Chanting Meditation For OCD & Intrusive Thoughts

Many of us live with intrusive thoughts or OCD, which can feel overwhelming and relentless. This practice invites you to gently step back from those thoughts, remembering they do not define who you are.

Through a combination of chanting "Om Mani Padme Hum" and loving-kindness meditation, you’ll give the mind something soothing to focus on while awakening compassion for yourself. Chanting helps calm repetitive thought patterns, while the visualization of the Sun offers a grounding presence.

You don’t need to visualize perfectly or believe in anything specific—just your voice and attention are enough.

May this practice bring you moments of rest, release, and kindness toward your mind.

I wish you a beautiful practice.

image: Julien Di Majo

Transcript

Welcome to this self-compassion practice for obsessive-compulsive disorder,

Specifically the affliction where we suffer from intrusive,

Repetitive,

Compulsive,

Often disturbing and unpleasant thoughts.

So first off,

Whether you're laying or sitting,

I want to invite you to get comfortable.

And getting comfortable can also include being mindful.

And what I mean is that instead of just kind of going for the standard position,

Simply take some extra care,

Slow down a bit and feel into your body right now what your body needs at this moment,

Today.

So you can maybe take a deeper inhalation,

A deeper exhalation.

See if you can find some extra relaxation that way,

Specifically minding your facial muscles,

Your shoulders.

If you're wearing glasses,

I highly recommend taking them off.

This allows the face to relax more and when the face is relaxed,

The rest of the body can also relax more.

And just feel if you're sitting,

Are you sitting a bit more on your left buttock or a bit more on your right buttock?

Can you balance that?

Are your shoulders creeping up?

Is there any tension in your face?

And just finding it and letting that go.

What you can also do is to actually deliberately pick up your shoulders,

Like really bring your shoulders to your ears,

Then bring them a little bit back and then down.

You can do that a few times.

It's actually quite nice to make even a rotating movement out of that.

So maybe take your shoulders forward,

Up,

Back and down.

And then you can,

After a few times,

Just let go there,

Release that and just feel into how that feels.

It's probably pretty pleasant.

Then let's just take a moment to connect with the breath.

No need to do any special breathing but just notice the body sensations,

The energy of the breath moving up and down your nose,

In and out of your chest.

Maybe you can feel your belly moving up and down.

Maybe you can even feel your side ribs expanding and contracting as you breathe.

A bit more difficult to notice for people is the breathing that we feel on the back.

So can you feel maybe even the breath touching the back ribs,

The intercostal muscles on the back of your body.

Those are the muscles between your ribs.

And it's not the idea exactly to become free of thoughts but just to let the thoughts be for a moment if they're there and just aim the spotlight of our awareness on the body sensations of breathing.

There's really no right way or wrong way to do this.

You notice what you notice and what you don't notice doesn't matter.

So simply see what you can find.

What do you notice in your breathing right now?

When I do that I typically tend to automatically start breathing a bit deeper,

That's very pleasant.

If you're having difficulty finding sensations around your breathing then you can always deliberately breathe a bit longer,

Deeper,

In and out to kind of amplify the sensations.

Not to do that throughout but just for a few breaths.

Very good.

So I wanted to record this session to offer some compassion for compulsive minds because I have one.

I have a lot of thoughts I sometimes wish I didn't have.

We all do but some of us have it more than others and it can be quite unpleasant.

And so in this session first I want to just simply offer a perspective for you to listen to,

To kind of absorb,

Maybe to remember and then I also want to offer you an actual practice.

And the perspective to begin with is to simply remember that you are not your thoughts.

You do not choose your thoughts.

And there's an interesting thing there because on the one hand we can think deliberately and when we're making a calculation or thinking about what groceries to get we can make thoughts happen.

So that's one category of thinking that we all have.

And then there are just thoughts that come up in us,

We don't know where they come from,

Those are involuntary thoughts,

They can be helpful,

They can be disturbing.

Everybody has disturbing thoughts,

Not everybody is aware of those thoughts.

And then I don't know what's your experience but sometimes for me the compulsive thinking seems to be a bit in the middle of those.

It feels like I am making them but I really wouldn't make them if I didn't want,

If I had a choice.

So it's kind of like in the middle between deliberate and spontaneous thinking.

In any case thoughts are not exactly real,

Right?

They're not connected to the here and now,

They are ephemeral.

So whatever thoughts you are having that are challenging,

Maybe very very disturbing or dark,

They're not real.

Also they do not define you,

A thought does not define you.

So I just want you to kind of breathe with that perspective for a few moments and maybe even dark thoughts come up and I just want you to accept them.

Fighting thoughts is completely futile so don't even try that,

It'll only make you more suffer more but you probably already know that.

So just for a few moments can you let that realization think in that you are not your thoughts.

Having disturbing thoughts does not make you a bad person at all.

It could be helpful for instance to use the old metaphor that your mind is like a lake reflecting the clouds and the birds and maybe those birds are the thoughts that pass through your mind and maybe for you those birds are coming very often and look very scary but you can see clearly that although those birds are reflected in the surface of the lake that your mind is,

The birds are completely not integral to that mind,

They are ephemeral and passing and they actually don't influence the mind or whatever essence is behind that mind at all.

So thoughts are a little bit like that,

We can imagine birds passing on that mirror of the mind of the lake,

That would be deliberate thinking and sometimes birds just pass by themselves or clouds they are not what you are,

They are just passing ephemeral formations.

So I want to invite you to not think about that too much but just let the words fall into you while you just keep breathing,

Keep present,

Keep noticing your body sensations,

Maybe you notice that some tension has crept up in your face or in your shoulders or belly or legs wherever you may find it,

Just notice that and allow that to relax.

So the relaxation is not something we actively do but it's more like an allowing to surrender,

To let go.

Now besides having compassion for ourselves I also want to offer another practice which is actually to create thoughts,

As I said earlier we can have passive thoughts and we can also paint the sky of our mind with our own creation and that is what I want to give you for the second part of this practice.

I've been practicing quite a bit of visualization and mantra and I want to invite you to do the same and I'll give you a choice,

So the full practice will be I'll just first explain it,

You can just kind of keep breathing and just listen to my explanation first.

So the full practice will be that I will and that you will visualize a sun in your chest just very plainly a sun maybe the size of a grapefruit in the middle of your chest shining bright and at the same time we're going to recite the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM.

The mantra OM MANI PADME HUM is Avalokiteshvara's mantra sometimes known as Chenrezi,

There are some other names as well,

This is known as the first bodhisattva in the myth and it's an enormously beneficial being according to again the myth.

It's a very beautiful deity,

You don't have to believe in anything,

It's just a very powerful practice in itself and what it does is that it kind of especially in combination with the visualization in your chest it'll really occupy your mental activity and kind of zone out any obsessive thinking.

There might still be thoughts happening,

Don't mind that,

That is totally fine and if you are finding it a little bit too disturbing then you can kind of increase the volume.

Okay then what you can do is you can do three things,

You can simply listen because I'm going to recite the mantra for about five minutes,

You can of course join me,

It's a very simple mantra,

OM MANI PADME HUM and when you join me you can do that out loud or in your mind,

That's both fine,

All three of those options are fine.

And the way to do it is that I will just keep going and you will if you join me then you will also keep going and you just breathe whenever you need to breathe,

I'll breathe whenever I need to breathe but you don't have to breathe when I breathe,

So it just kind of keeps going,

You know,

If I'm breathing on OM MANI PADME,

Inhaling and then you can still go,

Right?

So let's try that,

So it'll be five minutes,

You can join in,

You can just listen and if you join in you can do it mentally or vocally.

Now first let's install the image of that sun in your heart,

So it's very plain visualization,

Make it a 3D sun if possible,

If that's not possible make it 2D and also you don't have to do this,

Okay?

If this is too complex don't do it.

Lastly,

You don't have to be good at visualization,

You don't actually have to see it,

If you just imagine that it's there as an idea that also works,

It's mostly about the feeling and if you have some visual happening that's great.

So place that sun in your chest,

In the middle,

So not on the front but really inside of your body,

In the middle of your chest,

So where your heart is more or less and just imagine that a warm,

Radiating,

Loving,

Beautiful sun and keep that visualization going while you do the mantra and if ever you feel you kind of lose it just kind of increase it again,

Play with it,

Don't make it too serious,

Okay?

So I'll give you one more moment to kind of place that sun,

So keep that going and now either join me or listen.

Om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum mani padme hum mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum and now just notice how that feels in your body the energy in your body right now after the mantra thank you so this is a mantra you can always do and you can also always remember that you are not your thoughts and your thoughts are not real and having disturbing thoughts doesn't make you a bad person,

Maybe you're not thinking that to begin with but I know some of us do and some of us need to hear that so I want to give you just one more minute of silence to kind of sit in that reverberation then you'll hear the bell and that's the end of the practice,

Thank you

Reviews

What I especially liked was how you admitted you too have or have had obsessive or intrusive thoughts. It made me feel safe with, not judged by, as well as appreciative of, YOU! Thank you for your tips and advice. I feel gratitude 🙏