Who Are You, and What Are You?

Did you know that people who meditate regularly are less vulnerable to addictive behaviors? Google it and you will find evidence from a number of sources. So, what is it about meditation that can help you break free of your addictions?

The answer is simple: Attaining the true meditative state is primarily about mind control. In order to achieve that meditative state, you must learn to still your conscious mind. You must learn to stop thinking for a few minutes now and then. That is also called Zen meditation.

Achieving the Zen meditative state means that one part of your mind must develop control over another part. You must learn to center yourself in a higher level of your mind where you can “look down” in a way to observe the actions of your conscious mind thought machine. Once you achieve that separation (both during meditation as well as going about your daily life), you will slowly develop control over the thought process.

As part of that self-training and practice, you develop the ability to “live” in a higher level of your mind and more easily influence activities of parts of your mind lower in the hierarchy. You learn to tell your conscious mind, “No!” when it wants to misbehave. You learn to notice when your conscious mind leans toward behaviors the higher you wants to avoid. You learn how to steer it away from undesired behaviors.