if you're hooked

quotes from how to meditate by pema chodron

“the more we see this kind of pattern and don’t go on the downward cycle, the more our confidence grows in our capacity to awaken. as we expand our confidence in the workability of our situation, we begin to see that we are not victims of our habitual patterns. it can definitely feel like we are victims of our habitual patterns; they have a very sneaky way of getting the better of us. but the path of meditation addresses these patterns very directly, and it begins to unwind this whole sense of being imprisoned by our own mind.

the mind is the source of all suffering, and it is also the source of all happiness. think about that. in fact, you can contemplate this for the rest of your life. when something comes up in your life that causes you dissatisfaction, or triggers habitual patterns and reactivity, or makes you angry, lonely, and jealous, ask yourself: are these emotions happening because of outer circumstances? are they completely dependent on outer circumstances?

the path of meditation says that we have to work with our mind, and that if we do work with our mind, the outer circumstances become workable. things that used to irritate and bother us or that trigger our reactivity and habitual patterns begin to dissolve. so whenever you find yourself caught in an emotional attack, you have to ask yourself: ‘how much of this is really happening on the outside, and how much of this is my mind?’. . .

the guideline is this: if you’re hooked, then you need to work on your side of the situation, no matter how outrageous and unjust the outer circumstance might seem. if you’re hooked, this is a clue that you have some work to do -- and you, only you, can call yourself back. this is the basic attitude of meditation.”

“criticalness is an obstacle to meditation, and harshness is an obstacle to awakening. this tendency to be hard on ourselves does not come from the buddha nature, the basic goodness within all of us; it comes from the ego and our conditioning. we all have the seeds of this basic goodness within us -- we only have to nourish them. nourishing the basic goodness within includes not judging ourselves for all the wild thinking that takes place in our mind. we can’t control how many thoughts we’re going to have. and we can’t control what the next thought is going to be. as you practice, try to be faithful to the instruction with a gentle attitude. we train in attention, but it’s friendly attention. we train in labeling, but it’s friendly labeling.”

“as you spend more days and weeks with your commitment to practice, it might seem that your mind wanders even more. many people, even seasoned meditators, say, ‘i’m thinking more than i ever did before!’ they feel like their distractedness and thinking are getting worse, rather than better. the fact is that before you started meditating and trying to develop mindfulness, you weren’t aware of how many thoughts you have. now you are, and that’s why there appears to be more of them.”

“trungpa rinpoche used to say that this kind of experience is very good because it humbles us. he said, ‘our minds are great teachers because we have just enough growing awareness and alertness, or increasing kindness, to encourage ourselves.’ and as he pointed out, we can even get very arrogant about that. in other words, our humanity, this discursiveness and this inability to completely overcome the wild and drowsy mind, keeps us in balance.

the third word i’d like you to hold when it comes to your thoughts is ‘humor.’ gentleness, patience, and a sense of humor. have a sense of humor about the fact that your mind is like a wild monkey. in his book wake up to your life, ken mcleod has a great quote from the theravada meditation master henepola gunaratana. he says, ‘somewhere in this process, you will come face to face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill, utterly out of control and hopeless. no problem. you are not crazier than you were yesterday. it has always been this way and you never noticed.’ our thoughts are like the weather -- they’re just passing through. in our practice, there’s no need to cling to them, no need to see them as totally solid. they are thoughts, after all; they’re not the present moment. let them pass through the big sky of your mind.”