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Guided Meditation: Seeing Thoughts Flow By

A warm hello from Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City. It's so wonderful that you're here to go along with us in this meditation. Thank you so much.

The topic is thinking, and it's an important thing to become wise about when you're a meditator. You don't become wise by batting it away, and you don't become wise by indulging in it. You become wise by looking at it, seeing it clearly, where the emphasis should be on the word clear—seeing it really clearly. Clear seeing.

I think some people are so identified with their thinking that they are synonymous with their thinking. Their identity, their sense of who they are, their very beingness, is associated with thinking. And it gives thinking a lot of authority, because whatever I think is part of who I am, and therefore it needs to be true. It is true—my opinions, my views, my everything. So, "I am, therefore I think" is the famous French philosopher's saying^[1], and Buddhism wouldn't say that.

Thinking is just one part of the vast world of our psychophysical functioning. It is not any more warranted to identify with it as being "mine" than your finger clippings. Once you've clipped your fingernails, you don't hold up your finger clipping and say, "This is me, this is me, look here, here I am. I'm going to keep it close." Thoughts, once they've been thought out, once they've appeared in consciousness, are simply the finger clippings of the mental processes we have. Yet we give them a lot of credibility, a lot of importance.

So one of the ways of sitting with meditation, with thinking, is to—when we think—turn the attention fully onto the thinking. Look thinking right in the eye, to really observe thinking without justifying it, without condemning it, without being for it or against it, but taking it as fully warranting attention as anything else. If there was a wonderful bird singing outside, the bird song coming through the window, some people might take that as a delightful object of meditation, just listening for listening. In the same way, we can just watch, listen, and look directly: "Oh, this is thinking."

One delightful way of that looking is to imagine that you're sitting on a big boulder, safe and sound and content, in the middle of the river, high and dry. On either side of you, the river is just flowing by. You don't pick it up, you don't get involved, you don't dip your hand in it; you just watch it flow by. Step back, sit on a dry rock, and just watch the thoughts come and go, and watch the tendency to get on them, to get into the river. The old analogy is that thoughts are like train cars going by, and suddenly you find yourself in the train car.

Just watch. Just watch. And if you want to identify with something as being you for the purpose of this meditation, don't have it be your thinking; have it be the observation of thinking. Settle back, relax, and just observe. And if thinking is not predominant, stay with your breathing, meditate as usual. But then when thinking picks up, do this exercise of just turning and looking directly at it, recognizing what this is: thinking. As if the thinking is apart from you, not really you. If anything, the observer is you. Just see it, let it run by you like you let a river flow by.

Taking an upright meditation posture, either literally or metaphorically, one that has a little bit of energy in it, a little bit of alertness in the posture. Maybe being a little careful with the spine so that the spine feels a little alert. You're aware of the spine, the aliveness of it. Lowering your gaze, and if it's comfortable, gently closing your eyes.

Taking a few long, slow, deep breaths. On the exhale, letting go of your thoughts and your concerns. Let go, and let go into your body. Deep breath in, relaxing the body. Letting your breathing return to normal. And on the exhale, relax your body. Maybe on the inhale, feel some part of your body where there's holding or tension, anywhere it is in the body. On the exhale, relax.

Taking a few moments here to allow yourself to think, but look thinking right in the eye. Calmly, clearly recognize your thinking. The thinking then gets quiet, being watched this way. Feel, notice what that quiet feels like. Notice the space, or the stillness, the quiet. Notice if there's a location for it. Is there any tension associated with it? If there is, relax.

If thinking stays away, then begin again with your breathing. If thinking stays there, and is even more activated than before, breathe with it, breathe through it. See if you can find the place to sit on the boulder in the river so that the river of thought just flows right by, and you are not involved with it.

Looking clearly at thinking, stepping away, and being on that dry boulder, it can be helpful to label the thinking as "thinking, thinking," or "remembering," "talking," "planning." The label is not so important; what's important is the way the label helps you step away and not be so glued to the thinking.

Taking a few moments to feel any tension that exists in your body—any holding, tightness. Notice it in a relaxed way; no need to judge it or yourself. Just notice if there's any tension. And then in the next three exhales, see if you can relax that tension right down to the core of your being. Relax and let the thinking mind become quiet, peaceful, as you feel your way to whatever relaxation there is here.

There are times when thinking is heavy, and sometimes when it's very light. It's heavy when we identify with it, and lighter when we let it be. Lightly see if you can allow for some light thoughts—almost not thinking at all, but the light thoughts that arise, or might arise, in the wake of these words that I will speak.

We all have a capacity to have well-wishing for others. We all have the capacity to be generous. We all have the capacity to be kind, friendly. We all have the capacity to love, even if it's ever so slightly. Make room for that capacity for these last couple of minutes, to trust that capacity and allow perhaps there to bubble up very simple, light thoughts of goodwill. It could be they take the form of just appreciating how wonderful it would be if others were happy, peaceful, and safe.

May it be that all beings are happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And without any burden, any sense of weight, but rather as light as a feather, may it float from us, the wish to contribute to that as a possibility. May we go through the day doing whatever is easy and light for the welfare and happiness and well-being of others. May all beings be happy.

Dharmette: Thinking (4 of 5) Healthy Thinking

So we continue with the topic of mindfulness of thinking. Today the topic is restoration. What I mean by that is the restoring of a healthy way of being—that the ways clinging and attachment and fear and resistance inhibit the natural healthy functioning of our psychophysical being, can be shed.

As we no longer carry the burden of our attachments, and carry the burden of our responsibilities—you can still have response-abilities, but without being weighed down by them—to be able to shed a lot of the attachments and preoccupations we have is a way to allow a healthy restoration. Meditation operates for some people a little bit like taking a shower; if you're dirty, you take a shower and you're clean. Meditation is a way of cleansing the mind, the spirit, the heart.

How does this relate to thinking? There can be a restoration of healthy thinking, or thinking which is beneficial—thinking which is light, clear, easy. One of the steps towards that, as I've talked about, is to respect thinking. Here's a way of looking at it: everything that we are is made up of parts. And so thinking is made up of parts. It's part emotions, part physical tensions, part motivations, part our memories and our associations. Sometimes thoughts are motivational; they're trying to get something done. Sometimes they're simply very relaxed memories or relaxed pleasant anticipations.

As we begin respecting the different component parts of the complex of thinking, it's possible to recognize there's tension, there's heaviness, there's tightness, contraction. That's our contribution to it. There's a way in which we're involved or identified, or it represents some attachment we have, independent of whether it's appropriate to be thinking of whatever you're thinking about. The weight, the contraction, the tightness is not necessary. In fact, we usually think much better, more creatively, more efficiently if there is no tension. If there is no tightness and heaviness and preoccupation.

To begin letting go, and allowing thinking to be free of our reactivity to it, or caughtness in it, allows thinking to operate and be restored to a kind of healthiness. To think without fear, to think without hate, to think without desire or wanting something. It's maybe unimaginable, because those are such important parts of our thinking—to have thinking occur, but not to have it glued to our sense of self: me, myself, and mine, my opinions, my stories. It's really remarkable how much thinking for some of us has us as a central character in our thoughts one way or the other. As we become lighter and freer with our thinking, the thoughts don't have us at the center of them anymore.

Thoughts just float up. One of the remarkable things that can happen in meditation, if you meditate long enough or deep enough, is that with time thinking is not so heavy and thick. It's not so solid. Sometimes when we're really caught up in something, thinking can be the most solid thing in the universe. It's so dense, so serious, so important, with so much energy behind it. When the content of the thoughts is negative—negative about ourselves, negative about the world—the heaviness and the contraction around the thoughts can be quite debilitating. They say that one of the leading causes of depression is rumination, just churning away with the same kind of thoughts over and over again that are negative self-talk.

Begin to put that to rest, to not identify with it, not be involved in it. There might still be unfortunate kinds of thinking going on, but because we're not latched onto it, or reactive to it, or taking it so seriously—we're just sitting on the boulder in the river and letting the water run right by, not identifying with it—over time, the thinking becomes thinner and thinner, lighter and lighter. It's a remarkable process by which thinking takes on a lightness. It's like a thin veil, or like clouds drifting across an open sky. Clouds have no weight. Thoughts have almost no weight in and of themselves. They're very light; they don't interfere with anything. Like a cloud doesn't interfere with anything; you put your hand in a cloud and your hand goes right through.

The thoughts feel like they're getting thinner and thinner, lighter and lighter, more and more relaxed, and they just have a feeling of floating through, floating by. At this point, some people find that their thinking becomes creative. I certainly found that when I meditate a fair amount, generally outside of meditation my thinking is very easy, relaxed, and creative. I'm more likely to write poetry when I have this kind of very light, thin thinking going on. I'm also more likely to think about things more clearly. I often will find that after I've meditated in the morning, if I go back to something I'm trying to figure out or write, there's much more clarity and ease. It's almost like the forcefulness—trying really hard to think or do something—interferes with this natural creativity and intelligence that exists within us.

One of the possibilities with mindfulness of thinking is to understand the territory of thinking, the ecology of thinking. To recognize the different component parts of it, and understand which parts we don't have to be involved in, which parts we can let go of. It might not be letting go of thoughts themselves; it might be letting go of all the tension associated with them. Or it might be that there are certain motivations connected to those thoughts which are not needed. If you realize what the motivations are, you know, "I don't need that," you can let go of what they're trying to do with their thoughts. Or it could be that there's a lot of physical tension connected to thinking, and so you let go of that, you relax that. Or maybe the emotions that are connected need real attention—that's what needs your love, your care, and your presence.

By recognizing the component parts, we start separating that away. It becomes easier to look at thinking right in the eye and just see it. It's fascinating to do that. Sometimes when we do that, thinking just fades away, partly because thinking continues through time by our feeding it. If we're just watching it, then we're not feeding it, and it kind of dissipates. What's interesting is, when it dissipates and we're relaxed, at some point maybe after meditation—if you stay relaxed and don't rush back into the thoughts and concerns of the day—there's this restoration of a healthy way of thinking. Healthy, wholesome, useful. There's a way of being when we're deeply relaxed and at peace; we have a reference point for what health is, what being healthy is. It's not healthy to start getting preoccupied again, or getting caught again in the preoccupations and concerns of the day.

We do have concerns. We do have things to take care of. But the wonderful thing to discover is we take care of them better if we're not tight, if we're not rushing, if we're not pushing, if we're not barreling ahead. We can get up out of meditation, some of us, and think, "Okay, gotta get to work," and that attitude is a kind of leaning into thinking, getting involved in thinking, or the thinking itself gets revved up. Maybe it's not necessary. Maybe there's a way of trusting that healthy way of being with thoughts where they're light and soft and gentle, not weighty and not pushing us. We have a sense, "Oh, that's healthy, that's what's useful."

So here "restoration" means the restoration of a kind of healthy thinking. We have the ability to know what that is. The more at ease, more peaceful, more relaxed you can become in meditation, the more you'll discover this reference point of a peaceful, healthy way to be with the world of thinking. We don't have to only let go of thoughts. There are times when it's completely appropriate to be thinking, and even wonderful to be thinking. Thinking can be a gift. You can be friends with your thoughts, and you can relate to the thoughts in a very healthy way. The thoughts themselves can just feel healthy. It's actually possible to have thoughts which feel nourishing, that feel supportive, that feel onward-leading to greater peace.

Thank you. We have one more day on thinking, and then tomorrow I'll talk a little bit about the plan for next week and how to continue this series.

May you today discover something new about healthy thinking. Thank you.