Practice
7 Days — Steady the Mind
A week on why the mind scatters and how it settles.
Day 1 — Your own ally
You are your own lift or weight.
BG 6.5 — Let him raise the self by the Self and not let the self become depressed; for verily is the Self the friend of the self, and also the Self the self's enemy; read →
Practice
Name one habit today that is quietly working against you.
Day 2 — The middle way
The middle is the method.
BG 6.16 — Verily yoga is not for him who eateth too much, nor who abstaineth to excess, nor who is too much addicted to sleep, nor even to wakefulness, O Arjuna. read →
Practice
Find where you're running to an extreme — food, sleep, work — and pull it back one notch.
Day 3 — Still flame
Still flame, not no flame.
BG 6.19 — As a lamp in a windless place flickereth not, to such is likened the Yogi of subdued thought, absorbed in the yoga of the Self. read →
Practice
Stay fully in one hard conversation today without letting it scatter you.
Day 4 — Coming back
The practice is the returning.
BG 6.26 — As often as the wavering and unsteady mind goeth forth, so often reining it in, let him bring it under the control of the Self. read →
Practice
Each time your focus breaks today, come back to the task without grading the interruption.
Day 5 — Sit through it
Sensations pass; sit through one.
BG 2.14 — The contacts of matter, O son of Kuntî, giving cold and heat, pleasure and pain, they come and go, impermanent; endure them bravely, O Bhârata. read →
Practice
The next time you're uncomfortable today, wait 60 seconds before fixing it.
Day 6 — What you circle
Attention becomes attachment.
BG 2.62 — Man, musing on the objects of sense, conceiveth an attachment to these; from attachment ariseth desire; from desire anger cometh forth; read →
Practice
Notice the first thing your mind circles back to unprompted today.
Day 7 — Off neither way
Neither chase the high nor flinch.
BG 2.56 — He whose mind is free from anxiety amid pains, indifferent amid pleasures, loosed from passion, fear and anger, is called a sage of stable mind. read →
Practice
When something good lands today, watch the pull to grab for more of it.