Repeatedly bringing it back to the breath may feel unnatural at the beginning, like having to hold a child to keep him from squirming. But if we keep doing it, at some point we begin to see that underneath the distraction and bewilderment, something else is going on. We begin to see the mind’s underlying stillness. There is intelligence; there’s some kind of stability; there’s some kind of strength. We begin to see how the discursiveness of thoughts and emotions keeps us from experiencing these natural qualities of the mind.
