How to Understand the Mind. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

Way of Life Shantideva says that there is no practice more important than keeping our mind free from negativity. Normally we take great care to protect our body from injury, but it is much more important to protect our mind. For example, if we are crossing a busy street we take great care to avoid being run over, but if we were to be run over the worst that could happen would be that we would lose this one life. By contrast, if we do not take care to protect our mind from negativity when we are surrounded by so many objects of delusion there is great danger of our mind being overrun by delusions, which will inflict harm on us for many future lives. Therefore, the practice of conscientiousness is of paramount importance.

      Conscientiousness should be practised in conjunction with mindfulness and alertness. With mindfulness we tie our mind to a virtuous object. A virtuous object is any object that has a positive effect on our mind, such as the objects of meditation presented later in this book and the twenty-one objects of meditation presented in The New Meditation Handbook. We should try to keep our mind on virtuous objects all the time. Alertness is a type of wisdom that understands the faults of delusions and keeps watch over our mind to check whether or not we are beginning to develop inappropriate attention. If through alertness we discover that a delusion is about to arise we should immediately prevent it by recalling the faults of delu­sions. This is the practice of conscientiousness. Shantideva said that when an elephant runs amok it can cause a great deal of harm, but this is nothing compared to the harm caused by the crazy elephant of an unconscientious mind, which can drag us into the deepest hell. By binding our mind to the pillar of virtuous objects with the rope of mindfulness we protect ourself from delusions, the source of all danger, and find it easy to make progress in our spiritual practice.

      FUNCTION OF CONSCIENTIOUSNESS

      The main function of conscientiousness is to enable us to keep pure moral discipline and to improve our concen­tration. Conscientiousness is so important that in Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life Shantideva devotes an entire chapter to it.

      Through practising conscientiousness we can reduce our delusions and thereby stop committing negative actions of body, speech and mind. As a result we will naturally possess pure moral discipline. If our delusions are diminished and our life becomes more disciplined we will develop far fewer distractions, and as a result we will find it easy to make progress in meditation.

      If our meditation is not proceeding well we do not need to seek special advice on how to improve it – we need only to practise conscientiousness. As mentioned before, in the Vinaya Sutras Buddha says that through moral discipline we will attain concentration and through concentration we will attain wisdom. Since conscientiousness is the root of moral discipline it follows that concentration and wisdom also depend upon conscientiousness. By practising conscientiousness we keep our mind pure and harnessed to virtuous objects, and so our energy is not dissipated by external or internal distractions. As a result our mind becomes settled and gathered within, making it easy for us to develop virtuous concen­tration. Virtuous concentration makes our mind lucid and powerful, which in turn enables us to improve our wisdom.