Hello,
And welcome to this meditation about how thought has no clothes.
We're all familiar with the story of the emperor's new clothes,
And how when a little child said the obvious,
That the emperor was naked,
The whole town suddenly saw through the illusion.
Thought is very similar.
It tells us that it's who we are,
That what it says determines what is good or what is bad.
In this meditation,
We'll see how thought is like every other living process,
A swirl of energy.
Neither more nor less central to our lives than any other part of our experience.
Let's begin.
As you settle into your comfortable posture,
Either seated or lying down,
Begin to feel the breath moving through your body,
How it flows in at the nostrils,
Flows back to the throat,
Down into the lungs,
And back out again with every breath cycle,
And feel how the chest and the belly expand and settle as breath moves in and out.
Breath is a swirl of energy,
A flowing of life,
From the atmosphere through the airways to the lungs and back.
Let's focus now on one part of this flow of breath,
The part between the nostrils and the throat.
As we inhale,
Cool,
Fresh air enters the nostrils,
Flows back through the nasal passageways,
And reaches the back of the throat.
As we exhale,
Warm,
Moist air from the lungs flows from the throat forward through the nasal passages and out through the nostrils,
Warm and soft.
Let us focus now on this flow of breath between nostrils and throat,
Feeling the air flowing in and back from nostril through passageways to throat,
And feel air flowing forward and out from throat through the nasal channels and out the nostrils,
In and out with every breath.
Of course,
The mind will get distracted.
Thoughts,
Images,
Various forms of thinking will arise,
Memories and plans,
Ideas.
This is the continuing practice of noticing when attention has slipped away and bringing it back,
Back to the breath in this instance.
It can be interesting to feel how thought has a kind of energy that moves it.
We're familiar with times when the mind is jumpy and times when it's serene,
Different qualities of energy.
What is the quality of the mental energy right now?
We can notice if attention focuses easily on the breathing,
Easily on the meditation,
Or if there's a feeling of struggle,
Of the mind resisting,
Wanting to think or imagine or remember.
What we notice is not important,
Really.
It's the act of noticing that counts,
And in this case,
The act of noticing how thought has energy that flows,
How mind has a stream-like consciousness,
The stream of consciousness we call it,
Flowing,
Energetic.
So we can notice as we have the energy of mind and we can feel as we have the energy of the moving air,
The breath.
I like to notice how both of these energies,
Thought and breath,
Brain and airways,
Can be felt in the same region,
This area behind the eyes,
Around the skull,
And within.
You might find,
As I have,
That the energy of thought and the energy of breath seem to intermingle in this area,
So we have breath flowing backwards and forwards through the nasal passages,
Cool,
Fresh,
Flowing in and back,
Warm,
Soft,
Flowing forward and out.
Every breath.
And then there's the energy of thought.
Even if our attention is focusing very nicely and solidly on breath,
We can feel how thought is waiting in the wings,
Eager,
Often,
Certainly ready to form an idea,
An image,
A memory,
A plan.
That readiness of thought,
Can we feel it as energy,
As life,
Life energy.
I like to move back and forth,
Feeling into the activity and readiness of thought,
Moving into the steady flow back and forth of breath,
Low in between the eyes,
Thought above,
Breath below,
Feeling one and then the other,
Feeling both.
Of course,
The energy of thought is not the same as its content.
Notice how the energy is always there,
Changing from calm to jumpy and so on,
But really ever-present as energy,
As aliveness,
There's a steadiness to it,
Even as its qualities change a bit.
The content,
Of course,
Is much more changeable.
I can think of what I'm planning to eat for dinner today.
I can think of things I did earlier today.
I can think of a vacation months or years ago.
I can plan ahead.
We all have these vast changes in time and focus in the content of thought.
Meanwhile,
The energy of it keeps going,
Getting a little more jumpy,
Little calmer,
But always that readiness and aliveness.
Focusing now not on the content,
But on the energy behind it,
The aliveness of the thinking mind and switching from time to time to the aliveness of the flowing breath,
Cool and fresh flowing in and back,
Warm and soft flowing forward and out.
Very near the flowing thoughts,
The flowing mind,
Thought above,
Breath below,
But very,
Very near.
For me,
The energy of thought feels like the energy of nature,
The energy of a breeze,
The energy of an ocean.
This energy,
It's rich and alive.
It's not small and opinionated.
It's not a name.
It's not a self any more than my experience of an ocean is a self.
It's just the flow of life,
Feeling the flow of breath and mind as natural energies.
We don't need to see thought as the center of who we are.
We don't need to take its concepts and stories as royal robes.
They're just more flows,
More energies.
Thought wears the clothing of self,
Of self-importance even,
But as we feel it as a flowing energy beyond the content to the aliveness and the flow of breath,
The twirling,
Swirling energies of mind,
The tidal back and forth of breath,
Breath below,
Mind above,
Or maybe breath and mind become as one,
Diffuse and alive,
Pulsing and joyous,
Maybe.
Just being available to the aliveness of this moment,
This biology right now.
Feeling thought in its naked simplicity,
As simple movement of life,
Responsive,
Even intelligent,
But transient and only a part of the vast ocean of each moment.
This practice is one that can be carried into daily life as a background sense,
A knowing that thought is not really different from breath.
Both flow,
Both are part of the experience,
Neither is the whole.
So in a moment,
The bell will ring gently and you can open your eyes if you wish,
Gently,
And breathe a little deeper and faster,
Gently,
Gently moving back into your active day.
You might also choose to rest longer in this mystery of life.
