Buddhism takes a different position it stresses and enhanced awareness of the formation of thoughts, which allows for the immediate identification of an angry thought as it arises, and for its de-construction the next instant, the way a picture drawn on the surface of water melts away as it is sketched. We repeat the same process with the next thought, and so on. So we need to work on our thoughts one by one analysing the way they emerge and evolve and gradually learning to free them as they arise, Defusing the chain reactions that allow thoughts to invade the mind. This method, which presents some similarities with those developed in the west in the cognitive therapies of Arron Beck and the mindfulness - based stress reduction program of John Kabat-Zinn, is essentially centred on the present moment. It is there fore important, from the stand point of mental health to be alert to the way thoughts form and to learn to move beyond their constraints, instead of developing and analysing the endless film loop of our psychic history.
The essential point is that we can never truly bring past events back to life. They survive only through the impact they have on our present experience. What really matters is the nature of our living experience, whether it is optimal or afflictive. If we become expert at freeing ourselves of all afflictive mental states as they take form, the actual content of the past events that might have triggered them becomes quiet irrelevant. Further more, being able to repeatedly free one's self of such afflictive thoughts as they occur gradually erodes their very tendency to form again, until they stop appearing altogether. Just as our emotions, moods, and tendencies have been shaped by the accumulation of countless instantaneous thoughts , they can be transformed through time by dealing in a mindful way with such thoughts. " take care of the minutes for the hours will take care of themselves" Lord Chesterfield once told his son this is the best path to gradual change.
