Thoughts Are Just Sensations

So I'd like you to take a minute at the beginning here to go inside your mental experience and to become aware of thoughts,

Your arising and passing thoughts stream.

And just try to describe in your mind what is a thought and where is a thought.

So try to become aware not only of the content of these thoughts but really what they are.

That could sound difficult but just experiment with that.

So for the next 30 seconds or so just experience thoughts and try to become aware of what they are really.

Where do they exist?

How do they arise and pass?

So for me it's seeming like thoughts are mostly language,

Like little chunks of words that are playing in my mind.

Sometimes there's a vague image that's associated with that or replaying of something that happened or that you're imagining is going to happen in the future.

So it can be helpful to investigate the process of thoughts and how they arise and what they're really like,

The texture of them,

To break them down more and in doing so have them have less control over your life.

And so you can experiment with not having your thoughts and your narrative thoughts stream a wandering mind be on a different playing field than all the rest of your sensations.

But maybe you can put them all on the same playing field and see them all as just things that are arising and passing in your conscious experience.

So something you can do is to pay specific attention to one of your senses,

Really observe it and then come back to observing your thoughts.

So let's try for a minute to experience sounds.

So pay all of your attention to the sensation of sound right now.

You can maybe notice the sound of my voice,

Other sounds in the room.

If it's helpful for you,

You can close your eyes so you might be able to pay even more attention just to sound.

Sounds from outside the room,

Ticking of a clock,

Air conditioning or heating,

Sounds from nature,

Other people talking,

Sounds inside your body.

And see if you can just become aware of the raw sensation of sound.

So just the sensation before you've represented it with some symbol,

Before you've thought of whatever that sound looks like.

So the sound of a ticking clock without the image of a ticking clock,

Just the raw sensation of sound.

What's that like?

So that's an attempt to utilize the observing mind that is always there and that doesn't make judgments and it doesn't use language to symbolize,

It just experiences.

So you can attempt to use that for your experience of thoughts as well.

You might be able to distance yourself from them a little bit.

Stop seeing them as much as who you are,

But just another part of your arising and passing conscious experience.

And you can apply that mode of mind to meditation and also to just life generally.

To see thoughts as thoughts and to see them as no different from any other sense experience that you have.

They're all just parts of your conscious experience that are arising and passing.

So by becoming aware of them in this way,

They might gradually have less and less control over you and less and less control over the way you feel because you can just see them.

In the stance of an observer.

So play with that.