Welcome to this meditation on clarity of mind with Peter Radcliffe.
When you're ready we shall begin the meditation.
Begin as usual by finding a comfortable position and then taking several deep breaths all the way down to the stomach as low as you can go.
Holding it for a moment before releasing it smoothly and then once you've relaxed in this way turn your mind inwards into the mind itself.
Your consciousness or your mind is whatever thoughts you are having at this present moment.
The colours,
The shapes,
The sounds,
The feelings,
All of these are the mental images that your mind knows as thoughts.
They are simply mental constructs.
These mental constructs are necessarily made out of our five sense perceptions.
So take a look at these thoughts,
These mental constructs and the one thing you can't help but notice is that they are constantly changing.
No thought ever lasts for even the briefest second before it changes on to the next part of the mind stream.
It's like a river constantly flowing down with thoughts occurring all the time.
Just take a while to keep observing these thoughts and keep understanding the transitory nature,
The constant flux of these thoughts.
By doing this we start to generate an idea of the impermanence of these thoughts.
And if these thoughts are as impermanent as we can see them at this moment then it's impossible to grasp any one thought as a permanent idea of who we are.
If you've defined yourself with something like I'm no good or I'm bad at maths or even that I'm an engineer or I'm a doctor,
Just see if you can hold that thought.
Just hold it in your mind and see how long you can be that thought.
And the truth is even by trying to hold a thought it slips away almost before we've begun.
That is the nature of the mind.
And so if the mind can't grasp that thought for longer than a microsecond then how silly is it to grasp onto these identities over the longer term.
So now in the next stage of the meditation,
Try to move beyond the coming and goings of thought and try to feel the texture or the background of the mind itself.
It is it that allows these sometimes vibrant thoughts to manifest in the first place.
Try to look at the very nature of the clarity of mind.
The clarity of mind is totally pure.
There are no obscurations whatsoever.
The thoughts are manifest exactly as they are without any pollution whatsoever.
Another thing is the mind is completely infinite.
Just go ahead and think about the whole universe.
It's easy to do.
We can think about the stars billions of light years away and all of that fits inside our mind as easy as thinking about a sesame seed.
And finally the mind is completely empty.
It has to be empty otherwise the thoughts,
New thoughts couldn't arise.
So go ahead now and just be aware of this clarity.
If you find this a little difficult then one tip is to imagine yourself lying on your back on a hillside looking at the sky.
The sky is often used as an analogy for the mind,
Completely open,
Completely blank.
Thoughts are also used as the analogy for thoughts are the clouds in the sky.
So if thoughts do occur,
Just see them as passing clouds in the sky.
But in this part of the meditation concentrate more on the sky itself and just allow the thoughts to come and go without much notice.
Continue to do this for as long as you are able to.
And when you finally finish make a dedication to try to permanence of thoughts in the rest of your day as you go about your business.
And if you are able to achieve this you will find that you will become more mindful,
More calm and less stressed throughout the day.
