Need for the mind to be at rest

In one of the mindfulness training, one participant asked me a question - Why shouldn't I be looking at people observing them and deciphering patterns? Because those patterns will help me make decisions. I agreed with this person that the patterns have to be observed so that it helps to predict the behaviour.

While this may be required, it is not necessarily that to exert our minds by looking at external cues and deciphering a meaning out of it. Because what we are calling patterns and then connecting that to meaning is also the projection of our mind.

We would choose to look at only what we prefer looking at and eliminate the other aspects. Now this person took a pause and agreed that it is extremely exhausting to do this all the time.

We also should be able to bring our mind to certain ease and rest because every time if we conjure up meanings about whatever our senses come in contact with, we would just go crazy overworking the mind and I don't know if you have noticed this, we feel drained out.

Most importantly, we will lose the capacity to observe something very objectively, which in fact could be very, very helpful in arriving at an insight. Hence the practice of mindfulness where we watch the activity of the mind with a sense of witnessing allows us to bring the mind to ease and heal the mind that we have damaged and overburdened from overthinking.