Seven Points of Mind Training

Point 6 : Disciplines of Mind Training

27: Work with the greatest defilements first.

Point Six : Work with the greatest defilements first.

Commentary :

You should work with whatever is your greatest obstacle first - whether it is aggression, passion, pride, arrogance, jealousy, or what have you. You should not just say, "I will sit more first, and will deal with that later." Working with the greatest defilements means working with the highlights of your experience or your problems. You do not just want to work with chicken shit, you want to work with the chicken itself.

If we have philosophical, metaphysical, poetic, artistic, or technological hang-ups related with our particular neurosis, we should bring them out first rather than last. When we have a hang-up we should work with that hang-up. It has been said that all dharmas should be applied in trying to tame it, but at the same time we should not try to arrive at certain results. So the idea is to purify and to work on the highlights that come up rather than regarding them as junk. We simply work on any highlight or problem that comes up in our state of mind directly and straightforwardly.