Get Ready to Meditate

Get yourself ready to meditate.

Sit in a composed way and examine your mind, using your mindfulness and discernment perceptively. Setting the mind in the right direction is something very important. If the mind isn’t set in the right direction, its thoughts and opinions won’t be right. It’s like a tree leaning to one side. When it falls down, it’ll fall in the direction that it’s been leaning.

When the mind has been set in a direction that isn’t good, it’ll think of things that aren’t good. But a mind that has been set in a good direction will tend to think in a good direction. When the mind is set on being peaceful, when it’s set on meditating, it tends toward peace. It tends toward seclusion. This is what gives rise to concentration, to mindfulness and discernment, and ultimately to the knowledge of release, step by step.

All of this comes from setting the mind in the right direction. This is why setting the mind in the right direction is so important.

You need to apply appropriate attention–yoniso manasikāra–to develop skillful strategies in dealing with the mind. Don’t simply go through the motions as you’ve done in the past. Stir the heart to be responsible for what it’s doing. Take on the responsibility of being intent and glad, convinced in what you’re doing. Make an effort. Don’t give up. Don’t let the meditation become so routine that you don’t pay attention or that you’re simply doing it because it’s on the schedule.

You always have to try to energize the mind so that it’ll keep making progress, so that it’s always fully prepared: prepared to be mindful, prepared to get into concentration, prepared to grow still.

We should always think about the rewards of stillness. We should keep in mind the good things that come from meditation so as to give energy to the heart. At the same time, keep in mind the things that come from letting the mind slip off without any awareness, under the power of infatuation, under the power of delusion: a waste of time that brings no benefits.

Think of the benefits that come from being alert to what you’re doing, responsible for what you’re doing – responsible to the point where you can depend on yourself and have no doubts about what you’re doing.

This reflection by Phra Ajaan Suwat Suvaco is from the book The Intelligent Heart: Five Dhamma Talks, “Unwavering Conviction,” (pdf) pg. 12.