One of my favorite stories as a little girl was Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. I’m not sure why, maybe my tender little heart felt a surge of empathy for the little bear who discovered his porridge devoured, his chair broken, and someone sleeping in his bed…a terrible thing for a little bear.
What I have discovered over the years is how similar our minds are to Goldilocks. Like Goldilocks, the mind often goes where it doesn’t belong. It seeks a constant pleasurable experience, but is very hard to please; “this is too cold”…..”this is too hot”…..”this is too soft”….“this is too hard”…..seems to be its constant conversation about everything. And in the mind’s fleeting contentment and short attention span, havoc is rendered on others as well as self.
We don’t have to live under the mercy of our minds; we can train the mind to be the magnificent instrument it was intended to be, indeed this is the task of the spiritual journey. This training creates a mind that is calm, wise, and compassionate, a mind capable of dealing with the immense problems facing the world today and capable of imagining a future of harmony and well-being for all sentient beings.
We can go around like Goldilocks, seeking our own personal program for happiness, or we can train this amazing instrument called mind to seek a deeper purpose to our existence.