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Guided Meditation: Thoughts that Quiet Thinking

A warm hello for this Monday morning. I greet both you all who are attending here now on this live YouTube broadcast, in the middle of our YouTube sangha^[1] community, and also welcome those who might be listening to this later. I realize there are people who, for all kinds of reasons, listen to this later, and you're just as much a part of my heartfelt YouTube sangha as those of you who are live.

People who meditate, sooner or later, will contend with the mind's tendency to think. Some people think more in words, some people think more in images, some people do a combination of both. There's a lot of variation in the whole thinking process. Some people are very somatic in their thinking, some people are more mental in their thinking; it's just a wide range. Thinking has a big impact on our lives. It can direct our lives, transform our lives, and it can challenge our lives in big ways.

Coming to terms with thinking, what I'd like to suggest for this morning is that if and when you notice that your mind is thinking a lot, wandering off in thought rather than settling down to meditate with the breathing, that you don't simply let go of your thoughts and begin again with your breathing. Instead, take a moment to just recognize how strongly or how much you're thinking, and the attitude of the thinking. Just briefly touch into it that way. Then, rather than letting go of the thoughts and coming back to your breathing, bring up thoughts that are like balancing thoughts for the thoughts you were having. Balancing in their pace, their speed, balancing in their emotional qualities, maybe in a way that's beneficial for you.

If you're thinking a lot about concerns about what's happening the rest of the day, when you recognize that's what's happening, take just a few sentences or so to quietly have thoughts about how you might be content sitting here now. Here and now. Content that at this moment you don't have to do something, or content now that you're comfortable enough in your body. Just have little thoughts; it's a little bit of counter thoughts, antidote thoughts.

It can be very helpful if these thoughts are aimed at meditation. Thoughts like, "Oh, it's hard to meditate with a busy mind, but it's okay, I'll do my best," or, "Now I think is the time to bring my attention carefully to my breathing." And then you bring it to the breathing. Take a few moments to consciously think something in the wake of having found yourself thinking. Maybe those thoughts point you back to the meditation in a nice way. Maybe they are thoughts that are kind for yourself. Maybe there are even kind thoughts directed towards yourself. That's the instruction for today. If you really don't like it, you don't have to do it, of course.

Assuming an upright posture, and gently closing the eyes. As you breathe, perhaps you can gentle your body, a gentling within, or a softening. Then leisurely take a few long, slow, deep breaths, three-quarters full, and leisurely relax as you exhale.

Letting your breathing return to normal. Direct your attention to the area around your forehead, your eyes, and as you exhale, relax. Maybe as you relax these parts of the body, you can have a very light thought of well-wishing, goodwill, or appreciation for this part of your body relaxing around the eyes and the forehead. Maybe softening the jaws. Exhaling and relaxing the shoulders. On the exhale, softening the belly. On the exhale, softening the whole body. Whatever way you might be braced against life, let it soften.

Then settling in with your breathing. As a beginning of meditation on breathing, tell yourself some supportive thoughts for what you're going to do now. Give yourself a few thoughts that carry a nice attitude, and have nice words for yourself of encouragement and appreciation for this practice. Your practice of mindfulness. Thoughts appreciating your practice of mindfulness of breathing. Then settling into the body breathing. Settling into the body's experience of breathing.

When you find yourself drifting off in thought, take a moment to recognize something about that thinking. Replace it with thoughts that are supportive of your meditation, that are supportive of you as a meditator. Thoughts of encouragement. Then give yourself over to the meditation.

If you find yourself thinking, the counter thought might be as simple as, "Here with the breathing is the place to be. Let me center myself on the breathing again." Maybe even adding a very quiet but delightful "yes," affirming that that's what you'll do.

If you find yourself drifting off in thought, have quiet thoughts that return you, point you back to here and now. Thoughts that somehow are an alternative to the momentum of the previous thoughts.

And as we come to the end of the sitting, say a few generous thoughts of goodwill. How you say it is as important as what you say. Offer goodwill to the people that you'll encounter today, or those that you'll run into in the streets and the roads. Neighbors, people that you'll somehow encounter through email or messages, or through the news.

In an important way, we are connected to everyone. Our lives are deeply interconnected in ways that we can't even see. To the degree to which they are part of your life, you're part of their life, even if you don't know each other. Come out of meditation and wish well to this world, and have this well-wishing be the bridge between a kind of inner meditation and the world around you.

May it be that this meditation supports each of us to make this a happier world for everyone. May this practice of mindfulness support us in making this a safer world for everyone. May it be that our practice is expressed in making this world a more peaceful place for everyone. And may it be that this practice allows us or shows us how to offer freedom to everyone. The freedom from our needs and attachments and clingings, freedom from our fears. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free.

Dharmette: Thoughts and Emotions (1 of 5) Rumination

Good day everyone. Being Monday, we begin a new theme for the week. I'd like to continue with the general theme of emotions; it's in the background or the backdrop for what this theme is. The theme is going to be thinking and emotions, the relationship between our emotional life and our thinking life.

Thoughts and emotions go hand in hand. Sometimes I've noticed, maybe in myself and in people I've talked to, a very strong division between emotions and thinking, sometimes preferring one over the other. But the more that I've meditated, the more I can't really separate them out completely from each other. They come together as a piece. Sometimes one stands out more strongly than the other, and sometimes one seems to be the catalyst for the other. Sometimes thoughts evoke emotions. Sometimes emotions arise, who knows why, and in their wake, there come certain thoughts. Sometimes the emotions we have are fueling the thoughts we have, giving energy to the thoughts that we have.

To really be able to get a handle on and learn how to be mindful of the whole process of thinking, of our emotional life, it really helps to take stock of this thinking world and start seeing the connection between the two. Today, I want to emphasize the idea that you study this for yourself. Begin during this week to really take care to notice, as you're thinking, what role, what relationship, what impact does that thinking have on your emotional life? And in return, what impact or role do your emotions have on the thoughts that you have?

For today, I want to talk about one particular kind of thinking that is very important for some of us to be mindful of, and that is rumination. I just love this word rumination because of its bovine reference. Cows eat all this grass, and they regurgitate the grass and then chew it. We take and regurgitate these stories, ideas, fantasies, all kinds of things, and then we chew on them and chew on them.

This rumination is kind of like thoughts turning in on themselves, so that there's a black hole, or we are trapped in them. It's often repetitive, repeating the same kinds of thoughts over and over again. It's not just idle daydreaming; rumination is really chewing on something. It's really working something or driving something home, usually in a way that's not very healthy for us. That's at least how I use the term. Maybe there are other perfectly legitimate ways of using the word rumination, but the idea is that we're spinning around, we're caught up in certain thoughts.

This idea of being caught in thoughts and spinning over and over again is so powerful that psychotherapists will point out that one of the leading correlates, or maybe even causes, for depression for many people (not everyone) is rumination. How that works is we're telling ourselves a story about how terrible things are, or how frightening. We're having self-pity thoughts, discouraging thoughts, or depressing thoughts that things are too hard, or terrible things are happening to me. Terrible things do happen to people, but ruminating about it over and over again is a very distinct way in which we become a victim. We become a victim of our own thinking, of the loops we're in.

And it might be true. For example, it might be true that there are certain ways in my life that I'm a careless person. The other day, I spilled some coffee on the kitchen floor and didn't notice it. My wife pointed it out and cleaned it up, so there are ways in which I'm a careless person. I can notice that. I can say, "Yes, Gil, you were careless today. Sometimes you're a careless person," and that's it.

Or it's like, "Gil, you're a careless person. People are telling you that it is bad to be a careless person. You're a mindfulness teacher, so you should really know how to be careful and be attentive and not be careless. It's very important that now all these people know that you're careless. Now it's really bad. I'm such a bad person. I'm a careless person, and it really speaks badly of 40 or 50 years of Buddhist training. This casts a very bad light on myself, who I am, my practice, and my dedication, that I should be a careless person."

I should stop now; I'm sure you're getting tired already. But the idea being that I'm kind of digging myself a grave. Each of those little thoughts is like a nail in the coffin: "Oh, I'm so terrible. I'm so terrible. I'm so terrible." Maybe each one doesn't have a big impact on me, but the continuity of the repetition of it just begins to wear me down, drain me, and take things out of me.

That's what I'm referring to as rumination: this kind of wearing down with the same message over and over and over again. It might not be so conscious that it's thinking, because it might be more like an attitude, like an emotion. But it is a belief, it is an idea that we have, and we're repeating it so often. The negative quality of it is draining us.

The emphasis I want to make is that in case there's some truth to the statement, say it once, learn from it, and do a course correction the best you can. But there's no reason, no requirement as a human being, to repeat the same thought about yourself over and over and over again. Now, it's very hard to stop doing that, of course. But one of the ways to change the direction of all this is to start being cognizant that this is happening. Recognize how repetitive your mind is. Recognize that you're telling yourself the same story, the same message over and over again, and notice the impact. How is this affecting your energy level, your inspiration level? What emotions does it bring? Does it bring fear? And how does it affect your body?

Some people who are very somatic-based can see that as they have certain thoughts, their body begins to shift and change. Certain muscles tighten up, and energies in the body shift and change. To have thoughts about some frightening thing happening, fantasies of frightening things happening, and fear feelings in the body are triggered. Have thoughts of desire, and ruminate about desire and sexual fantasies, and other sensations in the body get aroused. Have fantasies and repetition about all the wrongs that have been done, and you start feeling angry. Maybe wrongs have been done, but to tell your story over and over and over again... don't confuse the harm someone else has done with the harm that you're doing to yourself. Saying angry thoughts to yourself over and over again, or critical thoughts against yourself over and over again, or depressing thoughts over and over again, is harmful to oneself.

This is the second arrow^[2]. The first arrow is life, and that we can't necessarily control, but we can have some control over the second arrows.

Along this line, it's very common for meditation teachers like me to say that maybe you can't always control your thinking mind, in terms of whether you think or don't think. But what you can do is just like you can't control a big wide river, but you can be in the river and find the right place, the right current to be in, and avoid the rapids. We can be in the world of thinking and make adjustments. Get into a different boat on the river of thoughts, go into a different current or an eddy where it's safe, and avoid the whirlpools or the rapids.

Notice the rumination, notice the repetitive thoughts that are maybe sometimes debilitating. Just notice how repetitive they are. You can count them; it's fascinating to start counting how many times you have the same kind of thought. It takes some of the charge or the authority out of them to count them. By the time you get to 300, it's like they don't have so much authority. Or you can see the effect it has on your body, on your emotions.

You could offer different thoughts. You can consciously begin thinking about something that's more positive. Not a fantasy in itself, but something that's true, that's kind, that's generous, that's soft. One of the ways to even do it if you're by yourself, maybe driving or something, rather than ruminating on difficult thoughts, is to start talking out loud to yourself in a nice, friendly voice. Thoughts that are supportive, thoughts that are good thoughts about what's coming. Because sometimes the voice that thinks comes from a different place in our mind than the voice that speaks. You're tapping into a different side of yourself when you're speaking out loud. Maybe there's more wisdom, maybe there's more kindness. Maybe there's more access to a choice of how to be than if you just let your thinking keep going.

Also start experimenting with shifting what you're thinking about. It might sound artificial, it might sound a little bit forced and effortful. However, if it's better than the alternative, try doing it. If you've done the alternative long enough—of ruminating and spinning in these draining kinds of thoughts—maybe those are the ones we should question as being artificial. Those are the ones we should question about how much energy we're putting into them.

So you might try to offer an alternative. Consciously choose what you think, and think good things. This is not meant to be Pollyannaish. It's not meant to be pretending that everything is fine. They could be very realistic thoughts about what's happening, that see reality directly and right in the eye. But it meets it and thinks about it in wise ways, in kind ways, supportive ways, compassionate ways. The ways that maybe you would imagine the Buddha would speak, or the way that some wonderful, wise, kind person that you're inspired by might speak about the situation.

What I'm offering today requires some mindfulness, but it is a practice that's kind of different than mindfulness. I'm hoping that this investigation, and this practice of thinking in new ways, will be a tremendous support for your ability to be mindfully present. Something can settle, the rumination can settle, and you can be inspired by a different way to go forward.

I hope that you find a way to enjoy this and take up the challenge, if you're one of those people who might ruminate in ways that are not useful for you. And if you're not one of those people, then tomorrow we'll take on the world of thinking from a different angle. Thank you.