Five Minute Meds - Thoughts Are Not The Enemy

This five-minute guided meditation explores the nature of thoughts with the help of quotes from spiritual teachers Jeff Foster, Tara Brach, and Alan Watts, as well as author William Stafford and singer-songwriter and Zen practitioner, Leonard Cohen. This exploration of thoughts should ease our relationship with them, coming to see thoughts not as something apart from the flow of life, but as an essential part of it. We can then see that thoughts are not the enemy. The enemy is believing them.

Transcript

This is a five-minute meditation titled,

Thoughts Are Not the Enemy.

Nothing can stop you from thinking.

The human mind is designed to think continually.

Leonard Cohen.

As we begin this meditation,

Let us allow our minds to do whatever they want to do.

If the mind wants to think,

Let it think.

If the mind wants to wander,

Let it wander.

If you find yourself distracted or agitated or resisting what is here,

See if you can just make some space for all of that to happen.

Excluding nothing.

Including everything.

So let us practice like this for a few moments in silence.

Though your thoughts may run into the past or the future,

They cannot escape the present moment.

However far back or forward they try to escape,

They can never be separated from the now.

For those thoughts are themselves of the moment,

Just as much as anything else they partake of and indeed are the movement of life,

Which is tau.

Alan Watts.

Getting distracted is totally natural.

Just as the body secretes enzymes,

The mind generates thoughts.

Tara Brack.

Are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts?

What can anyone give you greater than now?

Starting here,

Right in this room when you turn around.

William Stafford.

In a few moments the bell will ring,

Signalling the end of this meditation.

And as we transition from more formal sitting practice to more informal daily life,

Perhaps we can find some inspiration in the words of Jeff Foster,

Who writes,

Healing is not a destination.

Be here.

Your pain,

Your sorrow,

Your doubts,

Your longings,

Your fearful thoughts.

They are not mistakes.

And they are not asking to be healed.

They are asking to be held here,

Now,

Lightly,

In the loving,

Healing arms of present awareness.