Answers to Questions on Contemplative Practice of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness 24

Answer: Everyone normally has a great many wandering thoughts—big and small, fine and fragmentary, countless. They come and go, going and coming, never stopping. Because the mind is not concentrated, or the mind is not pure enough, one cannot observe the arising and ceasing of these thoughts. When the mind is pure, one has meditative concentration (samādhi), and one's thoughts are focused, one will discover that there are many thoughts in one's mind. So meditation is a good thing: it gives us the power of introspection, enables us to concentrate our energy, and makes the mind subtle and refined, so that we can discover problems we normally cannot detect. Once a problem is discovered, there will be a way to solve it, and thus wisdom arises.

Everyone also has a great deal of affliction in daily life, but because it has become habitual, we do not feel it. Only when we have leisure and the energy to observe ourselves over and over do we discover that our minds are full of afflictions. Once you know you have afflictions, things become easier: sooner or later a sense of shame and remorse will arise, and when your mental strength is sufficient, you will be able to subdue these afflictions. Not knowing your own afflictions does not mean you have no afflictions; it is because you have not yet awakened, and because you are unwilling to discover and acknowledge them.