Mindfulness—returning to the state of contentment

 You want something like an around-the-clock ecstasy. Ecstasies come and go necessarily for the human brain cannot stand this tension for a long time. A prolonged ecstasy will burn out the brain unless it is extremely pure and subtle. Only contentment can make you happy. Desires breed more desires. Keeping away from all desires and contentment in what comes by itself is a very fruitful state, a precondition to the state of fullness.

(Nisargadatta Maharaj, The threshold of liberation)

 

Nisargadatta describes to functioning of our neurological wiring. Any addict will tell us that each high comes with more dysfunctional mental state afterwards as the overexcited synapses simple crash and burn, leaving a hole behind that has to be filled by the next high. Luckily, the brain regenerates just like our body cells if we turn the ship around. Embracing the state of emptiness —being in eager anticipation of what comes by itself, as Nisargadatta Maharaj puts it—restores the synapses and brings the brain back to its natural limitless power. The practice of mindfulness is the method to get back to that pristine state and the mind is literally “full of emptiness,” alert, curious but at rest. An empty mind invites creation to fill in the blanks and contentment is all but guaranteed.