WANDERING THOUGHTS

WANDERING THOUGHTS

One of the mind’s most basic habits is to create thought- worlds and then to inhabit them. This is what the Buddha meant by becoming. The ability to engage in becoming is often a useful skill, as it enables you to use your imagination in planning for the future and contemplating lessons from the past. But this skill can become a destructive habit, as you create thought -worlds that develop greed, aversion, delusion, and other destructive mental habits. 

Your ability to plan for the future can turn into worries that can destroy your peace of mind. Your ability to relive the past can make you miserable in the present.

One of the important skills in meditation is learning how to turn these thought-worlds off and on at will, so that you can think when you need to think, and stop thinking when you don’t. In this way, the mind’s ability to create thought- worlds won’t cause it harm.

In the beginning stages of meditation, you need a few quick and easy rules to help you decide whether a thought is worth following or not. 

Otherwise, you’ll get sucked into every thought-world that can deceive you into thinking that it deserves your attention.

So while you’re learning to focus on the breath, hold to a simple rule: Any thought connected with improving your focus on the breath is okay.

Any other thought has to be dropped.

Source: With Each & Every Breath; Chapter – Common Problems

by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/WithEachAndEveryBreath/Section0001.html