Back to looking at my mindfulness lesson. I found the slides on the ‘wild horses’. Frankly I dislike that analogy. To me wild horses are, well, wild as in free. The concept of controlling your mind as if it were a herd of wild horses is just plain wrong in my not always so humble opinion. It is my mind, free and independent, as well as often scattered. No bronco bustin’ required.
If you like dogs and like to giggle, there is a website called Dogshame. Some people think it is cruel. I am not sure I see that but I know it can be funny.
Be that as it may, I got what I consider to be the perfect photo to illustrate the concept of mind training off of Dogshame. It is a photo of a fluffy, small, white dog in the middle of chaos. The caption? “I thought you were never, ever, ever coming home so I panicked”.
That, to me, is the perfect representation of a mind in need of mindfulness training. The mind is not a wild horse to be broken through mindfulness. It is a scared and crazed puppy who needs to be soothed and regulated.
And how do kind masters (and we all need to be kind masters to our own minds as well as to our animals) train a pup? Catch the transgression at the start. Calmly lead him to where he should be. Praise. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. As it has been said, Rome was not built in a day. Patience is a virtue I somehow think I lack but patience is necessary when training a mind.
Mindfulness practice? It’s akin to housebreaking. Keep kindly and patiently working on it and you will get there.