Awakin.org
--by Thanissaro Bhikku (Sep 30, 2013)
There
are many different ideas of “you” in your mind, each with its own
agenda. Each of these “you's” is a member of the committee of the mind.
This is why the mind is less like a single mind and more like an unruly
throng of people: lots of different voices, with lots of different
opinions about what you should do. Some members of the committee are
open and honest about the assumptions underlying their central desires.
Others are more obscure and devious. This is because each committee
member is like a politician, with its own supporters and strategies for
satisfying their desires. [...]One of the purposes of meditation is to bring these dealings out into the open, so that you can bring more order to the committee—so that your desires for happiness work less at cross purposes, and more in harmony as you realize that they don’t always have to be in conflict. Thinking of these desires as a committee also helps you realize that when the practice of meditation goes against some of your desires, it doesn’t go against all of your desires. You’re not being starved. You don’t have to identify with the desires being thwarted through meditation, because you have other, more skillful desires to identify with. The choice is yours. You can also use the more skillful members of the committee to train the less skillful ones so that they stop sabotaging your efforts to find a genuine happiness. Always remember that genuine happiness is possible, and the mind can train itself to find that happiness. […]
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