Understanding Our Mind
Everyday our thoughts, words, and deeds plant new seeds in our field of consciousness and what these seeds generate becomes the substance of our life. The practice of mindfulness helps us identify all the seeds in our consciousness and with that knowledge we can choose to water only the ones that are most beneficial. If the seed of delusion is watered in us, our ignorance will grow. if we water the seed of enlightenment it will grow and our wisdom will flourish. The seed of enlightenment is already within our consciousness. This is our Buddha nature, the inherent quality of the enlightened mind we all possess. When we look at any phenomenon (dharma) we should be able to see the unity in the diversity and diversity in the unity. Something that is beginning to take form is also in the process of disintegrating as well. We cannot see the boundary between reality and our erroneous perceptions. Words point to something and may or may not point to the “truth” of that thing, which can only be known through a direct perception of its reality. In our daily life, we rarely have a direct perception. Erroneous perceptions bring about much suffering. The process of mistaking our perceptions for reality is so subtle that it is very difficult to know that it is going on. We practice meditation to train the mind in direct and correct perception.