Don't Be So Predictable | Atisha's 7 Point Mind Training

The mind is a prison of patterns. If you only live by the mind, you will be caught into patterns and life will have no breath. It will be only repeating the past over and over again. If you want to validate that, watch your mind. Pay attention to thoughts, patterns and you will notice that they are repeating all the time.

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Join me in a 30 min DAILY LIVE meditation session at 7 AM CET on my website.

Transcript

Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily life meditation session with me,

Dhyansa.

Once there was a king sleeping comfortably in his bed.

In the middle of the night,

He had a dream.

He saw a scary face in the dream looking like death and telling the king,

I'm coming for you.

The king got scared.

Obviously he couldn't sleep that night.

The dream was so real.

The scary face was so real.

The message was so real that he couldn't sleep the rest of the night.

He was waiting for the first sunlight to come and start talking to people.

What does that mean?

As soon as the day started,

He invited all his cabinet,

All the wise people of his kingdom to suggest what to do with that.

Everyone gave him their best suggestions and he eventually decided that he'll build the most secure system,

The most secure kingdom,

The most secure palace so that no death can enter that palace.

Immediately the same day,

The entire palace was made fully secure,

Fully protected with the best available technology,

With the best available methods to build several layers of security.

So much so,

All doors were sealed,

All the workers in the palace were put outside.

The king did not want to take any chance.

So he put all his servants out.

He emptied the palace only himself and then he locked the entire palace,

Even sealed the windows.

There was no way anybody could enter or anybody could exit out of that palace.

That gave the king some relief.

He said,

Okay,

Let us see now how the death comes in.

So he sat down in his palace,

Went on to do his things.

He had lots of things to entertain himself within the palace.

Days passed by,

Months passed by,

Years passed by.

Nothing came,

Nothing went out of the palace and the king was becoming somewhat mad in the palace all by himself.

The madness grew but the king did not want to come out because who knew the death would come in.

So he stayed in the palace all this time and one night when he was trying to sleep,

In a dream once again that scary face appeared.

Before the scary face could say something,

The king out of his madness said,

Look,

You could not kill me.

I was waiting for you to come but you never came.

I challenged you to come and enter my palace but you could not enter my palace.

See how secure and protected I am.

The scary face said,

Well,

I decided not to bother you because you are already dead.

The way you are living in a completely closed palace,

Nothing can come in,

Nothing can go out is already death.

In these 30 minutes every day we go through spiritual contemplations and some moments of silence in meditation that allows us to come out of this death that we are creating for ourselves.

This death is the prison created by our own mind and meditation is that opportunity,

Is that space when you come out of your mind,

When you step out of your prison of the mind and see life the way it is,

Feel life once again in the moment the way it is and then you can choose to go back in your prison,

You can choose to stay outside,

You can choose to do whatever but these 30 minutes every day are an opportunity,

Are a reminder to come out of the prison of our own minds.

Currently we are discussing 7 points of mind training by Aatisha.

We are on point number 6 which is to establish the discipline of mind training.

And the sutra which Aatisha brings in for today is,

Don't be so predictable.

He says don't be so predictable.

Very strange,

Interesting and very significant at the same time.

Aatisha is talking about discipline and at the same time talking about not being predictable.

He says don't be so predictable.

What he means is don't always repeat the same,

Don't always repeat a pattern.

You are caught in a pattern,

Your mind is creating that pattern.

In fact your mind is the pattern.

And yes we are training the mind but for what?

For our consciousness to be able to live outside the mind,

For the consciousness,

For the being to be the master of the mind,

To be able to use the mind and not get caught up in the mind.

So he is leaving that opening in the mind training,

Very significant opening,

Very significant door which otherwise most people miss.

In the disciplines if you see across the world,

Whichever discipline it is,

People become very serious.

People become very tight in their discipline and there are no loose openings in the discipline for the life to enter.

So eventually the discipline becomes their cage.

And here Aatisha is creating that opening into that cage,

Into that discipline so that you live out of the cage.

You use the mind,

You use the capacity of the mind to create patterns to be disciplined but you remain out of the mind which is to remain unpredictable,

To remain un-repetitive all the time.

There was one job interview going on and the candidate was being asked several questions,

He was not able to give good answers.

So he was getting frustrated all the time and the interviewer was also asking questions and was not receiving good answers.

So he was also waiting for the interview to end.

So he asked to the candidate,

He said,

Okay one last question,

What is your greatest weakness?

The candidate was already super frustrated by now,

He said,

I am very unpredictable.

The interviewer said,

Really?

The candidate was by now completely done.

He took off his tie,

He started folding his sleeves,

He locked the door and said,

Yeah.

I am not talking about unpredictability out of frustration from the discipline,

Frustration from the track that you have chosen for yourself.

Unpredictability means that you live life in the moment and not remain closed,

Not plan everything hour by hour.

If you see people have scheduled not only their day but their evenings,

Their weekends,

Their entire months to come hour by hour fully planned,

There is no room for life to unfold on its own,

To show something new other than what your mind has planned for your life.

And what this does is,

Living like that,

Living fully predictable,

It may give you temporarily this security that you have everything under control but that same security becomes the dullness.

The same plan becomes the dullness that life has nothing new.

And then you are looking for that newness in different things,

In different ways and you never find it.

You go on a search for newness,

You go on a search for life when you have planned everything,

When you have controlled everything,

Each and every moment of your life with your mind and there is no room for life to be there,

To enter there.

Watch your mind,

Watch your life,

Watch how you create complete predictability about your day,

Complete predictability even about when you are on vacations.

You may think you have come out of patterns but very soon when you are in your holiday,

The first thing that you do is you plan your entire day.

You don't leave room for unpredictability,

For something to unfold by itself.

In these moments of meditation today,

I invite you to observe your mind and see how it is constantly planning.

Not only that,

You will see that it is also repeating itself.

All the time the thoughts that you are having,

They are like orbiting you.

A thought comes,

It goes somewhere and then it comes back again.

It goes,

You think that it is completely gone and then it comes back again.

And all these thoughts that we are experiencing,

We think that they are all new,

We think they are arising at the moment but they are actually just orbiting around our mind and repeating all the time the same thoughts that we always have.

See that,

Become aware of it.

Only in awareness of it,

There is a chance to let go of it.

Only in awareness to see the madness of your own mind is the door to come out of the mind,

Is the door to become once again not imprisoned by the mind,

Not imprisoned by the predictability,

By the pattern of the mind and allow life,

Allow consciousness to enter,

Allow consciousness to express and to be and to let your being be in the present moment,

Aware and silent.

With that let us close our eyes.

Sit in a posture which is comfortable for you with your back straight,

Shoulders down,

Relaxed face and take a nice deep breath,

Inhale from the nose and exhale from the nose.

Awareness,

Turn inwards towards what you call as mind.

And simply observe the mind.

Mind as a witness,

Not trying to change anything,

Not participating in the thoughts,

In the breaths,

Simply observe and witness your mind repeating thoughts,

Repeating voices,

Repeating images,

Repeating plans.

Let Marin Maintain a natural flow of breath in a relaxed body as you observe your mind.

A silent witness of your mind.

A silent witness of your mind.

A silent witness of your mind.

A silent witness of your mind.

A silent witness of your mind.

A silent witness of your mind.

Notice even the subtler thoughts,

Vibrations in the mind repeating.

A silent witness of your mind.

A silent witness of your mind.

A silent witness of your mind.

A silent witness of your mind.

A silent witness of your mind.

Notice what the mind shows you is all planned.

It shows you what it has already planned to show you.

A silent witness of your mind.

A silent witness of your mind.

A silent witness of your mind.

Observe your mind and see there's nothing new in it.

It's the same old repetition.

Observe it silently without getting involved.

A silent witness of your mind.

A silent witness of your mind.

A silent witness of your mind.

Now shift your awareness from the mind to the awareness itself.

Become aware of the awareness.

Notice the newness.

Notice the openness in the awareness of awareness.

Notice the newness.

Notice the newness.

Stay with the awareness.

Allow this awareness to expand.

You simply remain aware of the awareness.

Notice the silence arising in this state.

A silent witness of your mind.

Thank you.

Leave all effort.

Simply stay silent and aware.

If you wish,

Let go in this silence and awareness for some more minutes,

Keeping your eyes closed,

Or very gently and slowly come back to your body,

To your breath,

And open your eyes,

Maintaining this silent awareness,

Which is always new,

Which is always in a way unpredictable,

Unrepeatable.

And as you proceed through your day,

From this point of awareness,

Watch your mind,

See it repeating,

See it creating locked patterns that are creating 100% predictability about yourself,

Not allowing you to feel alive.

If you notice it,

You can change that for yourself,

Whatever that means for your life.

I'll see you tomorrow at 7am CET.

Reviews

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