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Guided Meditation: Thinking Well in Meditation

Hello everyone, and welcome to our meditation together. Thank you for all the greetings on the chat.

Sometimes meditation is associated with having a quiet mind. That can certainly be one of the pleasures and wonderful aspects of meditation. Sometimes a quiet mind is associated with having no thoughts. That also can happen, but all in its own time.

Something you might want to think about is that part of what we do in meditation is to change our self-talk—how we talk to ourselves, the nature of our thinking itself. Sometimes it's more useful to think about adjusting our thinking or self-talk than it is trying to fight it and stop it. Partly, that's to create the conditions where it's easier for thinking to become quiet and calm. If thinking is very active, assertive, afraid, and has a lot of strong drive in it, it can be almost counterproductive to struggle against it. Instead, you can join it in a certain way in order to adjust it.

Just like you would adjust your speech if you were at a loud party, happy to see your friends again for a long time, and talking loudly, versus going into a nursery school when the kids are napping, or entering some kind of sacred ceremony where everyone is quiet—you would quiet your voice in these different settings.

So, think of entering into meditation as a time to certainly quiet your thinking, but also to shift your thinking so that you're thinking well of yourself. You are not dwelling and ruminating on your challenges or negative self-talk, but there's a gentle movement towards thinking in ways that are supportive, generous to yourself, and generous to the world. It involves an active shifting to thinking well and asking yourself, "What would be beneficial right now? How could I address my pain and suffering? How can I think about it in ways that are supportive and compassionate? How can I appreciate the good qualities and strengths that I have when I sit to meditate, and not have a negativity bias and look for the problems all the time, but look at what's beneficial and how I am fortunate in this moment?" It's not to be sentimental or Pollyannish about it. Sometimes, the excessive criticalness we live in and the drivenness of thinking is not really beneficial for anyone. It's quite appropriate to shift the way we think.

You don't have to make this a full-time practice during this meditation, but you might, in the beginning and from time to time, see if it can be helpful for you to shift how you're oriented to your thinking. Think in ways that are beneficial, positive, and supportive, especially what's supportive for the meditation practice itself. Your thinking begins shifting towards the present moment, here and now, and not about things that are in other places, other times, plans, memories, and things, but having a positive regard for what is here. As you do that, you might find that it becomes easier to begin letting go of thoughts, settling down into the meditation, into the breathing, and being here.

So, taking an upright, alert posture, or any posture that supports you in your meditation, gently close your eyes. Before doing anything else, take a few moments to consider: in what ways can you think about yourself and your circumstances right now in a positive way, in a generous way, in a kind way? Here, now, maybe with appreciation for yourself. Have caring thoughts for your own well-being.

Then, take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Be aware of the body as you breathe deeply, perhaps aware of being slightly conditioned or influenced by your good thoughts as you sit here. As you exhale, relax and let go. Then, let your breathing return to normal.

With thoughts that are generous and caring, direct your attention to different parts of your body. As you exhale, generously relax or soften. If you're able to relax some parts of your body, don't rush on to the next thing, but have some thoughts of appreciation that you had this opportunity. Especially relax the shoulders and the belly. Sometimes the hands can be loosened up a bit. As you exhale, you might also relax any tension associated with thinking—any pressure to think, tightness, or contraction around thinking. Relax the thinking muscle.

Perhaps gently, calmly, and quietly appreciate anything you can appreciate about these first few minutes of meditation. Have thoughts of appreciation for being maybe a little bit more connected to yourself, a little bit more calm, and a little bit more relaxed. Experiment with thinking where the self-talk has a tone of support, warmth, and goodwill for yourself, putting aside any harshness or criticalness that might be there.

Then, have a few gentle, quiet thoughts about turning your attention more fully into the breathing—thoughts about how the inhale is different than the exhale, simple thoughts about how you might rest in the experience of breathing more fully.

Maybe you can have a few simple thoughts about how there's so little you need to think about right now. It's enough just to be here, breathing. If you do find yourself thinking, notice whether the thinking is supportive, kind, or wholesome. If it isn't, switch your thinking to something that's wholesome in relationship to being here meditating.

Then, maybe let go of your thoughts or quiet your thinking. Gently quiet your thinking, relaxing the energy, the pressure to think, and the forcefulness of thinking. Let it become quieter and quieter, softer and softer, making more room in awareness for resting on the breathing, for experiencing breathing more fully.

As we come to the end of this meditation, maybe you could have a few wholesome thoughts as you consider the world around you and the people who you are liable to think about or encounter today or in the next period. Have wholesome thoughts about them, maybe of appreciation, goodwill, and well-wishing for them.

Have a few wholesome thoughts about yourself, appreciating yourself and anything about how you are at this moment. Maybe think about how you are at this moment might support you in supporting others, in being friendly to the people you will encounter or think about.

May it be that any benefits that have come from this meditation, you consider how you might quietly and wholesomely use them to benefit others and contribute to the welfare and happiness of the world. May it be that meditation practice for us is a means by which we can live a better life, contributing to the welfare and happiness of all.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings everywhere be free.

Dharmette: The Dharmic Life (2 of 5) Attention to Speech

The topic for this week is how to replicate at home, in your daily life, some of the benefits that come from living a religious life in the Dharma^[1]—for example, living on a retreat or in a monastery. Some people have a strong desire to really plunge more deeply into the practice, and sometimes, because of family and work, they can't go off and spend a serious amount of time devoting themselves to the Dharma. That's a wonderful desire to deepen that way, and I support it wholeheartedly.

You can get a lot of the benefits in your daily life by practicing in ordinary life. Sometimes, practicing in everyday life and not leaving to go someplace special has a kind of honesty to it, or a richness. It's really addressing some of the issues of our life rather than avoiding them and thinking that by avoiding them in a monastery, we can somehow make progress. There are some simple ways that, in principle, are not very complicated, but in practice can be quite significant and profound.

Yesterday I talked about bringing more attention to the body, living a more embodied life, and coming back to your body over and over again throughout the day, whatever you're doing. See and understand what's happening in the body and the experience of the body, and learn from it.

Today, I want to emphasize speech—how we talk. That can be talking with our voice, the communication we do electronically, or how we talk to ourselves (self-talk). There are many things to say about Right Speech^[2] and speaking well. There's a tendency in Buddhism, when we speak about speech and Right Speech, to look a little bit more on the ethical side of it, like I did this last Sunday, where we evaluate it by its impact or how we're doing it. But the other way is to practice mindfulness of speaking. This means not so much looking at whether what we're saying is beneficial, true, kind, or timely—all good criteria for knowing how we speak—but simply bringing a non-judgmental awareness and mindfulness to speech itself and to our communication.

As we do so, we become more aware of how we are as we speak. What is prompting us to speak? What are the emotions? What are the body sensations? How is the body activated as we speak? Are we settled in our body? Are we outside our body? Are we leaning in or pulling back with our body? What is happening with our body as we speak? What emotions are there with this speaking? To what degree is there impatience when we speak? To what degree is there a forcefulness, like you have to get your word out, and wondering, "Can't the person stop speaking so I could speak?" There's a whole slew of things to become aware of if we simply stop—maybe not stop literally, but start becoming attuned to what's happening with you as you speak. So, just practice mindfulness of speaking.

One of the reasons why this is so powerful is that speaking is the tip of the iceberg. It represents so much of our beliefs, assumptions, desires, aversions, orientation about life, or belief about what the purpose of life is, as well as the sense of self that has been reconstructed and lived with. There are so many things that are underneath the tip of that iceberg. If we just stop and take a good look at it, we start seeing these underlying things, and we learn so much about ourselves.

For example, if you want to do one thing that can reveal so much, before you speak, ask yourself: why are you speaking now? Why do you want to speak? Maybe don't settle for the first answer. If you say, "I want to speak because they asked me for directions, so I want to give them directions," maybe that's true, but that might overlook the benefits of this exercise. Instead, you ask, "Yes, they asked me for directions, and so I wanted to give them, but more deeply, why am I speaking? Oh, I'm trying to prove to them I'm a good direction giver, or I want them to like me, or I don't want to be seen as being unfriendly and so I want to try to make up for it." There are all kinds of things that can be there. Often, there isn't just one reason why we speak, but there are multiple reasons why we're going to say what we're going to say. It can be quite humbling to see all the motivations we have as part of it. It's a window into what's under the water of the iceberg; you can see so much more of who we are.

One of the interesting areas to look at with speech is through the idea that leaders sometimes lead from the front, and sometimes lead from behind. Leading from the front is like leading the charge and pushing ahead, bringing everyone along, or encouraging everyone to follow. Leading from behind is more encouraging. It's more like letting other people take the lead and giving them enough space to be who they are and go forward, and then to offer support and guidance from behind, like a shepherd. Encouragement from behind means that other people don't feel like they're in the wake of a leader; they don't feel like they're only doing someone else's bidding.

In the same way, when you have self-talk and talk to yourself, are you asserting yourself? When you are speaking to others, are you asserting yourself? Are you pushing ahead with some agenda that you want to do? Are you leading from the front? Are you pushing yourself into the forefront? Or is there some appropriate way to lead from behind with your self-talk, or with how you talk to other people? Leading from behind means that we're not asserting ourselves. We're not trying to manipulate or change situations in a driven kind of way. We certainly can still be involved in changing what needs to be changed, but maybe there's more of a sense of cooperation, more of a sense of receptivity, and more of a sense that we're coming from a place of really being more in touch with ourselves and more connected to ourselves.

Sometimes, if we're advancing in the front and leading the whole show, by being ahead of ourselves and trying to focus on what we want to accomplish when we speak, we lose touch with ourselves. We're not so much in touch with the feelings, the emotions, and the centeredness. We're not resting on ourselves. I've certainly talked sometimes where I felt like I was in front of myself; I was not really inhabiting my body.

When we lead from behind, we're at rest here. We're connected to ourselves. We know what's happening. We can track our feelings and emotions. We can recognize when we're speaking in unwholesome ways much more easily than if we're leading in the front. We're not really following and tracking ourselves as carefully because we're focusing on what we're trying to accomplish and what we're trying to get across. So, become aware of what you are doing when you speak. Why do you speak? Why are you saying what you want to say? Go through the layers of that. Be aware of the mindfulness of the body as you speak. Be aware of what's really happening in the bigger picture of yourself around what you're speaking or wanting to speak. Are you being driven by your speech? Are your speech, your thoughts, and your ideas ahead of you, pulling everything else about you with it—leading from the front? Or is your thinking coming along with some deeper motivation, a deeper way of being in the world, supporting and guiding, offering some leadership from behind? In this way, you're connected and supportive of everything that is who you are. This is mindfulness of speaking.

That gives us the wherewithal to have more choice about what we say, to track what we're about to say, to notice what's wholesome and what's unwholesome, what might have negative consequences, or what might be hurtful, versus saying things which are supportive, kind, and positive. Then we are better able to choose not to say this, but to wait and not speak until we have something better to say, something more useful to say, or a more useful way of saying it.

There's an ancient saying that speech is more like an arrow than a sword. If you shoot an arrow, you can't pull it back, but if you pull a sword out of a sheath, you can always put it back in the sheath. So, be careful with your words and what comes out of your mouth. By practicing mindfulness of speaking and leading from behind, we see what's coming and what words want to be said. Then we have much more wisdom. If our words are going to be a sword that we're going to stab someone with, and we can see it, then you can put it back in the sheath and see if you can say something more supportive, helpful, or beneficial in the situation.

Mindfulness of speaking. Of course, you don't have to do this, but if what you want is to live a Dharmic life and have the Dharma much more fully in your life, in a way that is as beneficial as going on retreats or going to a monastery, this is a way to do it. There is a tremendous benefit and tremendous good to come out of this. Start slowly. Don't feel like you have to do it all or nothing. Don't go from zero to sixty with mindfulness of speaking in three seconds. Maybe you do it over days, where you slowly begin to stretch yourself into this world of speaking so that you're leading from behind, tracking, watching, and attentive to the whole world that's happening in yourself as you speak.

One of the great benefits of this is certainly that you can speak into the world in a way that's more beneficial for others, but you also begin shifting how you talk to yourself. Maybe you'll find yourself more often with wholesome self-talk instead of unwholesome self-talk.

In these next 24 hours, you might want to take time to practice with this and look at it. One way to do this that supports the practice is to talk with friends about mindfulness of speaking. Ask them what they've learned, or tell them what you're learning or experimenting with. Then do the experiments, do the exercise, and see what you can learn today by pausing more, and thereby being more mindful. Thank you.