Using the mind to control or manage mind itself is a commitment to being caught in an endless loop of suffering. It's like attempting to cure cancer with cancer. Ridiculous! Didn't Albert Einstein say, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking that created them."
It's crucial to understand that Zen is emphatically NOT NOT NOT NOT a practice of using a distorted sense of self to heal a distorted sense of self. Zen is NOT NOT NOT NOT expecting the mind to stabilize itself, by "training the mind," which it could be pretty obvious we don't have authority over. It's the same as gripping a wet bar of soap, while under the force of being in the shower, trying to prevent it from flying out of our hand. Error!
Instead, Zen training and practice guides us to drop being directed by aspects of mind anchored in fear and defense mode thats very similar to trying to train a feral cat. Instead we accept full responsibility for our attention and how we use it. Attention attends the present moment.
This activity leans toward cultivating one-pointed unified, undivided, stabilized attention. In this way, we change how attention relates to various aspects of mind, capable of extraordinary levels of greed, hatred, and delusion, driven by fear, that's literally mind divided against itself, and our day-to-day experience, and Reality.
Instead of mind, trying to be at peace with mind, what could happen if attention was equanimous with mind? Test drive and discover. This is basic neuroscience.
一We Are the Practice Itself
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