The
human mindset is often programmed. As an example, a while ago, shopping for men’s
tee-shirts was geared towards buying “ugly” tee-shirts for men. You would wonder
why on earth people would consider buying an “ugly” tee-shirt just because they
might have something to talk about. The ugly truth is that many people would
indeed fall for that “programmed” mindset for the new fashion trend for men
this holiday season.
It is
like the computer hardware with the apparatus of a mind, body, and senses. The
lens through which you see yourself, as well as others and the world around you,
is the software that has been programmed by your thoughts, your past and
present experiences, your own expectations as well as those of others. In other
words, you and nobody else have programmed your mindset; all
these years, you may have been trapped in a constricted sense of self that has
prevented you from knowing and being who you really are. The power of the mind
is that your thoughts can make you “think” and “believe” you are who and what you
are; but nothing could be further from the truth than that. Now, you must
harness your mind power to change that conditioned mindset.
There is wisdom in changing your mindset so that you will know your true
self, and not what you “think” who and what you now become.
Changing
mindset means emptying the mind of conditioned thinking, which is a common
characteristic of the contemporary human mind. There was the well-known story
of a professor visiting a Zen master to get more information about Zen, an
ancient Asian philosophy. The Zen master kept pouring tea into the overflowing
teacup held by the professor, who had kept on talking. The moral of the story
is that you must have an empty mind first before you can
receive new and transformative ideas. Having an empty mind is surrendering your
mind to transformation in order that you may think differently—a prerequisite
for true human wisdom.
In
addition to emptying the mind, you must also give your mind a meaningful break
so that it can think with clarity, without which it is sometimes difficult to
separate the truths from the half truths or even myths. The human brain is
like a computer program, which will stop running when the computer is turned
off. Meditation is training your mind to switch off your brain for a while to
give your mind some rest and mental attention to sharpen your awareness of what
is going on in your mind. Seeing clearly what is going on in the mind, you can
then choose to ignore or to act upon what you are seeing through your
mind. Meditation is
the most effective way to achieve clarity of mind.
Stephen
Lau
Copyright©
by Stephen Lau
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