Second Step – Right Mindedness

After the First Step – Right Understanding we will go through the second step called a Right Mindedness.

What is Right Mindedness?

It is thoughts free from lust; thoughts free from ill-will; thoughts free from cruelty. This is called right-mindedness. Now, Right Mindedness, let me tell you, is of two kinds:

• Thoughts free from lust, from ill-will, and from cruelty:-this is called the “Mundane Right Mindedness,” which yields worldly fruits and brings good results.
• But, whatsoever there is of thinking, considering, reasoning, thought, ratiocination, application-the mind being holy, being turned away from the world, and conjoined with the path, the holy path being pursued-: these “Verbal Operations” of the mind are called the “Ultramundane Right Mindedness which is not of the world, but is ultramundane, and conjoined with the paths.

Now, in understanding wrong-mindedness as wrong, and right-mindedness as right, one practices Right Understanding; and in making efforts to overcome evil-mindedness, and to arouse right-mindedness, one practice Right Effort; and in overcoming evil-mindedness with attentive mind, and dwelling with an attentive mind in possession of right-mindedness, one practice Right Attentiveness.

Hence, there are three things that accompany and follow upon right-mindedness, namely: right understanding, right effort, and right attentiveness.