Friends:
How to remove recurring Disadvantageous Distracting Thoughts?
What to do if evil thoughts mixed with hate, greed &
confusion keeps coming back?
1: Redirect attention to a different advantageous
object:
Like when driving out a coarse peg from a piece of wood, using a fine
peg, one can
substitute and thereby replace :
A: Desire for living forms with thinking on a disgusting rotting
corpse...
B: Desire for inanimate things with thinking on their impermanence...
C: Aversion towards living beings with the mental release of universal
friendliness...
D: Aversion towards inanimate phenomena with noting their composition of
elements...
E: Delusion, doubt, uncertainty & confusion with thorough scrutiny of the
Dhamma...
If this does not help, then one can furthermore:
2: Consider the Danger in thoughts mixed with hate,
greed & ignorance:
These thoughts of mine are disgusting, dangerous, bringing much misery
now & later,
just like a young man or woman is disgusted & humiliated, if somebody hang
a rotting
carcass of a snake, dog or human around their neck, so should one regard
distractions!!!
If this does not help, then one can furthermore:
3: Stopping all flow of thought by Non-Attention and Non-Reflection:
Like a man not wishing to see close his eyes and turn away from the place
of the object.
If this does not help, then one can furthermore:
4: Repeat reflection of the Root
Cause of these Distractions:
Searching for the reason of these mental afflictions - in itself - can
cure them:
Like a running man wishing calm finding no reason to run, starts
walking... Then
finding no reason to walk, he sits down, finding no reason to sit, he lies
down...
If this does not help, then one can furthermore:
5: Beating the evil mind down with the force of the good mind:
By clenching the lower teeth against the upper teeth, and pressing the
tongue up
against the palate, like a strong man holds down a weak man by the
shoulders so
should one beat down mind with mind. Then these evil detrimental thoughts
rooted
in greed, hate, & ignorance are eliminated, & they vanish. By their
evaporation mind
settles down, becomes focused, concentrated & unified on the purely good
thought!
Source:
Moderated speeches of the Buddha:
The Removal of Distracting Thoughts
Majjhima Nikaya 21: Full text and commentary is found
here:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soma/wheel021.html
Updated:
16 Mar 2008
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/How_to_Remove_Distracting_Thoughts.htm