Contemplation: Mindfulness' Rope

After reviewing the guidelines for practice, take the following as your object of contemplation:

Those who wish to keep a rule of life
Must guard their minds in perfect self-possession.
Without this guard upon the mind,
No discipline can ever be maintained.

Wandering where it will, the elephant of mind,
Will bring us down to the pains of deepest hell.
No worldly beast, however wild,
Could bring upon us such calamities.

If, with mindfulness' rope,
The elephant of the mind is tethered all around,
Our fears will come to nothing,
Every virtue drop into our hands.

Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva, p. 62