Read Your Own Mind

We read about the psychic powers that can come from meditation, seeing what’s going on in far, distant places, reading other people’s minds. Sometimes these sound like attractive skills to have. But as the Buddha said, more important than reading other people’s minds is learning how to read your own mind.

What’s going on in your mind right now? If anything unskillful comes up, he says you have to be like a person whose head is on fire. You’ve got to put the fire out immediately. You can’t wait around. You can’t just watch the flames, see what pretty colors they have, because they can harm you. So when unskillful qualities come up in the mind, you don’t just sit there and watch them. You figure out: “Why are they coming? What can I do to stop them?” In that way, you stay safe. If you don’t see anything unskillful in the mind, let the mind rest. But you have to be alert at all times.

So. Keep reading your mind. Learn how to step outside your thoughts. Ask yourself: Where are they coming from and where are they going? That was how the Buddha got on the path himself. He stepped outside of his thoughts and he learned he could divide them into two sorts: those that would lead to suffering and harm, those that would not lead to suffering or harm at all.

The first kind he would beat back, he said, like a cowherd whose cows might get into the rice when the rice is growing. You had to beat them back to let them know it’s a serious business: You don’t go there, no matter how much you want the rice, no matter how much you want your greed or aversion or delusion or your lust or whatever. You have to beat the mind back. Say, “No. Can’t go there,” and give it a better place to go.

This is why we practice concentration, to give the mind a good object to focus on, one that gives rise to a sense of well-being that you can spread throughout the body. That way, you’ll be less inclined to want to go for the rice, when you know you shouldn’t be taking it.

As for skillful thoughts, he realized he could let them wander as they like. Like the cows during the hot season when the rice has been gathered. There’s no danger in the rice fields; they can go wherever they want. But you still have to be mindful of where they’re going.

So when they talk about “acceptance,” you have to accept the fact that your thoughts have consequences. That’s what you accept. Then you work to make sure that your thoughts have good consequences, as you step outside of them and watch where they’re going. When you can encourage the good ones, you find that they’ll repay you.

So this is what it means to read your mind. You don’t just read it. You direct the tale that you’re reading. You direct the story that you’re reading, so that it comes to a good end.