Meditation: The Mind Gate

This mindfulness of thinking meditation (and of thoughting -- which are those thoughts arising and appearing without us wanting them to --) provides vivid techniques for becoming and remaining aware of various kinds of mind activity as well as how to probe deeper

Transcript

Wholeness.

Welcome.

Welcome.

Welcome.

This is a short 15 minutes or so meditation on mindfulness of thinking and thoughting.

So grab a comfortable seat,

Take an upright position,

And let's waste no time here.

So once you have your upright position,

Close your eyes if it feels comfortable,

And let's connect with our body first.

Taking some deep breaths,

Connecting all throughout the body.

This will provide an anchor and a support for when we start going into paying attention to thinking.

The other thing I advise you if it gets too overwhelming or the brain or mind seems too out of control,

It could very well be a signal to place one's attention on the heart.

So you can take double hand position on the heart and just disregard what I'm saying pretty much and pay attention to the heart area,

What's going on there.

Sometimes overthinking and the mind being out of control is a signal to pay more attention to the heart.

Also,

Trust your internal guidance over my voice.

As well.

So at any time something comes up where it seems more important or doesn't seem right for you,

Listen to your internal guidance.

A few more deep breaths here.

Now I'll give a few kind of classic instructions for working with mindfulness of thinking.

Mindfulness of thinking is the thinking part is the active part of the mind.

Mind is a beautiful genius machine.

Sometimes it can also go off the rails and want to try to dominate.

So let's look at something helpful around thinking first to prompt the thinking process.

A classic one is what am I going to cook for my next meal?

And just notice what the mind does here.

Sometimes it could do things that aren't as helpful for us like,

Oh,

I don't know what I'm going to cook.

I'm such a bad cook.

I hope everybody will like it when I fix this last.

So all those things aren't as helpful,

But we can notice if anything like that is present.

The thinking mind could also go into,

Oh,

It's going to be so delicious.

I want more and more and more of this thing and it's going to be so great.

And how can I do?

So this is more of the greed mind and that's quite common.

What the thinking mind can actually also do is be very practical and helpful.

Coming up with a meal and then seeing,

Going through the mind and seeing what ingredients and what's needed for it.

And then perhaps what else is needed to go to the store and buy it.

So I'll just stop talking for a moment and let you see what your mind does here around thinking about what you're going to cook for your next meal.

Okay.

The next thing to know about mindfulness of thinking is that a lot of people are visual thinkers,

Meaning that they think in images.

Me,

However,

I primarily think in words.

So however your dominant way of thinking is,

It's okay.

One of the images or instructions for mindfulness of thinking too,

Is sitting back and watching a movie,

Grabbing your popcorn and watching what the mind does.

So let's just imagine that for a moment,

Or actually get into that mode.

Also,

If you're an auditory thinker,

Maybe you're sitting down to listen to one of your favorite podcast,

There's nothing else to do.

You just sit down in a chair and listen to a podcast.

You just sit down in a chair and listen.

So for visual thinkers,

A lot of times the images seem to appear maybe a little bit in front of their head.

And maybe they seem to be projected from inside the head.

But check this out for yourself.

When we prompt a thought like,

Whatever you do,

Don't think of a pink elephant and notice what happens in the mind.

Usually it's quite challenging not to think of something once it's prompted.

So if you saw a pink elephant,

Notice about where in the visual field it was seen.

And then maybe where that image came from.

If you're an auditory thinker,

See if you can tune into the voice of what the thought is and whose voice it is.

Perhaps it's your own voice.

Perhaps it's an authority figure or parent's voice,

Or whomever it might be.

So let's just do that for a few moments.

Sit back,

Grab your popcorn,

Grab your popcorn,

See if anything appears in the mind.

Or if you're thinking in words,

Listen and pay attention to where that voice might be coming from.

Maybe the throat and whose voice it might be.

And if nothing particularly happens,

That's quite okay.

Can just be there in the movie theater before the movie starts or after the movie ends,

Before the next one begins.

Another classic prompting for prompting a thought to happen is where are my car keys?

Where are your car keys right now?

Okay.

Now this is kind of the process of thinking that we kind of want to have to happen,

But not all the times are we in control of our thoughts and thinking.

And this is what one teacher calls thawting.

The mind will thaw on its own sometimes.

Have you ever found yourself not being able to let a song go away?

The song plays over and over in your head as a common one.

Or just find yourself,

Why am I thinking about this?

What does this have to do with anything?

One of the ways we can watch for this,

The image that is given is like a mouse coming out of a mouse hole and a cat,

Where the cat ready to pounce on the mouse.

So where the cat waiting outside the mouse hole,

Waiting to pounce on a thought that emerges.

So let's just take a moment with that image and sit outside the mouse hole and wait and see what thought arises or comes out of the mouse hole.

Did you catch anything?

Sometimes thoughts,

A lot of times thoughts are very subtle,

Just like a very tiny bubble that pops,

Very ephemeral,

Very subtle.

Other times they can be quite noticeable.

When they are quite noticeable,

Another metaphor is like you're taking your car up to a train and you have to wait while the train crosses the road.

And sometimes the tendency is when we're not paying attention,

We run out of the car and we hop on the thought train,

But we don't have to.

We can stay in the car and watch the train go by,

Watch car by car if we want,

But we don't have to jump on that thought train if we don't want to.

Let's spend a few moments with this metaphor of watching the train of thoughts go by in the mind,

If there are any,

While we sit in our car waiting for the train to go by.

Another metaphor here is thoughts being clouds in the sky.

So just as the clouds will move across the sky and out of our sight,

And a blue sky will come and go,

And sometimes it's all cloudy,

On the other end of that is sun,

And there's the blue sky supporting it all.

So again,

Let's try this one out for just a few moments,

Imagining any arising thoughts being like clouds floating by in a blue sky.

Again,

We don't have to make anything happen.

Can totally rest in that blue sky as well.

And now let's go a little deeper.

Let's tune in to the energy involved in thinking and thoughts arising in the mind.

If we tune in,

At least in my experience,

Seems to be kind of like this underlying bubbling energy,

Or a type of mind energy,

Or mental energy maybe,

That is there,

And that thoughts seem to maybe arise out of.

So see if you can tune into this mind energy,

Mental energy,

And see if you can see the dynamics,

Or notice the dynamics of a thought before it rises,

Seeing if you can sense a thought before it arises,

And if there's a choice to not have it arise,

Or if it just slips through and emerges,

Or what that experience and phenomena is like.

So again,

If you can tune into the energy behind thoughts and thinking arising,

And just investigate what that's like,

Seeing if you can catch the emergence of a thought,

Or if it's trying to emerge and there's a choice to not have it emerge,

Or what happens when our attention is placed there.

All right,

Going to bring this meditation to a formal close now.

However,

I won't ring a bell,

So if you'd like to continue practicing these techniques,

Or coming up with your own about mindfulness of thinking and thoughting,

Please feel free to do so,

And I'll see you next time.