Steady Mind

The Sanskrit word for meditation is dhyana; the Tibetan term is samten–which both refer to the same thing: steady mind. Mind is steady in the sense that you don’t go up when a thought goes up, and you don’t go down when it goes down, but you just watch things going either up or down. Whether good or bad, exciting, miserable, or blissful thoughts arise–whatever occurs in your state of mind, you don’t support it by having an extra commentator. The sitting practice of meditation is very simple and direct, and in the Shambhalian style, it is very businesslike. You just sit and watch your thoughts go up and down. There is a background technique, a physical technique, which is working with the breath as it goes out and in. That automatically provides an occupation during sitting practice. It is partly designed to occupy you so that you don’t evaluate thoughts. You just let them happen. In that environment, you can develop renunciation: an ability to renounce extreme reactions against your thoughts or for them. When warriors are on the battlefield, they don’t react to success or failure. Success or failure on the battlefield is just regarded as another breath coming in and going out, another discursive thought coming in and going out. So the warrior is very steady. Because of that, the warrior is victorious–because victory is not particularly the aim or the goal. But the warrior can just be–as he or she is.