(Course) Beginner's Mind Day 6 - Distractions

Day 6 of Beginner's Mind by Mind Masons. In this talk, we will briefly cover common distractions in meditation. In covering the most prominent distractions, we will allow you the space to notice them for what they are as they arise. What's more, we will go over how to overcome these distractions so that you can get back to practicing. Following this talk, you should practice using my 10 Minute Breath Counting meditation.

Transcript

Hello again,

Good day,

Welcome to day 6 of Beginner's Mind where we're going to talk about distractions.

As always,

Before we begin I'd just like to say that I hope yesterday's information and all the information we've covered in the first half of this course has been helpful to you.

I hope that you're going to be able to let it sink in,

Let it soak in,

Let it resonate and to carry it forward into the next five days and through the rest of your life.

And I'd like to encourage you again to ask questions if you have them.

Please,

Please,

Please reach out.

Some of these concepts,

As we get a little deeper in the second half here,

Can start to seem somewhat abstract,

Especially if you've never gone this route or dabbled in things like this before.

So I would encourage you,

Please reach out.

I promise we're friendly,

We're accessible,

We're available.

The other members of this community will probably be thankful for you reaching out and maybe asking questions that are on their minds as well.

So back to today's topic,

Distractions.

Distractions are something that I'm sure you have noticed by now.

Maybe some days more than others,

But they are definitely there and they are pervasive.

They happen non-stop.

So we're going to talk about some of the more common ones and we're going to talk about how to deal with distractions.

So first and foremost,

There's a common phrase that meditators use to describe how we deal with distractions.

It's threefold.

It's let them come,

Let them be,

Let them go.

I don't know if anybody's ever heard that before,

But it's very common in the meditation community and we'll talk about how we can apply that in just a moment.

Before we do,

Let's get to the very first and arguably most common distraction,

Which is itching.

Oh my gosh,

The itching,

Right?

It is just all over the place and it seems some days like as soon as you close your eyes and as soon as you calm the mind,

You become itchy everywhere.

Don't worry,

It happens to everyone.

So let me ask you something though.

What happens if you don't scratch that itch?

You know,

In normal life and up until now,

You have an itch,

You scratch it.

You don't even think about it.

There's no foot's itchy,

Scratch my foot.

Itch is gone.

Or it's not,

I scratch it some more.

What would happen if you didn't scratch that itch?

My foot's itchy right now.

What's happening?

Nothing's happening.

My foot is just staying itchy.

The problem with my foot being itchy is my reaction to that itch,

My perception of that itch.

And I want to focus on that word perception.

Because let's think about what that itch actually is.

That's just some nerves,

Some overactive nerves in my foot that are flaring up and causing an itch for whatever reason.

You know,

It's not something severe,

Like my house isn't burning down.

You know,

I haven't crashed my car,

I'm not bleeding.

You know,

It's just an itch.

So what happens if I don't scratch it?

Nothing.

I just sit there itchy.

And this is where let it come,

Let it be,

Let it go comes in.

So with an itch,

Our typical response is to reject it.

Natural process,

Body's become itchy but we reject it.

No,

I will not be itchy,

I will scratch that itch.

There,

The itch is gone,

I'm in control.

I'm going to have to do that.

And that is,

What that is is feeding into that cycle of conflict that the ego creates within our minds.

And so if we just let that itch come,

We can immediately break that cycle.

And so I want you to think about the lobby of your house,

The mudroom of your house,

Whatever it is.

And picture an itch coming to your door and knocking.

And instead of walking up and turning the deadbolt and rejecting that itch,

Opening the door and letting it in,

We let the itch come,

We let the distraction come.

And once it's in,

Once it's through the door,

We can have a good look at it,

We can see it for what it actually is.

It's just an itch.

It's just this external phenomenon.

And once we've seen it for what it actually is,

We label it.

It's almost like you're taking one of those hello my name is name tags and putting it right on it.

You know,

Hello my name is itchiness.

And now we've seen it for what it actually is,

We've identified it for what it actually is.

So that's the let it come part of let it come,

Let it be,

Let it go.

We'll move on to the second part of letting it be.

And we'll go back to the mudroom or the lobby of your house example.

So the itch is in,

We've seen it,

We've labeled it.

Now I'll challenge you to just turn a blind eye to it.

Let it just be there,

Let it stand in that mudroom and go back to whatever you were doing.

In the case of meditating,

We'll return our attention to the breath.

And we'll just let that itch be.

We'll just let it stay there.

Now to continue that metaphor a little more,

What would happen with a guest in your house that came into your mudroom or lobby that you let in had a look at and then ignored?

You didn't just let them stand there and do their thing.

They'd probably leave.

They'd probably get bored no matter what they did,

Even if they came in and messed some stuff up.

If you didn't pay attention to them,

They'd get bored and they would leave.

And that is the let it go portion.

So when we let,

And this is why I use itching as a distraction,

When we let the itch come,

We let it in,

We label it,

We see it for what it is.

It's an itch,

It's an external phenomenon.

And then we let it be.

We just let it do its thing.

I just let my foot stay itchy.

I just let it stand in my mudroom.

I don't need to react to it.

It's just an itch.

And we return the focus,

I'll return my focus to wherever it was before.

And in a practice,

That's to the breath.

And then we'll just let that itch be an itch.

And what you'll probably find is that sooner or later,

And at an increasing speed,

That itch will just dissolve.

You know,

Continuing that metaphor even a little more,

It gets bored and it leaves.

And it probably even closes the door behind it.

So we let it come,

We let it be,

We let it go.

And we do that every time.

Patiently,

Every time.

It's an easy process.

There's no reason to become impatient with it.

It's very,

Very,

Very simple.

So we do it every time.

My foot is itchy now,

I let it come,

I let it be,

I let it go.

If my arm or my hand becomes itchy after that,

I let it come,

I let it be,

And I let it go.

And you'll find that the more often you do this,

Not only the easier it becomes,

But the less the distractions will happen.

And the reason for that is that a lot of the time,

Sure an itch is a physical sensation,

But a lot of the times any distraction is just the ego,

The ego firing something at you,

Trying to pull you out of these peaceful,

Sublime states that you're starting to achieve.

So that it can remain in control.

You know,

These distractions,

The ego holding on for dear life.

And so the more we revoke the ego's control,

The less it tries,

Over time.

Now itching and stretching aren't the only distractions.

Some of the most,

Some of the more prevalent ones are fidgeting.

You'll feel sometimes uncontrollable urges to fidget.

You know,

Twiddling the thumbs,

Playing with the hands,

Moving the feet,

Moving the head,

You know,

Squinching your eyes,

Whatever it is.

I would encourage you to treat that the same as an itch.

If you feel the urge to fidget come on,

Before you react automatically to it,

If you notice it,

Let it come,

Let it be,

Let it go.

Returning the attention to the breath.

Same with discomfort,

And same with pain,

And I mentioned the other day that we were going to talk about pain and discomfort a lot.

Pain and discomfort will be thrown at you by the ego,

Frequently.

So it's important to treat pain and discomfort as just another distraction.

Let them come,

Let them be,

Let them go.

Return your focus to where it should be.

Now,

With pain and discomfort specifically,

There is definitely a line.

If I have a random shooting pain in my foot,

I can probably let that come be and go.

If I have a chronic back pain as I do,

And I start to get some major back pain,

Well,

Maybe that is very quickly over that line,

And that's the kind of pain that I should actually deal with,

Adjust my posture,

Do whatever I need to do,

And then continue my practice.

Discomfort,

I would offer you probably can treat as a distraction every time,

And until it starts to lead to pain,

Pain that is over that line,

It can be repetitively treated as a distraction.

Some other prominent distractions you'll experience are thoughts and feelings.

A lot of the times as the physical distractions calm down,

These kind of mental or emotional distractions become more prevalent.

And we treat them the same as we do the itch.

We let them come,

We let them be,

We let them go.

We have a specific day in this course on something called monkey mind,

Which is a phenomenon that was specifically coined for a very overactive mind that is constantly awash with thoughts and feelings.

So we're going to leave monkey mind where it is today and cover it in detail on its own day.

But for the kind of one off or slower thoughts and feelings,

Treat them as an itch.

With thoughts and feelings,

I'm sure everybody is familiar with the term of the rabbit hole,

You know you're down the rabbit hole.

Sometimes these thoughts and feelings will kind of carry you down the rabbit hole and you know one will lead to another to another to another and before you know it,

You know the thought pattern started over here and your way over here you can't even see the top of the rabbit hole anymore.

You don't know how you got there and you've completely forgotten about your practice.

At that point I would encourage you to kind of relish in that aha moment.

You know awakening to the fact that you have forgotten about your practice and at that moment let it come,

Let it be,

Let it go.

Treat it like an itch from that moment on.

Let go of the fact that you rabbit holed or that you forgot that's okay,

That is what it is,

It already happened,

You can't change it.

From here on out,

Treat it as an itch,

Let it come,

Let it be,

Let it go.

Now lastly I want to talk about drowsiness.

Drowsiness can be from a very practical or pragmatic standpoint where maybe you're practicing super early in the morning and you're not alert enough or maybe you're practicing really late at night or maybe you just generically need more sleep.

So that is what it is.

If it's a matter of sleep,

Well that's something you'll have to deal with.

But drowsiness can also come up during meditation as a result of applying too much pressure or too much control,

Exerting too much effort on your meditation.

And the reason I wanted to cover this today is because in the beginning stages of meditation it can feel like we have to kind of wrestle ourselves and we have to control it and we have to fit it into the confines of the practice.

And while that is what we're trying to do,

We're trying to stay within these kind of parameters and induce some peace and serenity,

We want to try to do that gently with minimal effort.

And just sort of let things happen naturally.

And what you'll find if you're constantly forcing is that you'll tire yourself out and you'll become drowsy.

So drowsiness can be one of two things.

You are either not sleeping enough or you're applying way too much energy and effort during your practices and you need to kind of scale it back a little bit.

And you can do that from the point that you notice the drowsiness.

You know,

Oh I'm drowsy,

I need to ease up.

And you'll probably find that as you ease up you'll be kind of awash and flush with energy and the rest of your practice will be a lot easier.

As always,

Thanks for listening and I hope you have a great practice today.