Mind Settling Into Mind

This is a 6-minute meditation to develop a calm, relaxed relationship with your mind and its contents. Like raindrops falling in the air, we watch our thoughts as they evanesce. The meditation is meant as an introduction to this practice which can then be built on through man repetitions, or through extending the meditation.

Transcript

Hello friends.

So today we will be doing a very short meditation,

Just a six minute meditation.

And while generally you can't get very deep in six minutes,

Six minutes is better than none.

It still allows you to touch down into that sort of ground within yourself.

But more importantly,

As a beginner's meditation,

A six minute meditation can be a great entry point.

So many of us may not be able to meditate for 24 minutes,

For instance,

Comfortably.

But we can certainly meditate four times for six minutes.

And between each of those six minute meditations you can take a short break,

Maybe a minute or two.

Or you can take a longer break,

But just try to get lots of short meditations.

That's a great way to get momentum started in meditation.

And so I strongly encourage you,

If you're just starting out,

To use this meditation or one of my other very short meditations,

Or someone else's very short meditations.

And just really try to get deep by going shallow over and over again.

And part of the trick to this will be when you begin the meditation,

Rather than starting off in a place of everyday mind,

To,

Upon the bell ringing,

Set your intention to drop into a place of stable,

Vivid relaxation that is the deepest stable,

Vivid relaxation that you've experienced.

So to try to go straight,

Upon the ringing of the bell,

To go straight into a deep meditation,

Or the deepest meditation you've thus far arrived at.

And this is particularly useful for concentration or Samatha meditation,

Which is the type of meditation we'll be doing today.

So I'm going to be leading you in a Samatha meditation that is a practice of the mind settling into its own state,

Or the mind settling upon mind.

And this is,

Most Samatha meditation is a form of concentration meditation.

But the Samatha meditation that I'm describing here is still concentration.

But it's not concentration upon a traditional object.

It's sometimes thought of as Samatha without an object.

But that's not really true.

It does have an object.

The object is just a very,

One which is not graspable in a traditional sense.

So still constructed,

But not graspable.

And now we're going to begin first by shaking out a little bit of that excess energy,

Just,

You know,

Let your body be free,

Shake it out,

And we're going to take three deep breaths.

With each in-breath,

We'll concentrate,

Condense,

Tighten the body,

Feel the knots that we have in our muscles,

Feel the knots we have in our energetic body.

As we breathe out,

We're going to just open all of those knots,

Open the body,

Open the energetic body,

And release and relax.

So on three,

One,

Two,

Three,

All the way in,

Tight,

And we relax everything.

And one,

Two,

Three,

All the way in,

Tight,

Relax.

Last one,

One,

Two,

Three,

Feeling the tension and relaxing everything.

And now,

As we get in again,

When we hear the bell,

Let's go straight to the deepest place we know,

All right?

And if you need to keep listening to this recorded meditation each time,

That's fine.

But I encourage you to learn the meditation and approach it just on your own,

After a certain period.

So you learn this mind-settling-on-mind meditation,

And then you can practice it on your own at any time.

You don't need my voice to guide you.

But here,

To start,

A little guidance can be very helpful.

So let's get ready.

And we begin by generating some form of mental phenomena.

Perhaps we say to ourselves,

In our mind,

Without moving our lips,

We say,

This is the mind.

And just look.

Look at what that is.

Look at what is saying that.

Look at the saying.

And you can say it again.

Say it again and again.

This is the mind.

And each time,

Look,

What are the words that you're saying?

Are they made out of sounds,

The way that the words that we speak are made?

Do they come from one side or the other?

Where do they go to when they go away?

Do they disappear behind us?

Do they go off to the left?

Or do they float away,

Off in front of us?

And we just watch whatever thoughts arise.

Again,

We can say,

If we're not sure where we're focusing our attention,

We can say again,

This is the mind.

And if we prefer,

We can generate a mental image.

And view that mental image.

And then let it dissolve.

And we rest in that place where the thoughts were.

We rest in that place where the mental image was.

And we just rest openly in that space.

And this meditation can be conducted with the eyes open or closed.

But often open is a little bit easier.

And then we just rest our eyes gently ahead of us,

On the floor perhaps,

Downward.

Maybe a few feet in front of us.

Relaxed.

And the thoughts will keep coming.

And that's totally fine.

We just attend to the thoughts very closely as they enter into the space of the mind.

And once they leave,

We just rest again into that space of the mind.

Into its openness and its clarity.

We might look,

Where do the thoughts go to?

Again,

Where do the thoughts come from?

Look into that space,

Such as it is.

And relax.

And when the thoughts are present,

What are they?

Thank you for joining me once again.

And again,

This is a meditation that is beautiful in short little bits,

But unfolds much,

Much more richly if we can practice it for longer periods.

And the way to do that is to begin by multiple short periods.

So,

If you found this useful or enticing or interesting shama to practice,

I hope that you'll practice it in little six-minute bits,

Over and over and over again throughout your day.

Do it many times,

Many times in the day.

And gradually you'll find yourself desiring to sit for longer.

It becomes more comfortable,

Easier.

And just from many of those short sits,

You'll find that you begin to experience many of the joys and benefits of shamatha meditation.

And as you begin to lengthen the practice gradually,

You'll find that your practice develops very naturally and easily.

So,

We dedicate this practice to our highest aspirations,

The opening of our heart and the hearts of others.

And thank you very much.