Joseph Goldstein On How To Train Your Runaway Brain

What It Covers

Meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein explains practical phrases and techniques for training attention, managing distraction, and deconditioning habitual mental patterns through Buddhist meditation practice spanning formal sitting and daily life activities.

Key Questions Answered

• •Begin Again Practice: When the mind wanders during meditation, gently return attention to the breath without self-judgment. This repeated act of noticing distraction and refocusing is the actual training mechanism, not an obstacle to overcome. Most practitioners experience constant mind-wandering initially.
• •Relaxed Alertness Balance: Effective meditation requires simultaneous relaxation to prevent over-efforting and manipulation of breath, plus alertness to avoid spacing out. This balance requires continuous micro-adjustments like a high-wire acrobat constantly shifting weight, not a static state once achieved.
• •Rushing as Feedback: Notice subtle feelings of rushing or leaning forward into the next moment, even when moving slowly. This indicates being ahead of yourself rather than grounded in present experience. Speed has nothing to do with rushing; you can move quickly without rushing or slowly while rushing.
• •Undercurrent Thoughts: Quickly passing background thoughts function like a movie soundtrack, subtly manipulating emotions and reconditioning mental patterns without awareness. These thoughts frequently contain self-references and continuously reinforce the sense of self, stealing mindfulness throughout daily activities like showering or walking.
• •Mara I See You: When recognizing unwholesome mental patterns or defilements arising, name them directly with humor rather than self-judgment. This recognition alone often causes the pattern to dissolve. The wisdom of seeing clearly matters more than the content of what you see.