Generating Power
July, 2003
Concentration practice involves work. We often think of it as a place for the mind to rest, and it is, but it’s even more a place for the mind to recharge its batteries. That requires energy, requires effort, requires work. In Thailand the idiom for meditation is “to make an effort.” And in meditating there very definitely are things we have to do. It’s not just a letting go of the tension, a letting go of the stresses of daily life. There’s also work to be done to keep mindfulness continuous, to keep your alertness continuous and all-around, to keep both mindfulness and alertness spinning around inside here like a generator. A generator sits in one place but it has to spin around to create electric power. If the generator simply sits still, it can’t create anything. There has to be some activity for the electrons to run in a current.