Meditation and Keeping Busy

Today's Kadampa Center teaching was about taming your mind. Geshe Gelek talked about one of my favorite thanka paintings - The Monk, The Elephant, and the Monkey. It shows the nine stages of taming your mind using great imagery. At first, the monk is chasing behind the black elephant and monkey - clearly having a hard time keeping up. As the three travel along the path, the animals slowly turn from black to white, and at the very end, the monk is riding the elephant....

It is all about practice - Geshe-la led us in three different types of meditation to help us start taming our minds. The first was nine-round breathing, which helps to clear your mind.  In the second, we counted ten in/out breaths, and then held the last one as long as we could. And finally, we focused on the physical aspects with a short 14-step movement meditation.

These are simple meditations to help us all get started on taming our minds. It is a new year - let's all ive it a try! Even for just five or ten minutes a day. Stop and breathe. That is all!