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.

Mindfulness of Thinking (2 of 5) The Process of Thinking

So, this is the second talk now on mindfulness of thinking. One of the principles of mindfulness, Vipassana^[1] practice, in relationship to thinking is that we switch from focusing on the content of thought to the process of thinking, to the activity of thinking, to what the experience of thinking is actually like for us.

An exercise that can maybe help with this, if you think in words, is to imagine that the words are being spoken in a language that you don't know. You have no idea of what's being said, but you're very interested. So, you tune in to the emotional quality of the voice, the speed of the voice, the calmness of the voice, the agitation of the voice. It's all these other things you start paying attention to.

Excuse me for a minute here; there's still a little bit of smoke here in Redwood City.

Paying attention to these other aspects of thinking begins filling out the picture of what a thought is, what thinking is. It turns out that thinking is a composite. It's made up of many different elements, and that's especially true if the thinking is strong.

One of the very useful mindfulness exercises is to pay careful attention to your thinking in everyday life. It doesn't mean all the time. But, for example, if you find yourself really frustrated with something—if your technological device is not cooperating in the proper way and you feel frustrated—then look at the quality and the process of your thinking. Is your thinking now contracted? Is it forceful? Is it even aggressive? Is it sinking? Is it getting dull and sort of giving up? What are the qualities that come along with the thinking? Annoyance?

If you get a very nice message from someone and it really makes your day, what's the thinking like then? What's the quality of thinking, the characteristics of thinking? What happens then?

When big things happen, if you're trying to really solve a difficult problem—maybe you have a flat tire and you have to get someplace, and you're not quite sure how the jack works to jack up the car, and you're trying to figure it out—take maybe fifteen seconds to look and see what the quality of your thinking is then. Then, start going through a bit of a checklist of the different things you can notice about thinking.

One of them is: what are the physical sensations that come along with that thinking? Is the forehead all furrowed up? Are the eyes tightened and fixated? Those are all physical sensations of tension, tautness, or contraction. Have the shoulders gone up higher than they usually are? Is the belly contracted? There are all these places in the body that might somehow contract. I think of it sometimes like there are these tentacles from the thinking mind that reach down into our muscles, tugging all the different muscles in different ways at different times. So, what are the muscles that are being tugged on with this kind of thinking that we have?

Is the thinking right now more in images or is it more in words? If you're problem-solving, is it more in words than in images? If you're having a fantasy, is it more in images than it is in words? Look and see how it works for you. What's happening?

Then, is there a location for where the thinking occurs? Is there a place where the loudspeaker is blasting out the thoughts? Is it a projection screen where the images are projected, or a stage upon which that happens?

What happens if you simply locate the location of thinking? For some of us, thinking can be so compelling, and we're so in it, that it just seems like the nature of reality. It's like thinking is really the main game, the main show, what's going on. We're seeing everything through our thinking or with our thinking. Maybe we don't even see the outside world; we're really just seeing our ideas, our concepts, our judgments, what's going on. It doesn't have a location, it just is. It just wafts and spreads. It's just there, with never any thought about a location.

But if you notice the location of thinking, you see that it's actually only a small piece of who you are. It's a small piece of the fullness of the body, the emotional life, and the mental life. It's only a small piece. Does that shift your relationship to it?

Sometimes I get the sense that I take my thinking to be the be-all and end-all, and that's it. It kind of fills my universe. At other times, it's just like a little seed or kernel that has a place, has a role, but there's something else which is bigger. My sense of presence, attention, the body, the heart, the feeling of love and freedom can be much more expansive and bigger than the places of thinking. Beginning to notice location can shift our relationship to it. Maybe it puts a little question mark after our thinking. Like, what is this? What am I doing here? So, there begins to be a self-reflective questioning, wondering, what am I doing here with all this thinking? Is this really for the best? Is it really useful and necessary to do all this thinking?

Sometimes we can notice the tone of voice, especially if we're thinking in an inner voice. When there are images, it might be like mood music with a movie, or somehow the coloring or the mood of the picture itself is interesting to notice. We can notice the tone of voice and the mood that we have. Sometimes the tone of voice we have can change at different times. Sometimes we've internalized the tone of voice of someone else, and we notice that we're talking in the voice of a disciplinarian teacher that we grew up with, or a harsh parent, and we've somehow taken that on. Or, it's not someone else's voice; it is our own voice, but wow, it's always angry. It's always critical, blaming, poking at things, or finding what's wrong. It's harsh in there. Or maybe it's withdrawn. Maybe it's pulled away and reluctant to come out.

So, there are all kinds of things regarding the tone of voice. What happens to your interest in thinking, what happens to your understanding of what thinking is all about, if you expand your understanding of it beyond the content to the tone, the mood, and the emotional qualities that come along with the thinking? Sometimes the emotions are really the operating thing.

Sometimes I think of our thoughts as really being a symptom of something deeper. One of the reasons to get a handle on mindfulness of thinking and to really understand how to work with it is so that we can begin discovering what is actually deeper. If the thinking is a signpost, it's pointing to something deeper, fuller, and much more important for us than the content of our thoughts. One of those things is, in fact, the emotions.

Emotions can play an extremely important role in people's lives, much more than some people realize. When we can start feeling our emotions better, that environment is where we can experience liberation and freedom. There's something about the embodied feeling of emotions that enables or supports the embodied feeling of ease, peace, and liberation.

When thinking is strong or repetitive, one thing to do is to take another look at the process of thinking and notice what the emotionality might be. As I often say, planning is often underlain by anxiety. Maybe it's our anxiety that really needs our attention. That's the thing that needs to be settled, supported, and helped to feel safe so the anxiety can relax. Or maybe it's anger. Anger is also a very important messenger. Maybe the message is, "Hey, this needs attention now. This needs care." Anger is often a sign of being hurt, and hurt needs our love, care, tenderness, and tending to.

The idea is not to get mesmerized by thoughts, but rather to see them as messengers. Even if they're unsavory thoughts, maybe they're even more important messengers for something going on deep inside. It's like we're going home, into the source, into what really makes us tick and operate. We can't do that if we just stay on the surface, just thinking, trying to understand things, plan things, and analyze things. We have to look at what's underneath that and drop in, drop in, drop in. What's here?

It's also possible, in the process of thinking, to notice whether thinking is fast or slow. Do you have any punctuation marks in your thinking? Is there any intermission in the stage that's playing out the scenes? Maybe you can slow things down. Maybe it feels better to relax, soften, or slow down the thinking.

This is where the analogy I gave at the beginning of the meditation comes into play. It takes a while to realize that a shoe doesn't fit. A shoe might get us where we want to go, but if it doesn't fit, it causes blisters and all kinds of things. The same thing is true with our thinking. We might be thinking about things that are useful, but the way we're thinking is a bad fit. We're causing blisters in the mind, stress in the mind, to think this way incessantly.

There's no requirement to be constantly, continuously thinking. There's no manual about being a human being. There's no law book that says thou shalt always be thinking because only then can you be a successful person, a safe person, a responsible person, or whatever it might be. There's no need. It is possible to slow it down. It's possible to have intermissions. It's possible to have punctuation, so there's a little space before the next paragraph is spoken. Just take your time.

One of the great and wonderful things about learning mindfulness of thinking is learning how to think in a way that is satisfying, meaningful, and maybe even nurturing and supportive. You enjoy thinking. But not the enjoyment where we get addicted to it; rather, the enjoyment that comes from having lots of space, peace, and ease with our thoughts. Sometimes it can be a take it or leave it attitude.

In deep meditation, because we're so familiar with the process of thinking, the activity of thinking, and all the aspects of it, it becomes really obvious. As meditation gets calmer and more settled, we realize we have a lot better things to do than to be thinking. Thinking actually limits us. We can let that thinking go, let it quiet or recede, and focus on what is much more meaningful, much more life-enhancing, and much more liberating in focused, concentrated meditation practice.

Thank you. To the degree to which I've given you things to think about, maybe take some time today to think a little bit about this and do the exercise I suggested. Through the course of the day, stop in different moments when things are intense or significant, and take a moment or two to look at the activity, the quality, and the process of your thinking at that time. Maybe even keep a log and notice how it changes over time, and changes over different emotions and activities. Become a connoisseur, an expert on what this process of thinking is like. You'll find it very beneficial to do so. Thank you.