not an archetype, it's a pattern, it's a pattern you may have in common with lots of other people, but it's simply a habit, or a series of a habits, and you want to learn how to recognize them as specific habits, specific choices that you make. And when you cut them down to size this way, then you find that they are more manageable, you can take them out one by one by one. And if you let them remain archetypes... I was told that Jung had these archetypes carved into stone and placed around his house. And that's a good symbol for what a lot of people do with their patterns of behavior, they carve them into stone, and you can never get rid of them that way. But if you realize it's a series of choices, and patterns of behavior, these pathways in the mind that you've been running up and down, up and down, up and down, it means you can choose other paths, paths that don't lead to a briar patch, don't lead to lots of thorns and arrows. Cut other paths across them. And very deliberately think in other ways. | ||
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+ | At first it may seem awkward, but as you learn to think in opposite ways... [For instance] you realize that you've done something wrong, you've hurt somebody, and there' | ||
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+ | So in each case, you recognize you've got these habits, you've got to sit down and deliberately counteract them. Cause otherwise they turn into something way too big, way to contentious. That's the kind of thinking that the Buddha calls // | ||
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+ | This kind of thinking is called objectification, | ||
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+ | So the Buddha' | ||
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+ | And you can create new habits, it's like finding that the paths you've been follwing through the forest lead only to traps that are filled with spikes. Well, you can find other habits, you can cut other paths through the forest. It takes time, sometimes you've got to cut through a lot of brush, but once you've made that first foray into the new path, then it's simply a matter of going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth over and over again. So you get a path out of the forest. Or at the very least if you're going to stay in the forest, you know the good places to go. You know where the water is, you know where shelter is, you know where the good medicinal and edible plants are, and try to blaze a path to those areas. | ||
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+ | So you're cutting your old habits down to size by cutting new paths through the forest. This is an important aspect of Right Effort. So you don't keep stabbing yourself in the way you used to, or if you do find you're stabbing yourself, you can quit more quickly. Not just keep indulging in the old habits. | ||
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+ | That's one of the ways in which your Right Effort becomes all-around. Then you're not stuck with just one technique, the way the British were stuck in World War II, they thought the Japanese were going to attack Singapore from the sea, so they pointed all their cannons out toward the sea, they had them set in concrete, and sure enough the Japanese came down the Malay peninsula, and the cannons were useless. So don't let yourself be stuck with just cannons pointing in one direction, you've got four directions which you've got to watch out for: learning how to prevent unskillful habits or unskillful qualities from arising, and if they have arisen, learning how to abandon them. How to give rise to skillful qualities and how to develop and nurture skillful qualities when they have arisen. You want your right effort to be all-around. Because only that way can they give you all-around protection. | ||
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