All right,
So we'll get started talking about mindfulness of thought.
And this talk is meant for the beginner,
But if you're not a beginner,
Perhaps just taking on the beginner's mind for this discussion and approaching it as if it's the first time you've thought about mindfulness of thought.
And we'll get started tonight with a practice.
So if you want to just take a moment to find a dignified and upright posture.
If you're seated,
Perhaps placing both feet flat on the floor.
If you're lying down for your practice,
Perhaps moving around a little bit and just getting comfortable.
And your eyes can gently close or soften your gaze down,
Just whatever feels right to you.
And checking in for just a moment with the sensation in the body.
Let emotions are present,
Noticing as best as you can what your mind is doing.
And just letting that all be just as it is.
Letting yourself be just as you are.
Then taking your awareness just to the body and right to the sensation of your breath.
Perhaps taking a deeper breath or two just to help you sense the place where you might feel it or the place it might be the most pleasant.
And then letting go of the control of the breath and not manipulating it.
Just trusting the wisdom in your body to breathe just right.
Just observing rather than controlling.
And perhaps you notice how it expands in your chest and falls away.
And just tracking as best as you can this entire cycle.
Noticing this breath right here.
And where's your attention now?
Where does it go during the quiet moments?
Each time you notice that your mind has wandered off,
You're doing the practice just right.
That is a moment of mindfulness.
Gently bringing your awareness back to the breath.
Sensing how the chest lifts or expands on the inhale.
That reliable anchor to the present moment.
Allowing yourself in this space.
Breathing in and breathing out.
And as we come back from this short practice,
Before you open your eyes or lift your gaze,
Just taking a few breaths just to reflect on where your mind was,
Where your thoughts went during that few minutes.
How easy it was to stay with the breath or how many times you had to notice and redirect.
Just for the sake of observing,
Not with any frustration if possible,
Or if there is frustration,
Just noting that.
Not with any judgment,
But just paying attention to how the practice was for you.
And then when you're ready,
You can open your eyes or lift your gaze.
So we know the Buddha gained awakening under the Bodhi tree,
Right?
The question is,
What was he doing under the tree?
And the first step of what he's doing is what you're doing right now,
Which you're trying to develop this right concentration.
And just like you,
He found that he had to deal with distracting thoughts.
And he described the process of finding the path.
The first factor of the path was really this concentration.
And it's not something you can attain right away.
You have to develop the ability and you have to acknowledge the fact that it fluctuates,
Right?
Each day it can be different.
And the first step is not just developing the concentration,
But dealing with the quote distracting thoughts and recognizing when they come.
And just as it's possible to direct our attention to breath and to body sensations,
Which is normally what we start out with when we have a mindfulness practice is breath awareness or how things feel in our body.
That same awareness can be brought to our thoughts.
And it can be directed to observing our thoughts.
The problem many people face and the problem I faced often when starting to work on mindfulness of our thoughts is that loving awareness,
Right?
That nonjudgmental curiosity.
So when it comes to breath,
We might have a loving awareness of our breath in our chest or we might enjoy the feeling of it passing through our nostrils or into our belly.
But when it comes to mindfulness of thoughts,
We might have a frustration like,
Why am I not just being Zen,
Right?
Why am I not just being quiet right now?
Or why do I keep thinking the same thing over and over and over again?
So I want to try a little experiment.
So I'm going to just let you know when 45 seconds has passed,
But I want you to close your eyes again.
And this time,
Instead of focusing on your breath,
I want you to practice counting your thoughts.
All right.
So some thoughts will be picture thoughts and some will be word thoughts and some will be images that might be vibrant and some might not,
Right?
You might have audio,
But I want you just to notice.
And you might even have the thought that,
Hey,
There haven't been many thoughts yet.
That's one to count.
Your job is just to sit like a cat at the mouse hole and just simply counting the numbers they appear.
And we'll start now.
All right.
Time is up.
It's okay if you're not exactly right.
So I want you just to reflect on how many thoughts you had.
The number,
It doesn't matter,
Right?
It doesn't matter if you had five thoughts or if you had 25 thoughts then.
If you only counted a few,
It doesn't necessarily mean that there were fewer thoughts,
Perhaps some were longer than others,
Right?
You might've been thinking the whole time.
But what's important is that you were able to step outside of your thoughts and by counting,
Witness them,
Right?
And that's what the practice is when we start to work on mindfulness of thoughts.
It's being able to step outside of this ever flowing stream of thoughts and witness them.
And as you work with this more,
It moves away from counting and just to giving it this mindful loving awareness,
Right?
To be non-judgmentally aware of what you're thinking.
To notice and name them.
Perhaps picking up on patterns and just noticing where your mind is going.
A lot of times the question we get or the question we have when we're new to meditation or mindfulness in general is,
Will I ever have a time when there's no thoughts in my practice?
And I think that there's a misconception sometimes that we'll come to our practice to clear our mind and to be completely Zen,
To be set and to be completely silent and empty inside.
All right.
I don't know about y'all,
But I used to see all these cartoons and drawings or meditation.
I grew up in the eighties and it was always like this image I had of somebody who was just nothing.
They're just breathing,
This totally in touch,
Right?
They're not sitting there thinking,
Thinking,
Thinking.
I didn't see obsessive thought clouds in the cartoon above their head,
Right?
But I want to invite you to move away from the idea that your practice is a place that you're going to clear your head and instead move to it.
The idea that your practice is a place you go to,
To understand yourself better,
Right?
Your practice,
If it's on your mat or if it's a walking practice or a mindful movement is a way for you to understand your deepest parts and how you show up in the world.
And if we approach the practice of meditation in this way,
It can create a different relationship when our mind is very active,
Right?
So where in the past,
Where if we're having a really hard time grabbing hold of a breath anchor or a bodily sensation anchor or staying in the present moment because our thoughts are wandering,
Instead of feeling disappointed or frustrated,
We might be able to accept that this is just where we are,
Give it that mindful attention and know ourselves better,
Right?
Pay attention to the thoughts and name them.
So we'll come back to a practice,
A brief one,
And the focus will be to stay on the breath.
It will be silent,
But when the thoughts come as they will,
As they do for all of us,
Instead of counting them this time,
I want you to let them be.
I want you to let them rise and fall,
Just like waves in the ocean,
Just around the breath.
Periodically,
Whether it's after three or six or 10 breaths,
Maybe a strong thought will arise and really carry your attention away from your breath where you're not able to focus.
And as soon as you notice that,
I want you to name it gently,
Just according to its predominant quality.
Some naming words you might have would be something like planning.
Maybe your thought is remembering,
Judging,
Worrying,
Imagining,
Perhaps fearful thought,
Happy thought,
Interesting thought,
Creative thought,
Painful thought,
And so on.
Simply naming and acknowledging the thought and just witnessing the quality of it.
So we'll close our eyes and come back to our breath.
Just picking up on where we notice it most in our body.
Staying with the natural breath without changing it.
And the practice of mindfulness when the mind wanders of noticing that it has wandered from the breath.
This time with the naming of the thoughts.
Happy.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
