If you suffer from periods of anxiety,
You will know that all attempts to quieten,
Calm,
Or silence the mind are ineffective,
They simply do not work.
And often they seem to only make things worse,
Which can be incredibly frustrating and lead to a sense of despair.
So in this meditation,
We are not going to try and quieten,
Calm,
Or silence the mind,
Instead we are simply going to shift perspective.
Become the awareness that is aware of the mind,
And do not get involved in the activity of the mind at all.
Trying to quieten,
Calm,
Or silence the mind is an activity of the mind in itself,
Instead we are going to subtly,
But powerfully shift.
Just be the awareness of your thoughts,
And recognise deeply that you are not your thoughts.
Your thoughts are something that you witness,
You are not doing your thoughts,
You are not controlling your thoughts,
You have no power or control over your mind at all.
Recognise that you are the witness of your mind.
So here,
You can allow the mind to continue its usual chatter,
And if you are suffering a period of anxiety,
That mind activity is likely to be chaotic,
Filled with worry,
Prediction about future events,
A sense of pressure,
A feeling of not being able to cope.
Just for the duration of this meditation,
Allow your mind to continue as it ordinarily does,
With all of this noise and chatter,
But you simply remain as the audience.
Be as though all of that chatter in the mind is like a play playing itself out on stage,
Simply remain in the audience.
Ordinarily,
We get so invested in the play,
That we begin to believe that we are the play,
Perhaps one of the characters.
But just for the duration of this meditation,
Recognise you are actually the audience,
Witnessing all of this noise and chaos playing out on stage.
You can allow the play to continue,
And begin to become disinterested,
As though you have simply become very bored with the play.
And every now and then,
There will be a noise or a scene on the stage that does pull your attention back into the play.
Just notice that this has happened,
And withdraw your attention back,
To simply be a disinterested and bored audience member.
Remember,
Stay uninvolved.
Realise that your power is to remain as pure consciousness,
Awareness of the mind,
Without being involved in the mind.
And seeing clearly,
It doesn't matter if thoughts are chaotic,
Noisy and busy.
Release yourself from the burden of trying to make the mind do what you would like it to do,
And instead just let it run with its strange ideas,
With its improbable scenarios,
With its inaccurate and irrelevant chatter.
Don't try and make it go quiet.
Just leave it well alone.
Be as though the mind chatter is just totally unimportant.
A fanciful play on the stage that will soon be over.
Your only task is to remain fully aware that you are the audience witnessing the play.
There is nothing else to do.
There is no need to make anxiety go away.
Just leave it alone,
And it will go away naturally in its own time.
Remaining as the pure,
Peaceful awareness.
Perfectly relaxed in the audience.
Just somewhat irritated and annoyed by the sound,
Noise and colours on stage,
But remaining calm and relaxed nonetheless.
There is nothing to do.
You cannot make the play go any quicker.
You can simply choose to ignore what is happening,
And just remain at peace here,
As a neutral observer.
Perhaps the mind will quieten,
Calm or silence itself in time,
Or maybe it won't.
Either way,
It simply doesn't matter.
Simply do not be involved in the slightest.
Do not believe any thoughts.
No thoughts are accurate.
None of them.
So do not try to find which thoughts are more accurate than others.
Simply realise that no thought is accurate.
And no thoughts are important,
And no thoughts are relevant.
They all belong to this strange,
Noisy play.
Your profound and great power is to relentlessly,
Stubbornly remain as the audience,
Refusing to participate in the play.
In time,
The play will end,
And you will find peace once again.
In a moment,
We will be leaving the formal aspect of this meditation.
But notice,
As we do so,
That the mind cannot wait to rush back in and claw at your attention again.
See if it's possible to just lessen some of our ordinary belief in the importance and validity of the mind,
And just a sense of gradual disengaging from all of this mind activity,
Without trying to make the mind go away or make it quiet.
Instead,
Just a gradual,
Gentle disengage.
In time,
You will find that this period of anxiety,
Just like all the others in the past,
Simply lessens,
Subsides,
And vanishes.
Thank you for doing this meditation with me today.
Take care,
Be well,
And stay present.
Namaste.
