The Vision

Like the clear blue sky, the nature of our minds is vast, open and clear.  While this is so, due to our conditioning we are beguiled by our ceaseless thoughts and emotions.  This unceasing display of mental activity, arising vividly within the display of the mind, causes enormous suffering.  To understand the mechanics of our thoughts and emotions – how we create our own suffering due to our ignorance of our conditioned habitual responses – is vital in order to reverse the tendency of fixation and reaction.  In order to sublimate our minds from a state of ceaseless dissatisfaction to one of present-moment contentment with what is, we must embark on the long journey of re-conditioning our habitual mental states.  

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This reconditioning is the process of learning to recognize directly (not simply a conceptual understanding, but a direct moment-to-moment seeing) our default habitual mental reactions to life.  When we can see directly how we are reacting, we have the possibility to change our response from one of reaction to non-reaction.  In order to see our mental conditioning, let alone change it, we need to cultivate wholesome mental states.  

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The entirety of the mind training can be summarized as a process of: 

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• Recognizing harmful mental states, and letting them go

• Cultivating wholesome (beneficial) mental states, and nourishing them

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The effect of this is the dis-identification of harmful mental habit patterns, and the recognition of the true nature of our minds.  It is a joyful journey to seeing clearly that thoughts and emotions, which arise and pass away moment to moment, is not our true identify, but rather like clouds that arise and pass through the blue sky.  Moment to moment, things change, but the true nature of our minds is always present, unceasingly now.  To truly recognize that we are not these emotional reactions, these thoughts or feelings which arise, stay for awhile, and change – to truly see that our true identity is lucid awareness, always present, never caught – that is the basis of the sublime path out of dissatisfaction and into resting in the truth – this very moment.  

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It is my hope that these mind trainings may be of benefit for those who are struggling to cultivate inner peace and satisfaction in their life.  I did not create any of them – they were passed on to me from traditions and teachers wiser than myself, and they worked for me.  It is my hope they work for you as well, dear reader.