Physical processes may have their laws, but their laws are malleable, and you can learn how to shape your experience of the physical and mental world through your intentions. Which is why we’re sitting here meditating.

"Manopubbaṅgamā manoseṭṭhā manomayā: Phenomena are preceded by the mind, excelled by the mind, made by the mind. The people who put that statement first in the Dhammapada knew what they were doing, because it expresses a principle that holds all the way through the practice: The mind comes first; the heart comes first.

We live in a world where we have to put a lot of energy in. It’s through the energy the mind puts in that we reap the results, good or bad, depending on the energy. To begin with, this is a refutation of the principle of materialism, which is that the mind is just an epiphenomenon of material processes — or, in other words, that it’s the result, it’s on the far end of the causal spectrum, whereas the real causes are material. Somehow matter happens to be aware, but the matter is doing all the acting, not the awareness. The awareness is just coming along for the ride. That’s the material hypothesis.

The Buddha’s saying the opposite. The mind is what’s doing the acting. Physical processes may have their laws, but their laws are malleable, and you can learn how to shape your experience of the physical and mental world through your intentions. Which is why we’re sitting here meditating.

We’re not dosing the body with chemicals or magnetic waves to create a state of mind from without. We’re changing the mind from within, starting with our desire to escape suffering, and then trying to take that desire seriously, and working on it well."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "It’s What You Give"

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