What making pottery in third grade taught me. About the mind.
When I was in the third grade, I enjoyed making pottery. There was a small shed on the grounds where the 'school potter' ran a class. His tools were rudimentary—a large truck tire mounted on a base, with a wooden turntable in the center. There was no electricity or a motor to turn the wheel. Instead, using a long stick that I placed into a circular hole on the tire, I manually spun the wheel until it was fast enough to shape a pot by squeezing, kneading, and lifting wet clay. Once the clay dried, I baked my pots in an outdoor brick kiln next to the pottery shed. The following day I painted the pots with natural pigments. There was limited space on my desk to store all the pots I made each week. I broke the old ones and returned the remnants to the earth to make room for more. There was something profoundly comforting in digging my fingers into soft wet clay that carried an earthy scent resembling fresh rain falling on dry soil. It made me feel like I was one with the earth. I don't remember missing a single class.
A child's mind is like a lump of wet clay, while the conditioned mind of adults, rigid in their ways, is like clay that is burnt and hardened. A gentle touch of a finger on soft clay spinning on a wheel creates different shapes depending on where and how much force is applied. But once a lump of clay hardens, it cannot be reshaped.
There is a daily renewal of the mind's energies during sleep. Each day is a new opportunity to change our way of thinking. But it takes courage to drop our old patterns of thought. We cling to them even though they are 'old broken clay pots.' Just like the eight-year-old version of me returning hardened clay to the earth, the thoughts we discard will be recycled. Although the contents may disappear, the intangible energy that animates each thought will enter a stream of free energy in the mind. During sleep, this happens, but it is temporary. Once we awaken, old habits and thought patterns capture the mind’s free energy.
When the mind is soft and pliable, like an expert potter who knows when and where to press on a lump of clay spinning on the potter's wheel and when to withdraw that pressure, we can mold the mind to suit our goals. If the clay is soft and wet, we can reshape it as often as we want. The quality of the clay is also essential. We cannot mold it properly if it has stones or other contaminants.
Similarly, developing the 'perfect mindset' requires keeping the mind fresh and energetic, our outlook positive, and the willingness to embrace noble thoughts. These three qualities, new energy, optimism, and a noble bent, make the mind very pliable. The mind will be very responsive to our needs and remain a loyal and able companion as we set out to accomplish even the most challenging tasks.
Developing compassion is one way to infuse the mind with these three qualities—energy, optimism, and nobility. Compassion takes the focus away from us to another. It need not be an outward expression but even harboring a silent thought that oozes with this quality will suffice. When we are not focused on ourselves, ideas related to old habits and ways of thinking will get less energy and attention. Thoughts lose their power and wither when we don't pay attention. Their contents dry up, and the energy they trap returns to the 'general pool' in the mind. This increases the energy levels in the mind.
Compassion also makes us optimistic. When we are compassionate towards someone else, we harbor accompanying thoughts that only wish the best for that person. The world is like a mirror. Whatever thoughts we put into the world, even silently, are reflected back to us. When we wish well for others, we are influencing all other thoughts in our minds with that same feeling. Compassion is like sugar. It easily dissolves in every thought. Practicing compassion comforts not just others but also us. It taps into our innate nature, and we begin to experience inner freedom as old self-centered thoughts take flight.
Time is continuously spinning our ‘potter's wheel,’ the mind, and existence provides us with mental energy, the ‘soft clay.’ It is up to us not to burn that energy in creating old, fixed thought patterns but to remain fresh and energetic and always be willing to embrace new challenges.
