Three Places to Put Your Mind

This meditation will give you three valuable meditation objects (things to focus on) that are immediately present, immediately available, and outside of your "story," or your narrative.

Transcript

Close your eyes,

Sit up and shift your attention to your breath.

So briefly scan the body and take a quick look.

Take a deep inhale,

Relax your face and your eyes.

Notice if you're holding any tension in your face and your eyes,

Allow the crown of your head to reach up to the sky.

Your spine is tucked just a little bit.

Deep inhale,

Breathe down into your throat.

Notice if you're holding any tension in your throat.

Notice if you've got any anxiety in your throat.

And just feel that.

Take a deep inhale,

Relax your shoulders,

Your arms and your hands.

You can either have your hands palm up on your knees or palm down or you can just have them resting in your lap.

Take a deep inhale,

Check in here with your heart.

Connecting in a very simple way with the energy of the heart exactly as it is right here and right now.

So we're not trying to change anything in the heart,

We're just trying to feel what's going on in the heart.

Take a deep inhale,

Breathe down into your stomach.

Feel what's going on in your stomach.

Feel the navel,

Feel all the organs.

Feel the general tone of your stomach.

Like I've said many times before,

Your stomach not only digests your food but it also digests your emotional life.

Digests all of the experiences that you've had.

That's why people have emotional difficulties that they haven't digested or processed or worked through.

They have difficulty going to the bathroom,

They get constipated,

They get diarrhea,

This kind of thing.

They get irritable bowel syndrome.

So take a deep inhale please.

Exhale,

Breathe down into the pelvis.

Just connecting in a very simple way with the energies of the pelvis.

Relaxing the muscles,

All the muscles that connect your legs to your body.

And take a deep inhale,

Breathe down into the legs.

Three deep inhales and hold on the fourth.

Deep inhale,

Exhale.

Deep inhale,

Exhale.

Deep inhale and hold.

Hold,

Sip in a little more air.

A little more air,

Relax the whole body.

Relax your arms and legs,

Hands and feet.

Hold the breath.

Take your channels and allow the energy to fill up the body.

Jongup of bank now.

Thank you very much.

Just sitting.

Just sitting.

See if you can practice just sitting,

Being with your mind,

Watching its activity,

Noticing where you get stuck.

How we do this,

How we get closer and closer to being able to just sit.

First order of business is we need to find a place to put the mind.

Now there are three very good places to put the mind.

The first place is the breath.

And the breath is an excellent place to put the mind because it is outside of any story line that you're telling yourself.

It's outside of any ideas that you're telling yourself.

Ideas that you have.

It's outside of any concepts.

So when we shift our attention to the breath,

We're placing our mind,

We're placing our attention on something that is not part of the drama.

And that is inherently valuable.

Because if there's anything that's important in this world that's being able,

It's developing the capacity in the brain to be able to,

In the mind and in your experience,

To be able to step out of the drama.

Again,

Therapists call this perspective.

You can step out of the drama.

Step out of the current narrative,

Out of the story.

So the breath is extraordinarily valuable for that.

The second home for the mind,

Or the second place that you can put the mind is on the sensations in the body.

So feel the sensations that tell you that you have legs right now,

For example.

With your eyes closed,

Just feel the sensations that tell you that you have legs.

And specifically,

They tell you that you have bones in your legs.

Feel the bones in your legs.

Notice how these sensations,

Especially,

Well,

All throughout the body.

But it's easy if we focus on a place like the heart or the throat.

We can get caught up in the intense emotions that we feel there.

So another place,

A second place,

You can put the mind or the sensations in the body,

Especially down in the legs and the feet and the arms and the hands.

So you keep your focus there.

Again,

These things are always available and they're always outside of any story that you're telling yourself.

So it's another place you can put the mind that is not involved in whatever trip you're putting together,

In whatever self that you're building,

Whatever world that you are building.

And the reason that you are emotionally wound up is you have built a world.

You have built a world of meaning,

You have built a system of meaning,

And then you're reacting to that.

You're not reacting to the actual world.

And the third place that you can put the mind is on the sounds.

So listen to the sounds here.

See,

If you can keep the sounds at the top level of your awareness,

At the top level of your consciousness,

Okay?

These are the same sounds that were here in 1983.

Doors closing,

Floors creaking,

Clocks ticking,

Cars going by,

Birds chirping,

Footsteps in the hallway.

So the sounds are another beautiful place to put your awareness that is outside of this drama that you have built.

There's nothing wrong with a little drama.

In fact,

It's pretty awesome at times.

But what happens is we forget that we're the author and all of a sudden we've written ourselves into a Stephen King novel,

Our Clive Barker novel,

And we forget that we can put down the pen or we can take our fingers off the keyboard at any moment.

So practice this throughout the day.

Practice this as long as you'd like here,

Sitting,

Breathing,

Shifting your attention.

Practice this as long as you'd like,

And I'll talk to you soon.

Reviews

Loved this quick little meditation. So great for grounding yourself.

Clear techniques

Have enjoyed this for years. It's fast- paced instruction but very useful for anxious folks not able to yet tolerate the slower-speaking meditations.

Practical and simple. Thank you. I aopreciated your unaffected way of speaking too .

Great exercise perfect for a noob👍

This fixed all of my problems

Love his practical approach! I appreciate the explanations/reminders of the purpose of mindfulness, it helps keep the mind on track.

I also really appreciate the lack of music. I always prefer no music as it feels too artificial and is actually more distracting than plain authentic noises.

I really like it when the guides are more to the point and reminding you of the real utility of the practice.

Direct & to the point. Love it.

Clear and concise. Helpful to me. Like a no nonsense teacher.

Excellent, wonderful!! 😃

I felt like I learned something. Thank you

great advice thank you 😊

Direct. No messing around. I liked that. Just what I needed today.

Very clear, direct and helpful. Thank you!

Thoughtful options

You have an excellent approach to this understanding. Thank yuh

Loved this - thank you
Do you have more ?

So absolutely amazing learnt some new tips for deeper meditation

Direct. World altering.