Human beings do not always suffer because of what is happening right in front of them. Many times, an event has already passed, yet the mind continues to suffer. At other times, something has not even happened yet, but the mind has already begun suffering in anticipation. This raises an interesting question. If suffering truly comes from the event itself, how can something that has not yet happened make us suffer? And how can something that has already ended return to hurt us? Perhaps the answer lies in the small space between what actually happens and what the mind creates from it. Our outer life unfolds in the present, while our inner life can travel backward into the past and race ahead into the future at any moment.<\/p>\n
Within this small space lies something profoundly important: mindfulness, or conscious awareness. If we look deeply enough, life seems to alternate between two states: being aware and being lost. When we are aware, we see what is happening as it is. But when we become lost, we are no longer simply with what happened. We are living inside the story that thought continues to build around it. And the more the mind adds to that story, the more easily something small can grow into something much larger.<\/p>\n
Think about a moment when someone says something that displeases us. The sentence itself may last only a few seconds, yet the mind can spend hours thinking about it afterward. What did they mean? Why did they speak to me like that? Were they looking down on me? What should I say next time? From a single sentence can grow dissatisfaction, anger, hatred, and eventually even actions that hurt one another. What is interesting is that before anger arises, before hatred develops, or before emotion carries us too far, there is a brief moment when the mind first becomes lost in thought.<\/p>\n
So dealing with anger at the end of the process may be less important than recognizing delusion at its beginning. The sooner we see it, the shorter the cycle of mental fabrication becomes. It is like noticing a spark before it grows into a fire. If we see it at that moment, there is no need to wait until the whole house is burning before looking for water. Mindfulness, therefore, does not fight with thought. It does not force us to stop thinking, nor does it command anger to disappear. Its function is much simpler: to know that thinking is happening, to know that anger is arising, and to recognize that the mind is beginning to be pulled away from its natural balance.<\/p>\n
The difficulty is that thought has a remarkable ability: it can take us anywhere almost instantly. The body may be sitting at a desk while the mind is arguing with someone from three years ago. We may still be sitting in the same room while the mind is already worrying about something that might happen next month. Returning to awareness of the body is therefore a simple but powerful practice. The body cannot live in yesterday, nor can it travel into tomorrow. The body is always here. Knowing that the hand is moving, knowing that we are walking, knowing that we are sitting, or simply being aware of bodily movement is like bringing the mind home, returning from the world created by thought to the reality unfolding before us.<\/p>\n
Importantly, living in the present does not mean that we must stop thinking about the past or refuse to plan for the future. If that were the case, human beings would hardly be able to function. The real issue is not whether we think, but whether we are using thought or being used by it. When we are aware, we can revisit the past in order to learn and look toward the future in order to plan. But when awareness is absent, the past becomes regret, the future becomes anxiety, and thought, which should have been a tool, becomes the master of our lives.<\/p>\n
As we practice seeing in this way more often, what gradually changes is not merely our emotions but our understanding of life itself. We begin to see that thoughts come and go. Anger comes and goes. Fear comes and goes. Even delusion does not remain forever. Everything is a temporary condition. When the causes are present, it arises; when those causes change, it passes away. What once seemed so large that we mistook it for ourselves gradually becomes visible for what it really is: simply a passing state.<\/p>\n
This is where mindfulness gradually develops into wisdom. Wisdom does not arise from memorizing more explanations. It arises from repeatedly seeing reality until the mind understands for itself. We see delusion arise, see how it works, see what happens when we follow it, and see how it loses its power when it is recognized. This kind of knowing is very different from telling ourselves not to be angry, not to overthink, or not to worry. Suppression is still a struggle against what has arisen. Awareness, on the other hand, is understanding it.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, overcoming delusion may not require us to eliminate delusion at all. The more we hate it, the more we create another layer of conflict within ourselves. Perhaps what is needed is simply to cultivate enough awareness. It is like a dark room. We do not need to find a way to carry the darkness out of the room. We simply turn on the light, and darkness naturally loses its place.<\/p>\n
Life therefore does not need mindfulness only in peaceful moments. We need it most in the very instant when we are about to become lost, because that tiny moment can determine so much of what follows. If we see clearly in time, a thought can remain merely a thought, anger can remain merely an emotion, and one problem can end without creating a second problem after it.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the freedom human beings seek does not mean living a life in which nothing ever disturbs us. The world is unlikely to arrange everything according to our wishes. Freedom may instead mean that even when something touches or disturbs us, there is still enough space within the mind to see, enough awareness to know, and enough wakefulness to choose how we will respond.<\/p>\n
As awareness grows, delusion has less room to take hold. And as delusion has less room, life no longer needs to be dragged along by every thought, every emotion, and every story the mind creates.<\/p>\n
Perhaps overcoming delusion is not really about defeating anything at all.<\/p>\n
It may simply be about waking up and seeing what is happening within our own mind, right here and right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Human beings do not always suffer because of what is ha […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[525],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kid-mai-by-dr-veeranut"],"zion_builder_status":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kid-mai.com\/kidmai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kid-mai.com\/kidmai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kid-mai.com\/kidmai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kid-mai.com\/kidmai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kid-mai.com\/kidmai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/kid-mai.com\/kidmai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7259,"href":"http:\/\/kid-mai.com\/kidmai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7258\/revisions\/7259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kid-mai.com\/kidmai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kid-mai.com\/kidmai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kid-mai.com\/kidmai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}