5. Mental Training

We have this notion that mental growth stops in adulthood. You can learn new things, of course, but your mind itself doesn’t improve. Or at least, that’s what people seem to imagine. So we seem to view our minds as being entirely distinct from our bodies. Because we understand that physical training is real. There are people who lose 100 pounds and become competitive triathletes, right. Now, however rare, those extreme transformations are, we know that they’re possible. And the rest of us pursue our own efforts at physical self improvement. On that same landscape of possibility. We can see the landmarks, in fact, they’re continually advertised to us. Every month, we see a new celebrity who got in great shape for a film, for instance. So there are no secrets here. And if we don’t decide to get in the best shape of our lives, starting right now, it’s not because we didn’t know that it was possible. But most of us are genuinely unaware that it is possible to change our minds. The concept of mental training is barely entertained. And yet there really are things we can do that lead to cognitive and emotional and, and even ethical changes that are wholly good for us. So it seems to me What we need is a new norm of human growth, where it’s understood that growth is possible, and even necessary, continuously throughout life, intellectually, in our relationships, in the way we prioritize the use of our attention. At what age do we learn how to have better conversations? At what age do we learn to have better conversations with ourselves? And at what age do we learn that any conversation with oneself, the very structure of our thinking, is, in fact, based on an illusion that creates so much suffering for us. Now, of course, there are many components to live in an examined life. And there’s no single way of thinking or use of attention, that accomplishes everything we want. But meditation, real meditation is an essential piece here. And the fact that none of us are told this in school, or by our doctors, indicates nothing more than a cultural blind spot. It used to be the physical exercise was something that only a very strange person would pursue deliberately. And smoking was considered a healthy habit. There were actually television ads in the 40s and 50s, showing doctors smoking in their offices. And the ads claimed that in a national survey of doctors, more doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette. It’s possible for an entire society, to be totally confused about something rather important. Anyone who has real experience with meditation, knows that there’s something to be discovered there, that they were missing. And it’s something that most people are still missing. And the fact that most people don’t know they’re missing, it doesn’t make it any less of a problem for them or for the rest of society. Once you know how to meditate, you see that more or less all of the world’s chaos, apart from natural disasters, is born of our lack of insight into our mental lives. All the conflict between people and all the pointless suffering, it causes all the disorder in people’s lives born of their own misbehavior. These are symptoms of people’s minds, being totally out of control. The next time something happens in your life that makes you angry, or afraid, or sad. How long will you spend locked in the prison of one of those emotions? And what will you do their? What indelible mark might you make in your life, or in our world, on the basis of one of those emotions? One benefit that people get from learning to meditate is the ability to simply let go of negative emotions. You can decide how long you want to stay angry for. Right That’s a superpower. When you look at what’s happening in the world. You can get off the ride before you say or do something stupid that you’ll later regret and negative emotions aside. Have you noticed how fragmented your attention has become?

Have you noticed how hard it is to sit down and read a book for an hour? When was the last time you read a book for an hour without checking your email or social media. There’s a multi front war being fought for our attention. And most of us are losing it. Have you seen that people staggering around with their smartphones, even crossing the street while texting, literally stepping in front of traffic without looking up? Have you seen parents around their kids? visibly tethered to this digital leash? Are you one of these parents? There was a recent photo exhibit that was rather brilliant where a photographer captured people using their smartphones. But then remove the phones from their hands. See, see these images of people in various situations in life while staring vacantly into their open palms. It’s worth thinking about this psychological experiment we’re performing on ourselves. You will not learn to meditate by accident. And you won’t learn it by jogging or hiking or playing music, or doing any of the other things you do to feel good. Paradoxically, once you know how to meditate, you can experience the same insights into the nature of your mind while jogging and hiking and playing music, and doing all the other things you like to do. But you’re very unlikely to have these insights and experience the associated change in your perception of yourself and the world without explicitly learning the practice of meditation