Meditating On The Mind

In this guided meditation and talk from a live session, Shaila offers strategies and techniques for meditating on the mind. The acronym RAIN can help us in this endeavor. In each experience we Recognize, Accept, Investigate, and Not-identify with it. By practicing this over and over, we develop an equanimity with whatever life brings forth.

Transcript

This guided meditation was recorded at a live event.

I hope that you'll find it useful and supportive of your meditation practice.

Please take a posture that is comfortable to sit in,

Where the body can be upright and relaxed,

Where your breath can move easily and freely.

Let the attention drop into the body and settle into the present moment as you listen to the instructions that follow and let them guide or inspire or inform your meditation practice.

When meditating on the mind,

We often benefit by some kind of a strategy,

Simply because the habit is when we turn to the mind,

We often just believe it.

We get lost and involved in the stories of past and future,

All the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and how we are and what kind of person we are and what we want to become.

So in order to use the mind as an actual meditation object,

A perception that we can stay attentive to,

That we can explore and investigate and come to understand with wisdom,

We need some kind of an approach.

And the approach that I'd like to recommend today is one that many of you are probably familiar with already,

And it goes by the acronym RAIN.

So the first is our recognize.

We need to recognize what mental states are arising.

What is the quality of the mind?

Is the mind contracted in dullness or is it scattered in restlessness?

Is it expanded with concentration and stability?

Or is it twisted or distorted or contracted with grasping?

Is there desire that's occupying our attention?

Or are we able to relate to experience whatever we're aware of with non desire,

Non lust,

Seeing things without trying to get more or less of them?

So first we recognize it.

What's happening in the mind?

And some Vipassana techniques encourage the practice of mental noting or labeling so that if sadness arises,

We note sadness,

Sadness,

Sadness as we're observing it.

And as we're observing it,

We might realize that the sadness shifts a little bit and that there's sadness,

But there's some interest,

Interest or longing,

Longing.

There's something we want,

Desire,

Desire,

Desire.

And we use the mental noting to track the changing sensations,

To continuously recognize what is happening in the mind moment to moment.

Now the second letter in RAIN is A.

So with A we accept that it arose.

Accept doesn't mean we have decided it will always be this way.

No,

That's not acceptance.

Acceptance is not a kind of resignation.

It's not a kind of delusion that translates a momentary experience into the future.

Acceptance is willing to see the momentary present experience as that.

It is the experience that's arising in the present moment.

We accept that.

So we recognize the mental state that arose and we accept that it arose.

I was speaking with somebody today who had a very nice way of approaching this acceptance where she said that when a state arises,

She sometimes embraces it.

Think about the possibility of holding your own mental states with that sense of can you embrace it?

Not indulge in it,

But hold it tenderly,

Dearly,

Near to the heart.

So if there's dullness,

Instead of judging ourselves for being dull,

Can you for that moment that it is present,

Hold it dearly and look at it,

Experience it,

Know it,

Recognize it and accept it?

If sadness arises and grief or loneliness,

Can you embrace that and know it?

If desire,

Fear arises,

Can you know that?

And also the wholesome states of tranquility,

Of equanimity,

Of a concentrated mind,

Can you embrace that?

So we recognize and we accept what has arisen.

And then I stands for investigate.

Once we are holding the object of the attention,

We can look at it.

We can investigate it.

We can understand what caused its arising.

We can see it passing.

We can investigate it as impermanent phenomenon.

Okay,

Sadness has arisen.

We can recognize the sadness.

We can accept and we can embrace it.

We can hold it.

And as we're holding it,

We can observe it.

And what do we observe about sadness?

Well,

We might know that we experience it some way in the body.

You know,

We might feel it affect our breath or affect our belly.

We might feel some contraction or some release in the body with the sadness.

So we can experience it in the body.

We can recognize and we can know as we investigate it what gave rise to it.

Oh,

This feeling of sadness perhaps was triggered by a thought or a comparison.

So we can start to see different mental patterns that might be reinforcing different feelings and emotions.

And one thing that we will always notice probably is that whatever it is that we're observing and investigating is changing as we're observing it.

The impermanence of phenomenon is something that we can observe and recognize as we look at it.

So we recognize that it arose.

We accept that it arose.

And we investigate whatever that mental state is to see its individual characteristics,

How we are experiencing it right then,

To see it in time,

What caused it,

What causes it to arise,

What causes it to end,

And to see that it is impermanent,

To see its very nature.

So we recognize,

We accept,

We investigate,

And then we come to the N in this acronym of RAINN.

N stands for non-identification.

We do not identify with it.

We could say non-attachment.

We are not attached to it.

It means the same thing.

Very often when we don't look closely at our experience,

We build up a sense of being the experiencer.

If we're frequently sad,

We develop a self,

A personality,

A view of ourselves as being a depressed person or a sad person or a slow person.

If we're frequently happy and delighted,

Then we develop a self-image that has that quality of buoyancy and delight.

One might be preferable to the other from the experiences of what feels good,

But both can have that,

The tendrils of attachment.

So in this practice,

We recognize whatever mental state arose,

We accept that it arose,

We investigate it to understand that particular arising and also recognize its impermanence.

And then we do not identify with it.

So we experience a non-attached or non-identified relationship to it.

We simply don't take it personally.

We don't use it to build up a sense of self.

We don't use it to develop the concept of this is mine,

This I am,

This is myself.

So this practice of working with the rain,

Recognizing,

Accepting,

Investigating and not identifying can be explored with anything that you experience.

You feel a pain and then there's an aversion to it.

OK,

Recognize that process,

Accept it,

Investigate it so that we understand it and know that that's not who we are.

Something else arises.

There's a beautiful sound and we're longing for more.

Recognize,

Accept,

Investigate it.

And no,

That's not who and what we are and it's not ours.

We have a thought and that thought triggers an emotion and it starts to trigger a story and we start to plan what we're going to do and how we're going to plan this and how we're going to do it.

We start to plan this and how we're going to avoid this.

And we start to get into these scenarios in our minds.

Recognize that restlessness,

Accept that it arose,

Investigate it just enough to understand what triggered it,

What are the causes that are sustaining it,

What's the quality of that energy and know that it doesn't say who we are.

And then there are other states as well.

Mindfulness arises.

Recognize the presence of mindfulness,

Accept that it arose,

Investigate it so that you don't only understand the causes for the arising of hindrances,

But also understand that there are causes for the arising of mindfulness.

And that's also impermanent.

And we don't need to identify with mindfulness and become the mindful meditator.

We can identify with mindfulness,

With body,

With equanimity,

With concentration,

With loving kindness,

Compassion.

We can recognize when compassion arises,

Accept that it arose,

Investigate it so we understand it.

And we don't need to identify with compassion either.

We can explore with wholesome or unwholesome.

We can explore with rain.

And because we don't want to be so busy or it'll be exhausting actually investigating every single mental state with rain,

We still use the body and the breath as the anchor for present moment attention.

So the mind grow calm and still and settled.

Just sitting and breathing.

And then periodically when something draws your attention,

Take a moment to apply this four part exploration of recognizing,

Accepting,

Investigating and not identifying.

And each time you get drawn away with a train of thought,

You can use that moment when you recognize that you've been lost in thought to either look at that quality of being lost and the mental states associated with it,

Or to look at the waking up the quality of mindfulness.

And hopefully you'll have plenty of opportunities to explore these various mental states.

And then as much as you like,

Simply resting the attention in present moment wakefulness.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Reviews

This practice if used regularly will dismantle suffering. Thank you🙏

Will definitely listen again,
Excellent guidance

a clear explanation of the R.A.I.N acronym in the exploring / developing a meditation practice. Very useful

This is so helpful! I will continue with the RAIN method. Thank you, Shaila.

Loved it and I will be back to listen again! Loved learning about RAIN, it’s what I needed today and going forward.
🙏🙏🙏

Absolutely wonderful ❤️
Thank you for my first RAIN meditation ❤️

RAIN is amazing ……

Very helpful. Thank you

Explaining a good strategy, helps you adopt a proactive approach to meditation..and life:) particularly find the N interesting

A comprehensive and insightful guide for the practice of presence. 🙏

Amazing, loved the process very clear and true and going to put it into practice :) thank you

Love the rain practice thank you

Thank you for sharing this process. Well defined and presented. It will be valuable for everyone. I appreciate receiving it.

A very helpful methodology. Thank you.

Great application of instruction!!

New way to practice non-attachment in meditation. Namaste🙏

This will be very useful to me when I am preoccupied with a turmoil of life. Often. Too often. Namaste 🙏