The Story-telling Mind (extract)

"Learn how to be a good storyteller, telling yourself the right stories, stories that will bring you into the present with a sense of confidence in your own abilities, with a sense of well-being, a sense of the importance of stilling the mind. No matter what the stories are — no matter what other people have done, no matter what you’ve done — there’s a way of looking at them that can put the mind at rest. To try to find that way: This is what all the teachings on kamma, all the teachings on the sublime attitudes, are about. You weave new stories in the mind, stories in which you have a change of heart, new stories that come together right here, enabling you to stay right here with a sense of well-being, clarity, concentration, mindfulness, and discernment. Without anything tugging you back into the past, pulling you into the future, you’re able to just be right here, right now, aware right here, right now, healing the mind right here, right now.

That’s how you use the mind’s storytelling ability to bring it to a point where it can just stop telling stories and look at what you’ve got. Learn to be skillful with what you’ve got right here, right now.

That’s what the Buddha’s teachings all come down to, this principle of skillfulness. How skillfully can you relate to the different things going on in your mind, for your own well-being, for the well-being of others around you? Meditation doesn’t mean that you’re cutting off any mental faculties. The mind has to tell stories. Even arahants can tell stories, can reflect on the past and plan for the future. They’ve simply learned to do it in a way that doesn’t cause any suffering. And it’s not just from their bringing the mind into the present moment. It also comes from reflecting on things in a certain way, using the Buddha’s teachings as proper tools to weave skillful narratives. Let all the ways that the mind relates to itself in terms of past, future, narratives, stories, worldviews, cosmologies — all your views — become skillful. Let them no longer be a cause for suffering.

Think of the practice as an all-around way of training the mind. You’re not here just to get very skillful at noting or at being with the breath. You want the mind to become very skillful in all its activities. Ajaan Fuang once said to me, when I went back to reordain, that being a meditator requires being skillful in everything, not just sitting here with your eyes closed.

You approach everything as an interesting challenge: “What’s the most skillful way of dealing with this? What’s the most skillful way of dealing with that?” When you have that attitude, when you’ve developed it and trained it in your daily life, then when you come to the meditation, things go a lot easier."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Story-telling Mind" (Meditations1)