Cultivating Space Between Thoughts

We are at half way of this course, we will learn how to cultivate space between thoughts. We often jump on the reactive state of our mind, without realizing the power of scared pause and space. This will be a game changer for overthinking minds.

Transcript

Welcome to day 4 of your 7 day meditation course.

My name is Neha Yogesh.

Welcome to today's practice.

If you haven't done day 1,

2 and 3,

I would highly recommend doing those practices before you arrive for today's practice.

Today we are going to be focusing on cultivating space,

Pause between our thoughts.

You can come to a comfortable seated position before we start this practice.

As soon as you find your seat,

You can try to relax your body.

Cultivate a little bit of ease and softness with your body.

Scan our physical body from crown to toes and toes to crown.

Trying to pay attention and notice if anything is present in your body that's coming to the surface.

Trying to move towards more stillness.

Take few more seconds to just arrive,

Ease into this practice.

Now slowly you are going to pay attention towards your breath.

Noticing your natural rhythm of inhales and exhales.

Not changing,

Manipulating,

Just noticing and observing as it is.

You can start taking few deep breaths now.

Increasing the counts for inhale and exhale.

As you are continuing taking deep breaths,

Today's practice can be a little bit challenging to say the least.

But as you continue taking deep breaths,

You are going to be paying attention towards our thoughts today.

Trying to create space and pause consciously between the thoughts.

As I'm saying these words,

Notice any of the emotions and feelings that's arising in your physical body.

Most of the day when we are doing meditation practice,

We are trying to move away from the thoughts,

Focusing on different aspects of our being.

But today we are focusing on the chitta,

On the thoughts itself.

So now allow yourself to become aware of your thoughts as they are arising.

Notice the thoughts as they are coming and disappearing.

Trying to not get caught up in each thought that's arising or even identifying with them.

Simply observe the thoughts as they are passing through your mind.

Imagine you are standing on a train station and you are looking at the trains that's passing by you which are moving to different destination that you are not interested in.

So you just observe them and let it pass in front of your eyes.

Visualizing the same practice you are doing with your thoughts.

Observing,

Noticing and letting them go.

Now as you notice them pass by,

Now start paying attention to the space between two thoughts,

The pause between two thoughts.

So noticing the first part of the thought,

The start of the thought and the end of the thought.

There is a microsecond of pause before the next thought arises.

We always kind of overlook this part.

There is a pause,

Always a microsecond.

So we are going to now notice those pauses like we did in the last practice.

Noticing the pauses between the breaths.

We are doing the same thing between the thoughts.

Imagine there are five trains.

You are looking at the start of the first train,

End of the first train and there is few seconds before the next train arrives and then the start of the second train and the end of the second train and then pause again.

So jumping between the pauses.

We are not interested in the thoughts.

We are not interested in the train.

We are interested in the pauses.

So you are jumping your awareness from one pause to another and if you can stay in that pause for longer,

You are savoring that moment of stillness,

Of nothingness,

Of the pause,

Of the space that we have created.

Now slowly we will practice increasing this space,

This microsecond of pause.

We are consciously trying to increase that space.

Imagine it's contained in a small circle.

Imagine the circle growing.

The space of nothingness is becoming bigger and bigger.

Maybe it's now a second.

Trying to consciously increase the space between the thoughts.

So as we are doing this,

You are noticing that there is a sense of distance or detachment from your thoughts but you are paying attention to the pauses.

So you are not actually aware of what are the thoughts that are moving and passing by your awareness.

So you are not thoughtlessness.

You have the thoughts and you are paying attention to it in a way but you are paying attention to the start,

End and the space.

So you are not fully getting identified with the thoughts and reacting and dissecting and moving the energy towards it.

Now,

The same practice will apply to the thoughts itself.

So now bring to your mind awareness,

A specific thought or an emotion that is causing you stress or difficulty or keeps reoccurring in your awareness.

And now notice any reactions or patterns that's arriving.

And now take a moment and allow these thoughts to again pass by.

Noticing them,

Acknowledging them,

But letting it go.

Letting it move through your awareness.

If you need to come back to present,

If you are not aware of what is happening,

If you need to come back to present,

If you are getting lost in these thoughts and you are reacting,

Nervous system is reacting now,

Again you can come back to concentrating on the spaces between the thoughts or the start of the thought,

The end of the thought and the next point of the thought.

So we are continuing to practice cultivating space between the thoughts and also getting detached from the identification of the thoughts and paying attention to the thoughts.

This is the first time doing this practice.

It could be,

There could be a lot of resistance towards it.

But just trying your best and trying to focus on my voice.

And as you're doing this practice,

You'll feel a sense of space and clarity that can arise because you're creating this distance from your thoughts.

The thoughts are still present.

You're noticing them,

You're acknowledging them,

But you're not giving any energy to the thoughts.

Giving any energy to the thoughts.

Trying to notice how you're feeling.

What are the feelings that's arising,

Emotions that's arising when we are doing this practice and coming back to your physical body.

Taking few deep breaths.

Inhale and exhale.

We are going to end this practice with again noticing how you're feeling.

Savoring the aftereffects of this practice on our nervous system,

On our mind,

On our body.

And remembering that you have the power to cultivate space between the thoughts.

You have the power to not react to these thoughts,

To acknowledge them,

To notice them and to let it pass.

Choosing to create distance from your thoughts arising and the reaction.

Get both the palms at the heart center again.

We'll take a moment to just practice gratitude towards our body,

Mind and spirit for allowing us to practice,

To be in stillness.

And bow your head towards the heart's wisdom.

Thank you for joining today's practice.

I'll see you on day five.