Observing The Mind Changes The Mind | Atisha's 7 Point Mind Training

The mind is such a wonderful instrument that you have. If it is trained to remain blissful and rested, it can create heaven out of life. In this session, I talk about 5 states of mind and followed by a guided meditation to attain higher states of mind. These states are:

1. Meditative Mind
2. One pointed Mind
3. Distracted Mind
4. Dull Mind
5. Disturbed Mind

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Join me in a 30 min DAILY LIVE meditation session on my website.

Transcript

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

Deance.

30 minutes every morning,

Today and every day we sit in contemplative spiritual discussions,

Exercises and meditation together to move one step closer to oneself,

To move one step closer to inner peace,

To silence,

To love,

Compassion and whatever is important for us.

As Aatisha says,

Life is very short,

It's very precious,

There is a lot that is calling our attention,

So if we don't build a habit,

If we don't take time out for ourselves,

It'll flow by very fast.

So use these 30 minutes as an excuse to get out of everything else,

To put your daily routines aside,

To put your work aside,

To put your family aside,

To put your society aside,

Everything aside but yourself.

30 minutes just for yourself.

In these 30 minutes,

The contemplations,

The meditation that we'll go through will allow you to move towards your inner space,

Will allow you to explore this inner space in a structured way,

In a way which is understandable,

Which is relatable.

Finally we are going through Aatisha's 7 point mind training and we are on point number 5 where Aatisha is talking about evaluating the practice in daily life.

He's saying that when you're training for meditation,

When you're training your mind,

When you're training your consciousness,

What good is it if you cannot apply this in your life?

So he's giving you pointers to evaluate whether your practice is bringing fruits,

Whether your practice is effective or not.

The sutra that he brings today regarding this evaluation is he says,

Always have a joyous mind.

Even in situations when you are distracted,

Can you hold the practice?

If you can,

Then you're well trained.

Always maintain the joyous mind.

If in situations you're distracted and you can still practice,

You can still maintain the practice,

You're well trained.

So he's giving you the ultimate criteria,

The most challenging criteria that can you maintain a joyous mind in every situation?

This sounds so much of an impossibility to maintain a joyous mind,

To maintain a blissed out mind,

Look at our life,

How we are experiencing our mind,

How much of the times are we really joyful?

In our 24-7 we can count the moments when it's joyful,

When it's blissed out,

And the rest seems to be a struggle.

But Adisha is putting this as the ultimate parameter.

He says,

Can you maintain a joyous mind throughout your daily life?

This is something to be attained.

This is a process to move from the state of mind that you have right now,

Which is only sometimes joyous,

Only requiring some kind of stimulus,

Some happening to make it joyful,

To make it excited,

To make it open,

And rest of the times is somewhat contrary to the situation.

So understand how your state of mind is,

Understand and see why that is,

And see that your default state of mind,

If it's not joyous,

If it's not open,

Something must change.

If you're distracted and you get carried away with it,

With the distractions,

Something needs to be trained.

Still something needs to be worked upon.

So in order to judge the state of your mind,

There's a simple framework which is putting the state of mind on a map.

It says at the very lower states of mind,

The first state of mind,

The lowest state of mind is the disturbed mind.

The mind which is always negative,

Which is always in conflict,

Always in anger,

Always looking at the negative side of things,

Is fearful,

Is anxious,

Is simply disturbed.

If it's thinking about something,

It just keeps on thinking about the thing all the time.

It's completely disturbed.

That is the lowest state of the mind.

You can judge from your life how much of this state do we live,

If it's only happening in some moments,

Or is this happening in the larger portion of our life.

Then the second lower state of mind is the dull mind.

This is the mind where there is lethargy,

There's no energy,

There's no motivation,

There's depression,

There's dullness,

And always you see that there is no joy in life.

You never see the bright side of things.

You are simply dull.

There's no energy in the mind to pick up things and see situations with energy,

With motivation,

And this is also another lower state of the mind.

Then somewhat higher,

But what we call as the normal of today,

Is the distracted mind,

Which is not always disturbed,

Which is not always dull,

But which is distracted.

Some people even are hyperactive.

They have a hyperactive mind which is constantly distracted.

They cannot hold an attention at a particular point,

Or on a subject,

Or an object,

For any given amount of time.

They're always distracted.

And if you see the kind of lifestyle that we have,

The interactions that we have with technology,

They're all leading to more and more of distractions.

So are we living the distracted mind,

Or the mind is by default joyous?

Ask yourself,

See for yourself in your life.

Then there are two higher states of mind.

The state which is above the distracted mind is one pointed mind.

The mind which can focus,

The mind which can concentrate,

The mind that is given a topic,

A subject,

And can hold itself onto it for a certain amount of time.

Without the one pointed mind,

There is no understanding of life.

In the distraction,

There's information,

But you cannot comprehend it.

You cannot understand it.

Only a one pointed mind can really understand what's going on.

So if you are in a mind which is disturbed,

Fearful,

Anxious,

Or dull,

Depressed,

Or distracted,

The understanding of life,

The understanding of what's happening,

Is very limited.

Only a mind which is one pointed allows you to form an understanding for your own self.

Otherwise you'll be dependent on others for understanding things.

Otherwise others will tell you,

And you will have to follow.

You will have no other choice but to just simply agree and follow to what others are saying because you cannot form your own one pointed mind and understand things.

Same understanding leads to also building the aesthetics of life,

Building what is really the pleasure of life,

What is this life all about.

To lead those aesthetics of life,

You have to go through the one pointed mind which can understand life,

Which can see what's happening,

Reflect,

Judge,

And make its own choices.

And then the highest state of the mind,

Which is the blissed out mind,

The no mind,

The meditative mind.

This is the mind which Aatisha is pointing at and saying,

The always joyous mind,

The blissed out mind,

The mind which is not needing any external objects,

Stimulus to be joyful.

By default it is at rest.

By default it is in ecstasy,

In bliss,

In silence.

We can see in our life how much of these states we live in and use this as the basis to understand where we need to move,

Where we are right now.

And we somehow take it for granted that we are only meant for living these lower states of mind and we never even give ourselves a chance to rise above and see that it is possible to live the defaults of silence,

Of having a mind which is completely rested,

Which is focused,

Which is also open when you want to have an open awareness.

It becomes a friend,

It becomes a very powerful tool that you can utilize and not that you are constantly just struggling throughout your life with the state of mind and are living at the mercy of your mind,

Whatever state it offers you,

You somehow manage to take your life along with that particular state of mind.

In today's meditation,

We will go through these observations of what is the state of our mind right now and we will also try to take a step further to rise ourselves towards this state which is known as the meditative mind.

In general,

If you have a distracted mind,

Please not only meditation,

If you have this disturbed mind,

You need some change in life which allows you to calm this disturbance in your life.

It could be as simple as doing some spots along with meditation,

Doing some spots which gives you or being in nature which calms this disturbance down,

Which takes you out of where you are stuck.

Same is with dullness.

If you have a dull mind,

If you have no energy,

If you have no motivation,

Change something about your life,

Go out in nature,

Do those things which bring you fresh energy.

Also simply sitting in meditation can show you,

Can bring you a certain energy but you need to accompany this with a bigger change in life.

And most importantly,

Along with meditation,

You need more sleep.

If you have a distracted mind,

That's where you can start the training where you can focus.

There are lots of meditations that are based on concentration,

That are based on focus,

That allow you to move from distraction to one-pointedness to meditative silence.

So in today's session,

We'll take this journey in a very short,

Quick version but while you are practicing this in your daily life,

You take it step by step,

You evaluate what is the state of your mind and what needs to be done to move on to the next.

With that,

Let's close our eyes.

Make sure your back is straight and your posture is relaxed,

Your body is still,

Hands and legs can take easy posture for yourself.

Your face is relaxed and your awareness on yourself turning inwards.

As your awareness settles on your body,

On your mind,

Observe the state of your mind right now.

Let's close our eyes.

In this observation,

Not only you see the state of your mind,

But also your mind calms down.

Simply by observing your mind,

It moves towards silence.

Let's close our eyes.

Don't try to change anything.

You observe your mind,

Disturbances,

Distractions,

Dullness,

Focus,

Whichever the state of your mind.

Let's close our eyes.

While you observe your mind,

Allow your breath to flow naturally,

Silently,

Slowly,

Slowly,

Slowly.

As you observe the mind,

Don't get caught up with its contents.

Observe the state of your mind.

Is it disturbed?

Is it dull?

Distracted?

One pointed?

Or silent?

And see it changing these states.

See it moving towards silence.

Observing the state of mind.

Changes the state of mind.

No effort needed in this observation.

No effort needed in this observation.

As your mind becomes silent,

Allow it to happen.

Allow it to become more aware and silent.

No effort needed in this observation.

And there comes a point where you leave all effort,

All focus,

And let your awareness expand while you remain seated in silence.

No effort needed in this observation.

No effort needed in this observation.

No effort needed in this observation.

If you wish to continue in these silent moments,

To sit with yourself in this awareness,

Keep your eyes closed,

Go within deeper.

Otherwise,

Very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes.

While maintaining this centeredness,

Silence,

Awareness,

And this state of mind,

This meditative state of mind.

And as you proceed in your day,

Observe,

Witness the state of mind that you live,

And make changes in your life that take you one step closer to a silent mind,

To a joyful mind,

To a mind that is open,

Aware,

And silent.

I'll see you tomorrow at 7 am CET.

Namaste.

Reviews

What great insight into the levels of the quality of mind! Thank you 🙏

Great lesson! Thank you 🙏🏼🙏🏼

Such an important practice, one I've been working on for a while. Thank you 💙 🙏💙

Thank you dear Soul, I am so enjoying your teachings, they bring me Home 🕊