Lift Your Mind
November 17, 2023

In Thai they use the word *witok *for vitakka, or directed thought. And it rhymes with the word for lift, yok. So they often say that when you bring the mind to your concentration object, you lift it up: Lift your spirits; lift your sense of what you’re doing. You’re not just stuck in your old moods. You’re stepping back—stepping up a bit—watching the mind from a higher perspective.

This is an image you see throughout the Canon, that the person with discernment is like someone up in a tower looking down at the people below. When you look down on them from a distance, you can see patterns in how they come and how they go—and how they interact, which you wouldn’t see if you were down there with them.

So try to step back from the thoughts and emotions going on through the mind. Try to see their larger patterns, so that you can begin to recognize, when a bad mood is coming on, why it’s coming on, what sparks it, what triggers it, and how you can counteract it. No matter how bad the mood, there can be some parts of the mind that have the antidote, and you want to be able to find them. If you’re down there just experiencing the emotion, you don’t see it clearly. But when you can lift yourself up a bit, say: “I don’t have to identify with my emotions; I don’t have to identify with my moods”—you can step back from them, step up a bit. That’s when you can see them for what they are.

This is why it’s so important that you work with the breath. It gives you a place to step back, because you’re stepping out of the thoughts. As you get better and better at learning what kind of breathing feels good for the body, you’re giving yourself a good place to stay, a solid place to stay, from which you can watch everything else. Then when moods come pushing into the mind, you don’t get pushed around with them. As the mind starts running after the affairs of the world, which tend to get it spinning, you don’t have to spin along with it. You can step back.

So step up. Lift your mind. Lift your spirits. Not only does the Buddha recommend you step back, but also that you gladden the mind as a way of getting it to settle down. So always keep in the back of your mind the thoughts that remind you that you have the opportunity here to practice, to lift your mind, to make changes in your mind. And that’s a rare opportunity. You want to make the most of it.

Think of all the people in the world right now who have no opportunity to meditate. Here you do have the opportunity. So take advantage of it while you have it.