How Kindness Tames Your Mind

Hey friends, welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. You know, mindfulness helps us to tame the mind. But when I speak about taming, I don't mean trying to suppress. Subdue or kind of like get control of our mind. To me, taming the mind means having a more wise and skillful relationship with it and learning to harness its awesome power.

So taming a mind in some ways is similar to taming a horse. And when I grew up, I saw my Uncle Jeff taming horses. He was quite actually renowned for his ability to do this work. And the reason he was good at it is because of the way he tamed those horses. He was always patient and respectful to each horse.

He never saw himself as superior to them or, or them as some kind of like energy, enemy that he needed to kind of bring into line. He saw every animal as a friend/ he considered his relationship with them a relationship of equals. He seemed to really enjoy helping each horse to unlock its potential. So he always took the time to approach slowly, speak gently and build mutual respect and trust. He got to really know them, you know, their behaviors, their patterns, their personality, and, and in that way, he kind of gained insight into the nature of each horse because he knew that what you can understand really well, you can train, transform and change.

Now some people, when they break into horses, they do it with aggression. They like whipping them and punishing them. And as they do that, inevitably, the horse becomes more tense and scared, right? And the whole process becomes one of frustration and resistance on both sides. This may leave you with a horse that will do what it's told for a while, but the horese will eventually end up miserable and neurotic and it will misbehave. Now just like being unkind, aggressive or impatient when taming a horse is really unhelpful, the same is true for your mind.

So in meditation, sometimes you become frustrated or disappointed when the mind wanders. And in life, we can be really harsh with ourselves when we make a mistake or perhaps fall into old patterns. But if we can learn to be patient, respectful and kind with ourselves as we learn and grow, we can stop being at war with ourselves and bring more lightness, compassion, and ease back into our lives. By befriending ourselves in this way, we also begin to gain insight into our own nature. And remember what you can understand, you can train, transform and change.

So in your meditation practice and in your life this week, watch out for any signs of aggression towards yourself. And in those moments, may you remember to give yourself the qualities of patience, compassion, and kindness.