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Guided Meditation: Observing Thinking

So, warm greetings, and welcome to our adventure with breathing for today. It is kind of a lifetime adventure to practice meditation and live a life attuned to breathing, in touch with your breathing, and aware of how your breathing is going at any given time. Awareness of breathing helps us to avoid spending unnecessary energy as we go through our life, especially the unnecessary energy of tension, anxiety, ambition, or over-efforting.

Many of the ways that we become stressed have to do with an over-exertion of energy in the muscles—so that they are too tight—and also in the mind. All of that gets translated into the breathing. The breathing gets shallow, gets tight, and moves up into the chest rather than being a deeper, abdominal breathing. Beholding our breathing, being attuned to it, and breathing in an easy, relaxed way is a way to not over-effort in our lives.

So, assume a meditation posture and close your eyes. Feel the weight of your body against the surface that is keeping you from falling to the center of the earth—your chair, your cushion, the floor, your bed, whatever it might be. Feel the contact of your body against this surface. Maybe rock side to side, sway forward and back, and then settle in. Wiggle in a little bit to really settle into that spot where there is a surface holding you.

Take a few moments to feel the edges of your body, your skin. Notice where your skin touches your clothes, and where it touches your cushion or chair. Also notice wherever tingling, vibration, warmth, and coolness—sensations on the skin—become apparent as you are sitting here. Have a global, wide awareness of sensations all over your body on your skin. Maybe it is a flowing sensation, a tingling, or a vibration. Maybe there are some sensations that fleet in and out of awareness, sparking in and out of awareness as your attention roams around.

Notice where the contact of your skin may be against your clothes, or against the surface you're lying on. Notice where breathing has an impact. With the inhale—the expansion of the chest or the belly, the lifting of the shoulders—it causes more contact with your clothes or surface. You can feel the sensations of movement and contact. Feel the rhythm of the sensations of the contact of the body moving as you breathe against your clothes or the back of your chair. There may even be a very subtle movement, a sensation of pressure, way down to the cushion you're sitting on. Notice sensations in the front ribcage, the back ribcage, the sides of the ribcage, and maybe even the belly.

Bring your attention inside your body, maybe not far from the skin. Bring your attention a little bit inward to where you usually experience your breathing. Feel the movement of sensation, the changing sensations with the inhale and exhale.

As you exhale, relax deeper into your body. Soften the shoulders. As you exhale, let the belly become softer. As you relax the holding in the body, the tension, you are relaxing the extra energy you are expending. Soften and relax in the face, so there is less energy going into holding the muscles. Relax the shoulders and the arms, so less energy is expended. Paradoxically, with less energy expended in tension, there can be a feeling of vitality or even flowing energy.

The same thing is true in the mind, the thinking mind. If there is any tension, pressure, or agitation there, maybe as you exhale you can relax. Let go. Expend less conscious energy in mental activity. It turns out the mind works much better, more creatively, and wiser when less anxious or tense energy goes into it.

Settle into the body breathing. Here too, the art of meditation is to stay committed to breathing without a lot of extra energy, without any strain. For some people, it can be helpful to hold the notion of being receptive to the inhale, and allowing the exhale. Maybe relax a teeny bit at the end of the exhale to have a little pause, a micropause, so that you are more sensitive to receiving the beginning of the inhale. Notice how the inhalations [word?]^[1], how the inhale arises on its own.

Be receptive to the inhales and allow the exhales, as you maybe would if floating gently on the sea. Imagine being gently lifted and lowered by the small waves coming and going, allowing yourself to be held by the buoyant water. Allow yourself to float on the inhales and exhales. Some effort is needed to be receptive and allowing, while at the same time letting go and allowing the breathing to come to awareness.

Let go of your interest in thinking, and let your interest be in floating on the gentle waves of inhales and exhales. It is like you're floating on your back on a wide, peaceful sea, gently being lifted and lowered by the peaceful waves. Relax the tension associated with thinking—the pressure, the contraction. Allow the thinking to become quieter, so you can trust staying with the breathing more fully.

If you can imagine yourself floating on your back on a peaceful sea, imagine that as you are looking up into the sky, a few clouds are drifting by in the blue. In that way, stay connected. Stay floating on your breathing, but notice whatever thinking is happening, like clouds drifting by. The intention is not to be involved with the thinking, but to have a view from a distance where very little energy is used to think.

Let go of the extra energy to think, to be involved, to be engaged in thought. Relax the energy of thinking, the efforting of thinking. While you stay with the inhales and exhales without a lot of effort, be aware of the thoughts that flow through.

Notice as you are thinking: do you think more in words or more in images? Or is it kind of equally both? In recognizing whether it is more words, more images, or equally both, is it easier for you to notice your involvement with thinking, the energy expended to think, and the tension involved in thinking? If so, as you exhale, can you relax and quiet that energy, that effort? And as you do so, settle more into your breathing.

Reflections

Our bodies and our minds operate more harmoniously when we stop using unnecessary energy and effort. The very effort to try hard at something unnecessary is counterproductive. It interferes with the natural wisdom, the natural sensitivity, and the natural harmony that is available when we don't apply unnecessary energy. Before we learn to not do so, it is useful just to recognize when there is unnecessary energy in the form of tension in the body, in the mind, and in the thinking.

As we come to the end of the sitting, perhaps you can intuit or feel: Oh, without tension, without this extra energy of tension, pushing, and trying, there is more room in us for happiness, for well-being. There is more room in us for love, goodwill, and compassion.

To end this sitting, be open to the joys and sufferings of this world, and be open to them without resistance. Breathe with them. Be willing to be a companion to the world's joys and the world's sufferings. Breathe with the world, and in doing so, before needing to do anything more complicated, perhaps let your kindness spread out from you to the world. A simple kindness which wishes well for others, wishes the best for them.

May all beings be happy.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings be peaceful.
May all beings be free.