In a practical sense the four 'divine abodes' of goodwill, compassion, appreciation and equanimity (or acceptance) are good for balancing the mind.Right thought needs right understanding to exist because without understanding, there is no basis of knowing the difference between skillful and unskillful thought chains. Right thought is encouraging thoughts of goodwill, understanding and non-greed, while abandoning greed, hatred and views, beliefs & delusions. Start to apply productive thoughts where you can. The Buddha's biography showed that he practiced the 8 components in different forms, combinations and styles over time, but only when the application was right did they work together to give a solution. This means simply that effort, mindfulness, concentration (etc) on their own are not enough. Another important point to consider is simply that there is right effort, by flipping it over implies that there is a wrong effort.Many of the ingredients both support and interact with other parts supporting each other to make the completed goal. It's much like a recipe, with the right ingredients you get the desired result, but when the mix is wrong or misses out important parts it never really makes the mark.Read through the list as follows and consider ways you can apply them to your own lifestyle as well as cases from your own experience where they can be of use. This is known as the eightfold path and the word 'right' is used as a term to denote skillful, or beneficial.

Freeing the mind is really a continuous action that requires right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right effort, right livelihood, right mindfulness and right concentration. You’re unlikely to free your mind overnight, so adopt the right mindset.

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