At this level we begin to see how the mind works. Cut off from its accustomed sensory input, it runs around looking for something to stimulate it. The Buddha specifies two aspects of this: “divided thought,” the ordinary two-track mind, trying to keep attention on two things at once, and “diffuse thought,” the mind’s tendency to wander. The natural direction of this movement is outward, toward the sensations of experience. To turn inward, this movement has to be reversed. Throughout the first dhyana the centrifugal force of the thinking process is gradually absorbed as attention is recalled.
