Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Sign In Register
Examples: Monday, today, last week, Mar 26, 3/26/04
Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.

Chattering mind

betaboybetaboy Veteran
edited June 2011 in Buddhism Basics
Even a little experience reveals that no form of control or force could ever work against a chattering mind. But at the same time, inaction doesn't help either because the chattering will only continue if we do nothing about it.

So we have a problem - do nothing, and the problem will continue. Exert force and the problem will continue. So what's the third way - do we just note that we're chattering and leave it at that? Simply hope that this noting will help at some point in time?

Comments

  • taiyakitaiyaki Veteran
    only the mind see's the mind as a problem.
  • santhisouksanthisouk Veteran
    edited June 2011
    Enjoy nature more often. Learn to appreciate nature, then silence. Once you have an appreciation for silence, you will be able to bring it out within yourself more often.

    metta
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    Even a little experience reveals that no form of control or force could ever work against a chattering mind.
    I don't know where you retrieved this little snippet, but it's absolutely incorrect.

    A Chattering Mind can certainly be tamed and controlled, and doesn't require force, merely discipline.

  • mugzymugzy Veteran
    So what's the third way - do we just note that we're chattering and leave it at that?
    I'm assuming you mean during meditation here? In breathing meditation, I learned to simply become aware of the mental chatter but to then bring the focus back to the breath. "Thoughts, thinking, back to breath." With time and practice the chatter gradually decreases.
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran


    So we have a problem - do nothing, and the problem will continue
    If you can just sit there and actually "do nothing", then problem ceases all by itself. If one were to stop doing the things that cause the mind to continue chattering, then it stops chattering on it's own. Giving the chattering attention is what causes it to persist. Thinking that it's substantial, important or relevant, when it's really just a bunch of nonsense. The starting point is to turn your attention away from the nonsense and to the breath. Your attention will go back to the nonsense and you turn it back to the breath. It will go to the nonsense again and then you turn it back to the breath. It will go to the nonsense again and then you turn it back to the breath. This "turning your attention back" is the point.

Sign In or Register to comment.