Guided Meditation on Thinking

Settle in your meditation posture and gently let your eyelids close.

Give attention to your spine and feel the attitude of upliftedness.

In the spine so that the back body is tall and the chest is soft.

Take a few slow long and deep breaths.

As you breathe in let the rib cage expand sideways.

And as you exhale let the belly soften.

Let the roof of the mouth be domed and let the tip of the tongue be still like the tips of the fingers.

Feel the way your body experiences breathing.

And notice how the inhalation feels different than the exhalation.

Maybe you notice this in the abdomen.

Maybe you notice this in the nostrils.

Feel the sensations we call breathing.

Inhaling and exhaling are formed from patterns of sensation.

Make contact with the sensations we call in-breath.

The sensations we call out-breath.

And give yourself over to your breathing so that breathing has a chance to calm and settle you.

So the breath can center you.

So you can center yourself around breathing.

If the mind is stormy take refuge in the posture.

If old emotions are smoldering just tune into the fine breath again.

No gripping.

Not anywhere.

If there's a lot of distraction just let the breath create a clearing within the distraction itself.

Just letting the breath sweep the mind and body.

And if you notice yourself thinking for the next couple of minutes let go of that and reestablish absorption in breathing.

Like a connoisseur of the breath.

Be absorbed by breathing.

Now with a sense of calm but with some intention let your breathing fade into the background.

And simply notice when you're thinking.

Let yourself think.

You don't have to stop thinking.

And as you're thinking be clearly aware that thinking is happening.

So instead of letting go of thoughts and coming back to the breath just look directly at your thoughts head-on.

If your thoughts fade away as you watch them wait until they come back or go to your breathing until thinking happens again.

And when thinking happens see it's happening.

Be aware of it.

Just look directly at thinking.

Know that you're thinking.

Now very softly,

Very very softly whisper in your mind that you're aware that thinking is occurring by labeling it or naming it twice.

Thinking thinking.

So when thoughts come up we're going to very very gently just label them thinking thinking and then come back to our breathing.

Just for this meditation practice what you're thinking about is not really important.

Just label thinking thinking and come back to your body.

Your body breathing.

As you pay attention to thinking you might start to notice other aspects of the process of thinking besides just the content of what you're thinking about.

So for example are you thinking more in words or images?

What's the quality of the inner voice?

What's the quality of the pictures that you see?

Is this inner voice that thinks soft,

Gentle,

Harsh?

Is the inner voice critical or very accepting and easygoing?

Is there a lot of energy in your thinking or is thinking very subtle?

Are thoughts repetitive and if so how do you hold them?

Are you seduced by repetitive thoughts or can you say thinking thinking and come back to the breath easily seamlessly?

Are there any emotions connected to what you're thinking about?

If there is just notice that and include that in your awareness and settle the energy in your head by knowing that you're in your body.

Thoughts build like clouds but they also undo themselves.

If thinking goes away as you watch it relax into the space that's left behind.

Relax into the spaciousness of quiet mind.

If you need to label thinking thinking do so without judgment and then with friendliness come back to your breathing body.

Now as you notice your thinking notice if there's any physical side to the thinking is there any pressure or tension connected to thinking?

Is the pressure in the head,

Forehead,

Eyes,

Jaw,

Shoulders or chest?

Is there tension in the breathing?

Does the body need to tense anywhere to support the activation of thinking or as part of your thinking?

And is it possible to soften that tension or pressure?

Maybe as you exhale you can relax the thinking brain like you'd relax a muscle.

Let your eyes recline in their sockets and if your mind is making a lot of meaning just merge with the direction of your inhale,

The movement of your exhale.

Thinking thinking come back to your breathing.

Now that we've done some labeling practice to disentangle from thinking just notice how thinking is like a dream.

Thoughts are made up of a little bit more than air and they come and go but they can also fade into the background and we don't have to hold them and react to them in habitual ways.

Thoughts liberate themselves like clouds,

Like dreams.

Now let go of this labeling thought practice and come back to your breathing.

Let thoughts recede into the background and really enter the world of breathing again,

Hanging in there with the breath.

Maybe you can stay connected to feeling a whole series of breaths in a row.

Six,

Seven,

Eight,

Nine breaths in a row.

Just surrendering knowing that you're in your body but just be absorbed by the wave of breathing.

Now lengthen your breath.

Let the eyes open softly.

And I encourage you to bring this practice of noticing thinking noticing the tone of the thinking,

Noticing the voice,

Noticing the quality of images that we call picture thoughts.

And throughout the day keep coming back to the body whenever you notice that you're caught in repetitive thought or rumination.

Thank you for listening.