Befriending the Mind

When we begin to meditate, we quickly discover how hard it is to control our own mind.

Why is it all over the place? Why does it fixate on one thing and not another? Why is it so restless and agitated all the time?

The more we try to force the mind to be a certain way, the more tension we create within.

So instead, what if we considered befriending the mind - offering it kindness, understanding, support, and acceptance, just as we would a dear friend?

What if we stopped resisting, and simply let the mind be the mind for a while?

A friend will have their ups and downs, and that's okay. In the same way, whatever is happening in our inner world, we can gently remind ourselves:

There is space for this. I don’t need to fix anything right now.

Our practice isn’t so much about fixing the mind, but about observing it, understanding its patterns and tendencies, so that we can learn to work with it.

Befriending the mind means treating our mind with friendliness instead of harshness, curiosity rather than judgement, acceptance rather than resistance. It means staying with our experience instead of pushing it away.

We offer our presence and compassion, and choose to work with the mind, rather than struggle against it.

In this Take A Pause session recorded on 23 Feb 2025, the TAP community practiced befriending the mind, embracing each moment that arrives in open, non-judgemental awareness. We then closed the session by sharing a poem, Mitta, from The First Free Women: Original Poems Inspired by the Early Buddhist Nuns.

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Meditation begins: 08:44

Reading begins: 30:49

Meditation duration: 22 minutes

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Mitta ~ Friend
— Matty Weingast, The First Free Women

Full of trust you left home,
and soon learned to walk the path —
making yourself a friend to everyone
and making everyone a friend.

When the whole world is your friend,
fear will find no place to call home.

And when you make the mind your friend,
you’ll know what trust really means.

Listen.

I have followed this path of friendship to its end.
And I can say with absolute certainty —

It will lead you home.

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