July 13, 2024 • 16 mins
Join Zen teacher Vanessa Zuisei Goddard as she explores effective mind-training techniques inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings. This video delves into the metaphor of the mind as a garden, emphasising the importance of choosing which seeds (thoughts and actions) to nurture and which to let dry up.
Learn practical methods to cultivate positive thoughts and how to address unskillful ones using a simple mnemonic: SWITCH (Switch, Warn, Ignore, Trace, Chop). Discover the power of persistence, patience, and the transformative potential of meditation.
Learn more about Vanessa Zuisei Goddard
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Science and wisdomlive, where scientists and
(00:03):
meditators meet.
Late Vietnamese teacher, technoHan, when he was speaking of the
(00:24):
yoga Chara, he gave a very, veryuseful metaphor. He said, You
know, so we think of the minus agardener a garden. And we're the
gardener. And we think of thechoices, or the actions that we
take as the seeds of ouractions, then we can understand
(00:45):
why it's so important to choosethe seeds that we should water,
and the seeds that we should letlie fallow, that we should lead
dry up. Because those seeds willgrow into strong life giving
fruit or they will producepoison. And generally speaking,
(01:09):
a seed is consistent with itsfruit. So my first teacher used
to say, imagine that you havetwo people. And you say to one
Oh, and they're and their lifeconditions are generally
similar. And you say to one ofthem, you are going to wake up
(01:33):
every morning, and for a firsthour, you're going to bring to
mind and express everything thatyou're grateful for. And then
the other person, you're goingto wake up every morning, and
for the first hour of your day,you're going to bring up and
express everything that you aredissatisfied with everything
(01:57):
that you're angry about.
Everything that you need tocomplain about. And both of you
are going to do this for a year,at the end of the year, who you
want to hang out with. But weunderstand, we understand that
what we think becomes how we actbecomes who we are. And even
(02:20):
though some part of usunderstands this, we often will
choose harmful actions,expecting a good result. And so
you could say that at one levelthis mind training is really
it's very simple. It is firstidentifying the seeds, like what
(02:44):
are they? What am I doing whatam I choosing moment to moment
day to day. And cultivate theability to choose better to
choose actions that benefit usthat benefit others that benefit
(03:07):
the earth. Because we cannotcontrol what happens to us, when
we cannot control thecircumstances, we grow up in
largely perhaps the colour ofour skin, our gender, we're born
with an ability a disabilitywith a disability with an
(03:29):
illness. But we can mostcertainly choose how to respond.
This is the power of the humanmind that we can understand that
the more we nurture thosehelpful, skillful lifegiving
seeds, the easier it becomes todo so. Right, if every moment I
(03:53):
get up every morning, I get upmeditate, it makes it that much
more likely that the next day Iwill be able to do it. And the
opposite is also true. The moredays I skip just like if I let a
plant dry up. The harder thelonger we go, the harder it
(04:16):
becomes to bring it back tolife. Now the other thing about
this analogy is that that theseeds also mature in their own
time. Right, you can just go toa little sapling and pull it so
that it will grow faster. Itwill mature in its time when
(04:38):
it's ready for it to ripen. Andso when I teach meditation to
different groups, I say you knowyou need five things. In order
to practice meditation. You needpersistence, and you need
patience. Patience, patience,patience. Because the fruit of
(05:02):
those seeds that you'renurturing will ripen in their
time. And all you can do isnurture them. All you can do is
give them light, give them food,give them water.
(05:27):
And so that seems simple,straightforward. But then of
course, the question that shouldcome up is, how do you work with
those seeds that are notskillful, that are less than
helpful? They're there. Youknow, you don't decide to become
angry, something happens andanger arises. You don't decide
(05:51):
to think to yourself every day,I'm worthless. know if that is
what you have been told, if thatis what you have learned. How do
you shift? How do you work? Howdo you cultivate the seeds that
will give you life because it'snot enough to think positive,
(06:13):
and is certainly not enough thatthe world and that our minds are
not difficult places to live in.
I think all of us who practiceunderstand the first noble truth
that life is suffering, that itis very challenging, to live as
a human being to live well, andto live well with others. But
(06:36):
this is what I love about theBuddhist teachings. Because they
can show us that everything.
Everything is workable, givenenough time and enough care. And
(06:57):
so there is a sutra, NaVi takaSantana SUTA relaxation of
thoughts, in which the Buddhaoffers five different ways to
work with what he calledunskillful signs and unskillful
signs and unskillful thought,and by thought, think also
feelings, emotions, and evensensations. And these, although
(07:25):
they're somewhat chronological,in terms of each one takes a
little bit more energy a littlebit more investment, it doesn't
mean that you have to run everysingle unskillful sign through
all five no symptoms, you know,the best antidote for a
particular thought or stream ofthoughts or particular habit of
(07:48):
mind that you've learned torecognise in yourself. And in
order to make it easier for meto remember this, I created a an
acronym is called Switch. So thefirst is actually switch itself
to switch an unskilful. One, andthe sutra says this is like a
(08:13):
carpenter who takes a peg towedge out. It takes a smaller a
finer peg to wedge out a courseor one grosser one. And so if
you are in the habit of thinkingto yourself, self deprecating
flaws, thoughts of self doubt orof of questioning your own
(08:35):
worth, you would replace thepractice would be to replace
that unskillful fog with askillful one. So every time you
think I'm worthless, I can't dothis. You notice the sign
arising, and you're verydeliberately, mindfully with
awareness, say to yourself, I'mworth it. This is not fake it
(09:03):
till you make it. It is apractice. It is a practice of,
you know, if you've been markinga groove for 1020 3040 50 years,
you're first switching andcreating starting to create a
different groove until you cansee those groups don't actually
(09:24):
exist. Fundamentally, they'reempty of self nature. They're
like fog. They have no powerother than the power that we
give them. But until you realisethat for yourself, you switch
from an unskillful thought to askillful one. If that doesn't
(09:46):
work, you warn yourself of thedanger of such thoughts. And the
the metaphor here is verygraphic. The Buddha said is that
as if you had a look courts havea dog, or have a person hanging
around your neck. In thishappen, you would be horrified,
(10:09):
you would do everything that youcould to pull it off. So this is
where you actually you, youactually talk to yourself. And
people are surprised becausethey think, Oh, I thought I was
supposed to be quiet duringmeditation. But remember, here,
you're actually very activelytraining your mind, you're
engaging with your thoughts. Andso you talk to yourself, you
(10:31):
remind yourself, if every day Istrengthen this seed of self
doubt, I make it that muchharder. To let it die out. I
need to, to summon up my courageto begin to do something to try
(10:52):
something else. Even if I don'tfeel like it, I can't yet relate
to the thought that I am worthit. It doesn't matter that will
come with time. So it's itmorning myself away from
continuing what harms me. Thethird is to ignore the
(11:18):
unskillful thought it's, andit's simply to not give it
airtime. So this is like theinstruction of you see the
thought you let it go and youcome back to your breath. It
doesn't mean to pretend thatit's not there. It doesn't mean
denying it. It simply means Iwill not feed this with my
(11:40):
attention. And so if a thoughtis recurring, I will gather all
my energy, I will gather all myfocus my strength in I will
bring it back perhaps to mybreath, perhaps to a mantra,
perhaps to a visualisation,something that anchors my
attention. So it doesn't havethe opportunity to feed the
(12:04):
seed. The fourth is to trace thethought to its route. And this
one takes a little bit of Oh,and I didn't say the simile for
for the one before ignoring.
It's basically the Buddha says,if somebody who didn't want to
see a particular site, they justcovered their eyes. Right? You
(12:27):
know, you pass by a very goryaccident on the road and you
avert your eyes. And here, youknow, as I said, it just needs
to be applied carefully so thatit doesn't become bypassing, it
doesn't become denial. Thentracing the thought to its root,
(12:53):
it's tracing it to itsfundamental root. So it's not
this happened because when I wasa child, I was always told that
it's it's, it's, as the similesays, if a person is walking,
they suddenly think tothemselves what why am I walking
right now? What if I juststopped for a moment? And then
(13:16):
when they're standing, theythink, why am I standing? What
if I just sit down and then fromsitting down they went to lying
down. So one sense they're goingfrom, from a grocer posture to a
more subtle one. And that asyour your feeling more and more
(13:36):
into the root of the thought,what do you find is that at its
core, at its heart, there isnothing like which is what I
mentioned before that at itsroot. This thought is empty
(14:07):
and when you really see this,when you see it really see this
directly in it says there'snothing else you need to do.
Because the thought it justloses all its power. Because it
has no substance. There'snothing there to believe nothing
there to hold on to. So that'strace, and then the last one to
(14:30):
chop the cut the thought at itsroot. This is the the pulling
out all the stops. This ischopping off the phone with a
sword of wisdom, the sword ofManjushri. And the summary here
is a little unfortunate, butwhat it says is like is like a
(14:52):
big guy knocking out a littleguy, a weaker one. So I tend to
not dwell on it. Excuse me outAm I really think of it more as
the thing that will save mylife? This is like the alcoholic
thinking, what if I just haveone drink? Chop at its root? You
(15:14):
don't even argue. You don't tryto negotiate with yourself. You
don't try to convince yourselfor anything. Immediately
recognising the nature of thisthought. You cut it. You cut it
at its root, right? So switch,switch, warn, ignore, trace and
(15:36):
chop
Welcome to Science and wisdomlive, where scientists and
(00:03):
meditators meet.
Late Vietnamese teacher, technoHan, when he was speaking of the
(00:24):
yoga Chara, he gave a very, veryuseful metaphor. He said, You
know, so we think of the minus agardener a garden. And we're the
gardener. And we think of thechoices, or the actions that we
take as the seeds of ouractions, then we can understand
(00:45):
why it's so important to choosethe seeds that we should water,
and the seeds that we should letlie fallow, that we should lead
dry up. Because those seeds willgrow into strong life giving
fruit or they will producepoison. And generally speaking,
(01:09):
a seed is consistent with itsfruit. So my first teacher used
to say, imagine that you havetwo people. And you say to one
Oh, and they're and their lifeconditions are generally
similar. And you say to one ofthem, you are going to wake up
(01:33):
every morning, and for a firsthour, you're going to bring to
mind and express everything thatyou're grateful for. And then
the other person, you're goingto wake up every morning, and
for the first hour of your day,you're going to bring up and
express everything that you aredissatisfied with everything
(01:57):
that you're angry about.
Everything that you need tocomplain about. And both of you
are going to do this for a year,at the end of the year, who you
want to hang out with. But weunderstand, we understand that
what we think becomes how we actbecomes who we are. And even
(02:20):
though some part of usunderstands this, we often will
choose harmful actions,expecting a good result. And so
you could say that at one levelthis mind training is really
it's very simple. It is firstidentifying the seeds, like what
(02:44):
are they? What am I doing whatam I choosing moment to moment
day to day. And cultivate theability to choose better to
choose actions that benefit usthat benefit others that benefit
(03:07):
the earth. Because we cannotcontrol what happens to us, when
we cannot control thecircumstances, we grow up in
largely perhaps the colour ofour skin, our gender, we're born
with an ability a disabilitywith a disability with an
(03:29):
illness. But we can mostcertainly choose how to respond.
This is the power of the humanmind that we can understand that
the more we nurture thosehelpful, skillful lifegiving
seeds, the easier it becomes todo so. Right, if every moment I
(03:53):
get up every morning, I get upmeditate, it makes it that much
more likely that the next day Iwill be able to do it. And the
opposite is also true. The moredays I skip just like if I let a
plant dry up. The harder thelonger we go, the harder it
(04:16):
becomes to bring it back tolife. Now the other thing about
this analogy is that that theseeds also mature in their own
time. Right, you can just go toa little sapling and pull it so
that it will grow faster. Itwill mature in its time when
(04:38):
it's ready for it to ripen. Andso when I teach meditation to
different groups, I say you knowyou need five things. In order
to practice meditation. You needpersistence, and you need
patience. Patience, patience,patience. Because the fruit of
(05:02):
those seeds that you'renurturing will ripen in their
time. And all you can do isnurture them. All you can do is
give them light, give them food,give them water.
(05:27):
And so that seems simple,straightforward. But then of
course, the question that shouldcome up is, how do you work with
those seeds that are notskillful, that are less than
helpful? They're there. Youknow, you don't decide to become
angry, something happens andanger arises. You don't decide
(05:51):
to think to yourself every day,I'm worthless. know if that is
what you have been told, if thatis what you have learned. How do
you shift? How do you work? Howdo you cultivate the seeds that
will give you life because it'snot enough to think positive,
(06:13):
and is certainly not enough thatthe world and that our minds are
not difficult places to live in.
I think all of us who practiceunderstand the first noble truth
that life is suffering, that itis very challenging, to live as
a human being to live well, andto live well with others. But
(06:36):
this is what I love about theBuddhist teachings. Because they
can show us that everything.
Everything is workable, givenenough time and enough care. And
(06:57):
so there is a sutra, NaVi takaSantana SUTA relaxation of
thoughts, in which the Buddhaoffers five different ways to
work with what he calledunskillful signs and unskillful
signs and unskillful thought,and by thought, think also
feelings, emotions, and evensensations. And these, although
(07:25):
they're somewhat chronological,in terms of each one takes a
little bit more energy a littlebit more investment, it doesn't
mean that you have to run everysingle unskillful sign through
all five no symptoms, you know,the best antidote for a
particular thought or stream ofthoughts or particular habit of
(07:48):
mind that you've learned torecognise in yourself. And in
order to make it easier for meto remember this, I created a an
acronym is called Switch. So thefirst is actually switch itself
to switch an unskilful. One, andthe sutra says this is like a
(08:13):
carpenter who takes a peg towedge out. It takes a smaller a
finer peg to wedge out a courseor one grosser one. And so if
you are in the habit of thinkingto yourself, self deprecating
flaws, thoughts of self doubt orof of questioning your own
(08:35):
worth, you would replace thepractice would be to replace
that unskillful fog with askillful one. So every time you
think I'm worthless, I can't dothis. You notice the sign
arising, and you're verydeliberately, mindfully with
awareness, say to yourself, I'mworth it. This is not fake it
(09:03):
till you make it. It is apractice. It is a practice of,
you know, if you've been markinga groove for 1020 3040 50 years,
you're first switching andcreating starting to create a
different groove until you cansee those groups don't actually
(09:24):
exist. Fundamentally, they'reempty of self nature. They're
like fog. They have no powerother than the power that we
give them. But until you realisethat for yourself, you switch
from an unskillful thought to askillful one. If that doesn't
(09:46):
work, you warn yourself of thedanger of such thoughts. And the
the metaphor here is verygraphic. The Buddha said is that
as if you had a look courts havea dog, or have a person hanging
around your neck. In thishappen, you would be horrified,
(10:09):
you would do everything that youcould to pull it off. So this is
where you actually you, youactually talk to yourself. And
people are surprised becausethey think, Oh, I thought I was
supposed to be quiet duringmeditation. But remember, here,
you're actually very activelytraining your mind, you're
engaging with your thoughts. Andso you talk to yourself, you
(10:31):
remind yourself, if every day Istrengthen this seed of self
doubt, I make it that muchharder. To let it die out. I
need to, to summon up my courageto begin to do something to try
(10:52):
something else. Even if I don'tfeel like it, I can't yet relate
to the thought that I am worthit. It doesn't matter that will
come with time. So it's itmorning myself away from
continuing what harms me. Thethird is to ignore the
(11:18):
unskillful thought it's, andit's simply to not give it
airtime. So this is like theinstruction of you see the
thought you let it go and youcome back to your breath. It
doesn't mean to pretend thatit's not there. It doesn't mean
denying it. It simply means Iwill not feed this with my
(11:40):
attention. And so if a thoughtis recurring, I will gather all
my energy, I will gather all myfocus my strength in I will
bring it back perhaps to mybreath, perhaps to a mantra,
perhaps to a visualisation,something that anchors my
attention. So it doesn't havethe opportunity to feed the
(12:04):
seed. The fourth is to trace thethought to its route. And this
one takes a little bit of Oh,and I didn't say the simile for
for the one before ignoring.
It's basically the Buddha says,if somebody who didn't want to
see a particular site, they justcovered their eyes. Right? You
(12:27):
know, you pass by a very goryaccident on the road and you
avert your eyes. And here, youknow, as I said, it just needs
to be applied carefully so thatit doesn't become bypassing, it
doesn't become denial. Thentracing the thought to its root,
(12:53):
it's tracing it to itsfundamental root. So it's not
this happened because when I wasa child, I was always told that
it's it's, it's, as the similesays, if a person is walking,
they suddenly think tothemselves what why am I walking
right now? What if I juststopped for a moment? And then
(13:16):
when they're standing, theythink, why am I standing? What
if I just sit down and then fromsitting down they went to lying
down. So one sense they're goingfrom, from a grocer posture to a
more subtle one. And that asyour your feeling more and more
(13:36):
into the root of the thought,what do you find is that at its
core, at its heart, there isnothing like which is what I
mentioned before that at itsroot. This thought is empty
(14:07):
and when you really see this,when you see it really see this
directly in it says there'snothing else you need to do.
Because the thought it justloses all its power. Because it
has no substance. There'snothing there to believe nothing
there to hold on to. So that'strace, and then the last one to
(14:30):
chop the cut the thought at itsroot. This is the the pulling
out all the stops. This ischopping off the phone with a
sword of wisdom, the sword ofManjushri. And the summary here
is a little unfortunate, butwhat it says is like is like a
(14:52):
big guy knocking out a littleguy, a weaker one. So I tend to
not dwell on it. Excuse me outAm I really think of it more as
the thing that will save mylife? This is like the alcoholic
thinking, what if I just haveone drink? Chop at its root? You
(15:14):
don't even argue. You don't tryto negotiate with yourself. You
don't try to convince yourselfor anything. Immediately
recognising the nature of thisthought. You cut it. You cut it
at its root, right? So switch,switch, warn, ignore, trace and
(15:36):
chop
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