Dr Samir Heble is a practicing Psychiatrist. The following is an excerpt from one of his sessions at the hospital in a Mindfulness group that he conducts.
The Guesthouse Our mind is the guesthouse. We are the host or the hostess. Our thoughts, feelings, emotions, joys, beliefs, disappointments, dreams, goals, aspirations, ambitions etc are the guests. All our guests keep on knocking at the door of the guesthouse. Some of these are guests we look forward to and there are others we don't. The more we try to not open the door to them, the more they will keep on knocking. The key to serenity thus lies in acknowledging these guests, neither grasping them nor pushing them. Some of the ways we can acknowledge these 'unwanted guests' (negatively evaluated emotions) is by saying in the mind:'Thank you for showing me the diversity of emotions in Nature' 'Thank you for helping me master myself each time'. 'Thank you for showing me the impermanence of nature' You will have more inner peace with this practice.
