Q. Dear Tom, I hope you are well. How can one control the mind? Simple English please!

Tom: There are basically two ways of doing this. First of all by various practices to calm the mind and generate peace, of which there are different types (see the link below). Secondly by insight, which means seeing that there is no mind, or no thinker/doer entity, only a spontaneous succession of thoughts.

These two methods usually work together in tandem, like a virtuous circle, one helping the other which in turn helps the other, and so on.

Insight alone is usually not stable and leads to an ‘enlightenment’ that comes and goes, and calm/peace alone is not ultimately liberating, as peace also comes and goes. Both of these alone are not ultimately satisfactory. However the two together usually work wonderfully well.

I’ve written some blog posts here that goes into a bit more detail about some of this, so please take your time to read through these if you want to:

Roadmap to enlightenment: a (fairly) comprehensive guide to spiritual practices

Manifesting awakening in everyday life: purification and insight