Hello,
And welcome to this meditation on observing thoughts.
Let's start by establishing an anchor point,
Something to come back to if you get lost.
So you might want to tune into the breath and use that as your anchor,
Or you might choose another body sensation to be your anchor point.
Whatever you choose,
Just focusing there,
Feeling the breath,
Or some other body sensation,
Staying with it as best you can.
And if you notice that your mind's wandered,
Just bring it gently back to your anchor.
Now turning your attention towards your thoughts,
So starting to become aware of what you're thinking.
That doesn't mean start to think about your thoughts,
It means just notice.
See if you can notice the thoughts in your mind.
As you do this,
You might continue to be aware of your anchor,
Or you might let it go and turn your attention exclusively towards thoughts.
So seeing if you can notice the thoughts that pass through the mind.
See if you can notice just one thought among the many that come and go,
And if it seems that this is easy,
Or it's very hard,
Or there aren't any thoughts,
Just notice that those are thoughts too.
So noticing any thoughts,
Including thoughts about the practice that we're doing.
And you'll probably find that very quickly you get pulled into the stream of thought,
You forget about observing thoughts,
And you start just thinking.
That's okay,
It's perfectly normal.
When you realise it's happened,
Just come back to noticing thoughts as best you can.
And it's okay if you can barely notice any thoughts before you get pulled in again and just start thinking.
That's fine.
We just keep coming back to this position of observing our thoughts.
Then you might notice that some thoughts are in words,
As though you're talking to yourself in your mind.
Other thoughts are in pictures,
Images from memories,
Or imagined futures.
See what it's like to just listen to your thoughts,
To hear the thoughts in words,
As though they were words coming from a speaker,
As though you were listening to a podcast.
Just hearing the mind talking to itself.
See if you can observe the words in images,
As though they were images on a screen.
Just watching the imagery of the mind playing out.
And if you get lost at any point,
If you're getting caught up in thoughts too much,
You can just return to focusing on your anchor.
Stay there for a little bit until you've steadied yourself,
Before opening up your attention to thoughts once again.
Notice what you're thinking right now.
Keep watching,
Keep listening.
And when you realise you've forgotten about the meditation and you're just lost in thought,
That's okay.
Just step back again,
So that you can observe the thoughts.
Just watching thoughts,
Listening to thoughts,
Knowing your thoughts as they come and go.
And I'll leave you in silence for the last few moments of the meditation,
So that you can continue to practice this on your own.
