Buddha's Bodyguard by Jeff Eisenberg

Author:Jeff Eisenberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Buddhism/Martial Arts
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2018-01-17T05:00:00+00:00

We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

What we think we become.

With our thoughts we make the world.

And because of understanding this, he warned, “Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.”

When the modern science of neuroplasticity is put into Buddhist terms, it explains how our conditioning is ingrained and our reactivity becomes habitual. In understanding this process, the Buddha taught that both harmful and helpful mindsets are temporary experiences, based on temporary conditions.

As a result, he directs us in the fourth tactical application of effort: to sustain new helpful mindsets.

The Buddha understood that we need to sustain wholesome and helpful mindsets to escape from being held hostage by our old thinking and its reactive ways. And that to sustain these new wholesome mindsets requires the continuous firing of their neuronal sequences, not only to strengthen the network and make it easier for us to maintain positive mindsets but for this neurological sequence to fire when we need it to—not only from being triggered by circumstances outside ourselves but through our own intentions and efforts.

What this means is that a neuronal network sequence can be fired simply as a result of our applying our intention and effort to do so. The Buddha discovered that while in the midst of an unwholesome mindset, we can use our effort to simultaneously create a wholesome mindset, and in doing so shift our attention to it. This was a radical insight for his time, as it detailed the breaking of attachment and the changing of our mind exactly as modern day science does.

Since “changing our mind” is vitally important, the next tactics of the plan are training ourselves in the mental discipline required to create and sustain this effort: Wise Mindfulness and Wise Concentration.

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