A restless mind is sometimes described as a drunken monkey, sitting on the nest of fiery red ants. All the misery one undergoes in the course of life is attributed to a hyperactive and restless mind.
More precious than gold or silver or diamonds, more precious than any kind of material wealth, our greatest wealth, friend, and indeed helper is our mind. In our mind, we have an ally. It is an ever ready friend, twenty-four hours of the day and night.
Even when we are alone, abandoned, helpless or when we are in dire distress or in a dangerous predicament, our mind is there to help, ever ready at hand, to guide us and to show us ways and means to overcome any situation. None should underestimate the value of mind as a precious friend and as our greatest well-wisher. It is the source of all that is good. Know this as a fact, treat your mind as such, and utilize it as such. Then you will find yourself acting in the way of the wise.
People, however, usually denigrate the mind and think of it as an enemy. Certainly you can make your mind your enemy and make it your greatest liability. That can happen only due to your own foolishness and thoughtlessness. You will then always be struggling with your mind. What do you normally do? You blame your mind. ‘I want to be good but my mind does not allow me. I am actually good and it is my mind that is dragging me down. My mind is always doing this. It is always doing that’. We go on in this way, heaping all blames on our mind.
On the contrary, we do not give our mind a chance. We do not understand how precious it is. Mind is God’s own special gift to mankind. It is the elevator that alone can lift you up and grant you liberation. Look at the highly successful craftsmen such as surgeons, engineers, painters, or sculptors. See how well they take care of their instruments. You need good instruments to create good things. Your mind is your instrument. Take care of it and treat it well and it will serve you.
It is really not difficult to understand the mind in order to master it. “True mind” and “Deluded mind” are to aspects of the same mind. “Deluded mind” is the forgetful and disturbed mind. Disturbances arise from the memory of negative impressions gathered and embedded in the mind. The basis of “True mind” is awakened understanding arising from mindful observation. It is mindfulness that brings out the light which exists in the Deluded mind so that life can be revealed in its reality. In that light, confusion dissipates while understanding emerges, wrong views are transformed into clear, tranquil and true mind.
When once mindful observation is born, it will penetrate the object of observation, illuminate it and gradually reveal its true nature. The true mind rises from a deluded mind. Things in their true nature and illusions are of the basic substance. This is why practice such as calm contemplation, uninvolved observation and meditation are all means of transforming a deluded mind and is not a matter of seeking for a true mind elsewhere.
Just as the surface of a rough sea as well as that of a calm sea are manifestations of the same sea, true mind does not exist in isolation, as a separate entity from a deluded mind. Both states are two aspects of the same mind. Understanding this will help you to see a friend in your mind and dispel the illusion that you harbour, that it is your foe.