Welcome to day two.
I'm glad you're back.
It takes commitment,
Patience,
And discipline to embark on a personal meditation practice.
Stick with it.
Today,
We're going to talk about that rascal we call our minds.
If you watched my video,
The Bad News,
You have an idea of what I'm going to talk about.
Our minds are squirrelly,
Wily things.
Never does this become more clear than when we try to meditate.
This is what makes meditation so difficult,
And is the reason that we start with small and achievable steps.
To understand how our minds work is to receive and learn the programming language to your installed software.
Once you know how it's structured and how it works,
You can begin the process of deprogramming and then reprogramming your mind to match your deeper wisdom and knowing.
What you should know for now is that your mind has no interest in you meditating.
Meditation has numerous benefits to so many aspects of our lives.
It makes us physically healthier,
Mentally stronger,
Clearer and more creative,
As well as spiritually connected.
But meditation is,
Fundamentally,
About dislodging the control that your thoughts have over you.
This is the true liberation from suffering that the Buddhists talk about.
Your mind wants to stay in control.
This is why you receive a constant stream of thoughts about everything in your life that seems out of control.
If you attend to all of those so-called problems,
You,
Or at least the part of you that is your mind,
Believes that everything will be alright.
But the truth is that in this moment,
Right now,
Everything is alright.
It's only the thoughts that tell you otherwise.
So,
Your job,
If you indeed have one as a meditator,
Is to settle into this moment.
Acknowledge that you're having thoughts.
These thoughts will never go away.
And then simply focus on your breath.
The job is to bring yourself back to the focal point of your breath,
Again and again.
It's a bit of a game and a constant joust with a formidable foe.
So set your expectations accordingly.
Your thoughts will not stop.
In fact,
They will likely get louder and more creatively distracting in order to get your attention.
Success looks like a moment of full concentration on the breath.
Success is found in an instant of letting go of the mind's tyranny.
There will be more distraction than focus for a while.
This will seem like failure.
Get used to it.
Those little moments of success are profoundly important and will lead to big gains down the road.
Those little successes will build on each other,
Planting seeds and fertilizing soil.
With patience,
Perseverance,
And some discipline,
That tree will grow before your eyes.
So let's get started with today's meditation.
Sit comfortably.
Either have your legs crossed or feet on the floor.
Allow your back to be straight up.
Be comfortable,
Yet upright.
Remember our focus on the breath.
Taking a breath in through the nose into the belly.
And releasing it out.
And breathing in.
And breathing out.
Starting to feel yourself in your physical body.
Noticing the feeling of the breath.
Listening to your breath.
Imagining the breath coming into your lungs.
Filling your bloodstream with oxygen.
Enlivening you.
Breathing in.
And out.
Allowing yourself to breathe at your own pace.
Focusing on the sounds and the feelings and the visuals.
Your thoughts don't go away.
They never go away.
And for some of us,
This is the biggest obstacle to meditation.
This is the primal cause of our fears and anxieties.
This is what comes after us,
Tries to drag us into different directions.
The thoughts won't go away.
So we will take our attention and put it where we want to put it.
Breathing in and out.
Focusing the attention on the breath.
And for a short moment,
Only noticing that there is breathing.
And then you notice your thoughts.
Thinking comes in,
Tries to grab your attention.
You can notice it.
You can give it a little wave.
Treat it as a cloud going past your awareness.
And instead of grabbing onto it and following what it's telling you,
Just let it pass on by.
Let it go.
And breathe in.
And breathing out.
Thoughts are there designed to distract you from this process.
In normal daily life,
Especially at work,
Your thoughts are vital.
You use them to solve problems.
They are very useful.
For meditation,
They become an obstacle.
They become useless.
But they're incessant.
And they'll continue to come.
So we focus on the breath.
As we become more aware of our bodies,
We sink in to the moment.
Sink in to the present.
And for that moment,
For that precious free moment,
We don't notice our thinking.
Take another breath in.
And another breath out.
And as we go through our day today,
We'll notice how our mind is attracting and directing our attention,
And directing our actions,
And pulling us in various directions.
And during the day,
We can wonder what would happen if you took a break,
A short break,
And a breath,
And allowed the thought to pass.
Gain presence as you do in the meditation.
And then engage with your thinking.
Breathing in.
And breathing out.
And congratulate yourself for completing day two of the meditation challenge.
I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
