This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Introduction

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night for those of you getting ready for sleep around the world. I am happy to be here. It's starting to get dark here in the morning, and coming down here on the bike, it's kind of cool to come down in the almost dark.

If you go for a long walk, maybe a long hike, with shoes that are way too small for your feet, after a while if your feet start hurting quite a bit, the problem is not with the walking. The problem is with the shoes. A huge part of human suffering^[1] comes from how people think. Perhaps the problem is not so much the thinking, but rather the clinging to thinking—the shoes into which we put the thinking. If the clinging, the contraction, the craving—that with which we think—is what contributes to suffering, that is where we lose our freedom.

An important part of mindfulness of thinking is not only looking at thinking itself, in all the ways we've looked at it this week, but rather to also look at our relationship to thinking. In particular, we look at the ways that we cling, the ways that what Buddhism would call attachment^[2] arises. This can be really clear, addictive thinking that we just can't let go of. But as meditation gets deeper and deeper, even something seemingly as innocent as interest—"I'm really interested in this"—is a kind of clinging that keeps us glued and attached to the thinking.

Part of meditation, and part of mindfulness, is to start becoming attuned or sensitive to all the ways in which we are clinging, attached to, globbed onto, or glued onto our thinking. For that purpose, it is not necessarily to know the content of what you're thinking, but rather the shoe it fits into—the way we hold it. And so maybe in this meditation, that can be part of what we focus on.

Guided Meditation: Not Clinging to Thoughts

To begin, gently close your eyes. One of the ways to use thinking as a support for meditation is, when you begin a session of meditation, to think instructions for yourself to review the basic instructions that you use. Give yourself a little guided meditation. Rather than letting your thinking do whatever it wants to do, bring it along. Get it to cooperate with what you're trying to do: meditate.

For a minute or two you can quietly, peacefully give yourself instructions. It's a very intentional use of thinking. As you do so, let your thinking become meditative in nature: calm, relaxed, and easy with what's happening. I will do it this morning, and you can just go along with it, or you could quietly repeat it to yourself so that you can get a little sense of what it's like to give yourself instructions, and thereby harness your thinking to start really being here in the present moment.

Take a few moments to adjust your posture, looking to see how you can have a little more alert posture. Let your attention travel up the spine. Perhaps there are very small adjustments in the spine that make the spine feel more alert, all the way up to the last vertebrae where it meets the skull. Sometimes creating a little space between the vertebrae and the skull by tipping the head down a little bit and lifting the crown of the head slightly can bring a little bit more presence.

Take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Settle in as you exhale. Relax the body as you exhale, softening the belly. Let the breathing return to normal, and for a little bit longer, see where in the body you might relax and soften.

If there are other concerns and thoughts that are pulling you away, can you feel any of the pressure, or the contractions, the pull associated with this thinking tightening anywhere in the body? As you exhale, just relax that pressure, pull, and tightness. Then, in a simple, kind way, center attention on the body breathing. Discover where the body's experience of breathing is most available as the home base, the home for attention. For a little while here, you might see what it's like to trust the experience of breathing. Just for this time, trust yourself that this is the most useful and helpful thing to do: just breathe with attention. Accompany your body breathing.

And then you might now bring mindfulness to thinking. If you aren't thinking, you are welcome to go back to your breathing, but if thinking arises, don't let go of it. Bring a kind, calm attention to notice, to be mindful of the thinking. If some of the instructions from the week were helpful, see if you can be mindful not so much of the content, but the process, the activity of thinking. Explore the sensations of the body that are associated, the emotions that are associated, and where the thinking is occurring. Explore the qualities and characteristics of the activity of thinking.

As you're looking at thinking, is there any sense that some part of you is interested in the thoughts? Fascinated, attracted to them? Is there interest associated with fear and anxiety? Is there desire associated with thinking? Do the thoughts represent something that you want or don't want? Are you somehow troubled by your thoughts, maybe even repelled a little bit, pulling away? Or do you have ideas that you should be thinking, or you shouldn't be thinking?

These are all attitudes or reasons why we might be caught up in or involved with thinking. It's possible to feel how much we're involved with our thoughts. Are we "all in," completely involved, feeling that the most important thing happening in the moment is our thinking? Or are we easygoing, thinking but hardly caring what we're thinking about?

Noticing this, is there anything that could be called clinging to thoughts, clinging to thinking? A contraction, a pulling, a pressure to think? Some insistence to be thinking, a compulsion to think? In that compulsion, insistence, or strong pull, it's possible to bring mindfulness to that. Bring simple, calm awareness to the compulsion, the drivenness of thinking. Some of that has to do with the strength of wanting, or the strength of not wanting, that is feeding the way we are involved with or reacting to thinking.

As you breathe, perhaps you can soften, relax, and let go of anything that might be called clinging to thinking—any of that attitude that's fueling the thinking, any of the physical sensations that are part of that drive to think, or the emotions that are part of the drive to think. Relax, soften, and release the drive to think. To whatever degree there's an absence of clinging, appreciate that absence. Let the experience of our breathing feel that absence and space.

Reflections

As we come to the end of the sitting, we can use whatever we've learned about not clinging to thoughts when we're involved with other people. When we're thinking about them, or in conversations with them in which we're also thinking, or when we're helping, supporting, and serving other people, what would it be like to be involved, relate to people, and help people in this world without any compulsion around thinking? Without any drive or attachment to our thoughts, including our attachments and clinging to being of service and helping.

Allow our thoughts to arise and pass freely, to be able to choose which thoughts to allow and not allow. May it be that in the freedom of our mind, without any compulsion or sense of obligation—an obligation which involves some clinging or pressure—we choose to live for the welfare and happiness of others. We can choose to think about how to serve and help, to be helpful, supportive, loving, or caring for others. May it be that our care and compassion arise from a place of non-clinging and non-attachment.

So that when we are concerned for the welfare and happiness of all beings, we have also taken care of our own happiness: the happiness that comes from not clinging, the absence of the suffering of attachment.

May all beings be free of attachment. May all beings be free of the contraction and suffering of clinging. May all beings be happy from the absence of suffering. May all beings be free. And may this wish of ours float widely and far out on the winds of non-attachment, the winds of non-clinging. Thank you.^[3]