Today,
We're going to be exploring mindfulness of thought,
Considered the third foundation of mindfulness.
One of the things that I'm sure you've noticed is that when we become quiet and we attempt to train our minds to focus either on breath or on body or on sound,
Whatever anchor you choose,
Most often you become intimately,
Sometimes annoyingly aware of the content of your thoughts.
And that can be very uncomfortable.
So Thich Nhat Hanh,
The famed author and activist and Vietnamese monk offered a really beautiful analogy in one of his books,
The Art of Communication.
And I think that one of the difficulties in training in mindfulness or starting in mindfulness and meditation is that when you slow down and close your eyes and look inwards,
It may feel like you are entering a home,
Only a home you haven't been in for a long time.
So it's kind of dusty and dark and there may be spiderwebs and all of that stuff because you haven't been around,
You haven't spent time.
But there is a wonderful feeling that develops over time as we come back and spend time in that inner abode that is ourselves and we find a sense of refuge and coming home.
So one of the ways that I want to invite you to consider mindfulness of thought is to recognize thoughts the same way you would look at clouds in the sky and trying to recognize the darker gray ones and the puffier ones,
The stratus from the communal numbers.
It sometimes feels really helpful to notice what is recurring and how often our thoughts are repeated.
My teacher Jack Kornfield often jokes that most of our thoughts are fake news.
So one of the wonderful gains that we can get from this kind of practice is to notice the thoughts that feel true and the thoughts that feel like they are just a thought,
Like a cloud that's passing in the sky.
So I am going to invite you to close your eyes or if you prefer,
Leave them slightly ajar and gaze at a spot a couple of feet in front of you.
And find a comfortable seat.
Move around if you need to.
The idea really is that you want to feel comfortable so that you're not distracted by physical discomfort,
By bodily sensations.
And so let's take a few deep breaths in and out to get started.
Breathing in to the count of four and out to the count of six.
So take a deep in breath and out breath two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
Breathing in and breathing out two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
Breathing in and breathing out.
And with this out breath,
Feel a sense of landing here.
And I'm going to ask you to inquire rapidly as to what state you're in.
Just cultivating a sense of self-awareness.
And once you have a sense of your own state in this moment,
Maybe inquire around your intention for practice.
Why are you sitting in meditation today?
What would you like to see happen?
And now I'm going to invite you to feel a sense of connection to your breath.
Either at the nostrils,
At the chest,
Or at the belly.
It's good to have an anchor.
And if for any reason breath is not available to you,
I'm going to invite you to let yourself feel anchored by the sounds inside and outside of you.
And let's start to pay attention to the content of the distractions that are our thoughts as you are sitting here.
You may already have noticed that a lot of our thoughts are stories that we are telling ourselves.
Sometimes the mind is referred to as a fantastic master and a terrible servant.
And you may notice thoughts like planning,
I'm planning dinner,
I'm planning my week,
I'm thinking about work.
Anxious thoughts about the future.
Thoughts around self-worth or self-importance.
So finding a way to recognize them over time and group them so you can notice them as I was suggesting you'd recognize a specific kind of cloud in the sky.
Yes,
There you go.
That is planning mind or that is worried mind.
Are you writing an email in your head as you listen to this?
So just noticing in and wherever possible over the course of your practice today and in the future as I hope you will be continuing with this,
Recognizing the thoughts that are that belonged to a certain group.
Maybe you can find some distance between your experience in this moment and the thoughts you are having.
You are not your thoughts.
And whenever you feel distracted and you forget,
That's okay.
You can come back to your anchor and observe the thoughts that are coming really literally as you would observe different things coming across a blue sky above you.
You may notice that we talk to ourselves a lot.
And that's okay.
Ninety percent of the thoughts that you're having are reruns.
I once heard someone say the mind creates thoughts.
The same way that mouth creates saliva.
And suddenly everything shifted a bit.
This is what my mind is doing,
But it doesn't mean that it's useful.
And it doesn't mean that it's right,
But it is important that I have some form of understanding as to the contents of my mind.
And remembering that whenever we get disconnected,
Whenever it feels hard,
Just coming back to this present moment and reconnecting to the original purpose and intention of sitting here in meditation,
Naming your thoughts is a very skillful means.
Planning,
Remembering,
Arguing,
Working,
Self-judgment,
Self-doubt.
And you can see them and observe the thoughts and realize that there is a distance between your experience in this moment and those passing clouds in your sky.
This is a quote by Sylvia Borstein,
Which I think is very applicable when we start to pay attention to the content of our minds.
Ultimately,
It's not the stories that determine our choices,
But the stories we continue to choose.
Namaste.
And whenever you are ready,
You can open your eyes.
