Inbox Zero & The Power of Silence

In this session we practice "Inbox Zero" with 10 minutes of silence.

Begin with a traditional mindfulness practice of focusing on the sensations of the breath at the nose. If you notice your mind wandering, gently and lovingly bring your attention back to the nose.

Then simply sit and allow the contents of consciousness to reveal themselves. Almost as if you are 'reading the emails' that have built up until your mind reaches inbox zero.

If you notice yourself obsessing on an 'email', take a breath, refocus on the practice, and continue.

This session ends with a discussion of the power and benefits of silence and boredom. Highlighting why the continual distractions available to us may be causing significant harm and how silence could indeed be our best teacher.

Transcript

And welcome to the session. I invite you to lay down. Well, Take a seat. And get yourself comfortable You can close down the eyes if you wish. And just begin by taking some long. Slow Deep breaths in through the nose. Taking a moment to Scan the body. And the mind? Just seeing if there's anything that you can release. Any surface level tensions that you can just. . . Let go of it. Today we're going to be practicing a. . . Variation of mindfulness meditation. Cold. The inbox zero. But first we'll just. . . Begin with. The most traditional form of mindfulness. Turn your attention to the sensations of the breath. Entering and leaving the nose. Paying close attention to The sensations. The feelings are rising. And if your mind wanders, Just gently. . . Lovingly. Bringing your attention back. Our goal isn't to change. The flow of the breath. It isn't even to empty the mind. It's just to become aware of what is arising in this moment. Your mind wanders. Bring it back. Really paying attention. Focusing your mind on the sensation of the breath at the nose. Maybe using the tools of labeling when things pop up. Something pops up. Oh, That's a thought. Something else pops up. Oh, That sound. And then returning your attention back to the breath. For my wonders. Gently. Lovingly. Return your attention back to the breath. That is the whole point of this meditation. Noticing the contents of consciousness. If you'd notice your mind wandering. You're doing it. By deploying our focused awareness on the sensations of the breath at the nose. And our broad awareness. Peripheral awareness. To see. Any potential distractions? Before they derail us. If your mind wanders, Bring it back to the breath. So that's our base or our core mindfulness practice. Focus your attention on the breath. Your mind wanders and you bring it back. There are a variety of different tools that you can use. Like labeling. Broad and focused awareness. And other things to maintain your focus. But that's the base practice. You notice your mind wandering? With loving With compassion, You bring it back. That's the point of the meditation. To notice the contents of consciousness. To repeatedly bring it back. But you can also use mindfulness on just about anything. Any Anchor? Even thoughts. You focus your attention upon the thoughts. Or just even upon awareness itself. Your mind wanders. If you bring it back. An even more advanced practice. Something that has been labeled as an in-box zero practice. By Naval Ravinkant. And the practice is pretty simple, Or at least it sounds simple. The meditation is. . . That you sit. For an extended period of time. And allow the inbox of the mind. Process and release. The idea being is that in the silence, In the sit. The mind will reveal. Open up the inbox Here's an unread message. Process it and release. Process it and release. And so on and so forth. In peace. Comes. Marvelous comes. When that inbox reaches zero. And the daily practice is to sit. And just allow that inbox to go to zero. So with that context, We will sit for 10 minutes. And quite literally just allow the mind to. Reach inbox zero. That's it, If you notice yourself engaging. If you notice yourself. Perpetuating, If you notice yourself obsessing over an email, So to speak. Mental email. That's okay. Take a breath. Return back to the practice of allowing the emails to be read. Let's give it a try If you'd like to maintain the meditation. You're more than welcome to do so. But for everyone else, I invite you to return back to the room. Back to this space. There's something to be said about the benefits of silence. And if you're just allowing the mind to wander. The idea of the inbox zero meditation. Just allowing our minds to sit. In silence. For an extended period of time. Just opening up those emails. Allowing them to process. And just release. The analogy being is that every day We accumulate. And inbox. Of unopened emails in the mind. Thought threads. Conversations that happened. Memories from the past. Anxieties and thoughts and contemplations and ruminations of the future. Internal bodily sensations. Just the workings of the mind in general. All of these accumulate as. Unread emails, So to speak. So the practice of inbox zero is simple. We just allow it to process. The duration of the session. Could sit for 10 minutes. You could say for 60 minutes. But you could also do this practice as. . . A just sort of daily ongoing thing. Rather than playing the podcast or the music. Or some sort of other distraction as driving. Or when you're washing the dishes. Or doing any of those other sort of mundane tasks. Rather than distracting yourself. Rather than putting more information in. Even educational information. Instead, You return to this practice, To the silence. The inbox zero and just allow your mind to process and wander. For whatever reason. Our society currently almost demonizes. What is boredom? It's a lack of stimulation. A lack of input. And it's a little bit confronting because it forces us. Fill that gap fill that silence fill that void with Well, With what? Ourselves, Our unprocessed feelings and emotions. It forces us to read those emails. But there is a tremendous healing benefit. All the silence. Of allowing ourselves to be bored, Of allowing the process to happen. And what's more, It can spur creativity. As you're falling asleep or perhaps as you're having the shower, Thoughts pop up. Because in those moments, Are the rare moments that all of us usually allow ourselves to be in a state of relative silence. What if? What if instead of just those random rare moments, We allowed silence in. And we perhaps even looked to silence as the teacher. What then? Now, Don't get me wrong. There is a. . . Drive to feel the need for more information. Indeed, We're evolutionarily primed for it. More information traditionally has kept us safe. If someone tells you about a dangerous plant or dangerous area or dangers in general. You are very much primed to listen. Why? Because it keeps us safe. Or rather it did. But that same drive now is being super exploited. Super focused upon. Our eyes are gravitated towards. All of the events happening across the globe. Some of which may be significant. But the vast majority are not. But we can't quite tell the difference. So we maintain the viewing, We maintain the scrolling, We maintain the listening. Like it will help us. Some of it, A small percentage may. But the vast majority is just noise. The way I've learnt to filter that out. He's twofold. Number 1 Am I doing this based on a choice? Or did I just sort of mindlessly fall into observing and scrolling and listening? If it's the latter, Turn it off. Number two Am I getting actionable information? Is this story, Podcast, Video, Talk? Whatever, Is it giving me information that I can take action upon? Learning is the changing of behavior in response to information. Getting all of this information. Does it impact what you're doing? Or are you just listening and sort of. . . Getting stressed. If it's the latter, Turn it off. There's a real lasting benefit. To just embracing silence. To allowing. To listening. To being bored. So I encourage you to try. This idea of the Inbox Zero meditation. We're just allowing silence into your life. You could do it formally. For example, Setting a timer for 10. 60. One minute, Whatever works best for you. And just allowing. You could do that, And I strongly encourage you to do. But you could also just allow silence into your life. The moments that you find yourself filling the silence with noise. While cleaning. While traveling. Maybe instead. Just a laugh of silence. It will feel uncomfortable at first. Because you're not used to it. But eventually when that inbox gets close to and hits zero, You'll discover the present moment. And the teachings that are available to you, The wisdom. My final thoughts on this are that before all of the tech. Before all of modern society. Humans evolved. We came into this world when there was relative silence. That are normal. And normal is relative silence. So there might be something there to return to. It might feel uncomfortable at the start. But what if. . . A lot of the hang-ups. A lot of the neuroses, The anxiety, The depression, All of it. What if all of that is compounded by noise? Or rather by a lack of silence. The silence that we evolved to expect. Give it a try.