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Showing posts from January 10, 2010

5 ways to resist obsessive thoughts (Vitakkasanthana)

The mind can be thought of as a committee Our thoughts are present by many "voices," some skillful and unskillful W there are some skillful voices in there, focusing on useful ideas, there are also the many voices in the "committee" that cause us suffering by advancing and encouraging useless, stress inducing ideas, plans, worries. Some examples of unskillful, stress producing obsessions —are dedictated to figuring out the worst possible outcomes (fear) of any situation —fixate on unknowable future events, i.e. what will we experience later in life? —try to figure out what other people are thinking about us —compare ourselves with others, especially in material concerns in general, the buddha broke these down the thoughts of craving, aversion and delusion. How unskillful internal voices persuade us some of these committee members try to get their way by —most work by repeating the same thought over and over —some split into thousands of variations that seem differe