Begin in a comfortable seated position on the floor with your hips propped up slightly,
In a chair with your feet flat on the floor,
Or lying down on your back.
If you are feeling sleepy,
Try sitting up instead of lying down so that you don't fall asleep.
Make sure your body is very comfortable and able to relax completely.
If you feel tension somewhere in your body,
Make small adjustments to relax your body back into comfort.
Begin to watch the flow of breath,
Gently moving in and out.
Feel the expansion in your body with the breath,
The belly,
The chest,
The back.
Relax deeper into this moment with every breath.
Notice the smooth,
Easy inhale and the long,
Relaxing exhale.
In the last meditation,
We learned to calm the mind by noticing the breath and the sensations of the body.
In today's meditation,
We will learn to clear the mind of thoughts as they come.
To begin,
Close your eyes and become aware of the deep,
Black darkness in your mind's eye.
For now,
You will completely let go of the world outside of you.
Draw all of your awareness within you to your mind's eye.
Relax your body so much that it starts to fade out of your awareness.
Just focus on the blank darkness of your inner vision.
Imagine that the deep blackness is like a movie screen where your imagination can place images,
Words,
And sounds in the form of thoughts.
Sometimes your mind plays scenes on this movie screen as memories of the past or projections of the future.
Sometimes you may simply hear your thoughts play words,
Phrases,
Or feelings across this movie screen.
Notice that you can sit back in the movie theater of your mind and simply watch thoughts come and go on the black screen of your mind's eye.
As the observer of your thoughts,
The audience of your mind's movie theater,
You don't need to engage with,
Attach to,
Or judge your thoughts.
You can simply allow them to come and allow them to go.
You realize that you are not your thoughts.
You are something much greater,
Much more powerful and expansive than your thoughts.
You are the witness of the mind,
Beyond its silly games and fickle tangents.
As you pull back and separate from your thoughts,
You become very quiet and still within.
As the observer of thoughts,
You have the power to choose which thoughts to keep and which thoughts to release,
Which thoughts to believe,
And which thoughts to change.
For this exercise,
We will simply release and clear away every thought that comes so that you can strengthen and connect to the place of peace and stillness within you.
Simply sit back and relax in the movie theater of your mind.
Watch carefully as a thought enters your awareness.
Does it have image,
Sound,
Feeling?
As soon as you notice a thought entering your blank movie screen,
Pause the thought and say silently to yourself,
Poof,
Or whoosh.
As you imagine this thought disappearing into a cloud of vapor,
The thought is gone.
Your movie screen is now blank once again and you are noticing the sound and sensation of your breath.
As soon as another thought comes,
Notice it,
Stop it,
And poof,
Watch it vanish into a puff of smoke in your mind's eye.
Each time you repeat this action of clearing away a thought,
Your mind becomes more still and focused.
It doesn't matter how many times you need to clear a thought away.
What matters is that each time you get stronger and clearer about making thoughts disappear and you always return to your breath.
Thank you.
You You
