Tara Brach - Part 3 - Mindfulness of Thoughts - Introductory Series

Episode Date: October 27, 2010

2010-10-27 - Part 3 - Mindfulness of Thoughts - The primary element in meditation is training to awaken from the trance of thoughts. This class explores two key ways that mindfulness supports this awakening. The first is using wise reflection to discern if thoughts are imprisoning us in fear or serving healing and freedom. The second is recognizing when we are in the virtual reality of thinking, and learning to "come back" to living presence. It is by inhabiting this non-conceptual presence that we have access to the love, wisdom and freedom that we cherish. Please donate at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Thank you!

Let me invite you to take these moments to close your eyes. Just feel your own intention for this evening. Whatever language works for you, the intention to arrive in presence, to open your heart, to discover more fully who you are, to listen inwardly, just to sense your sincerity in being here for waking up. And just to invite yourself in these. moments to relax and to feel yourself right here of the experience of bodily sensations where of whatever mood or emotions might be predominant kind of thoughts that have been moving through a relaxed attentiveness okay so welcome we are

continuing together on this exploration the art and science of meditation really how to bring a mindful presence to all the different dimensions of our life. And we began with the what's called the first foundation of mindfulness. And the first foundation of mindfulness is really this awareness of this aliveness that's right here. And even as I say the words, you might sense what it means to be mindful of sensation and mindful of the breath. Okay. And what we discover as we explore the first foundation of awareness is that it's only if we're awake in our body that we can really touch what matters to us in our lives. I mean, everything that is really important, whether it be wisdom or creativity or love, requires that we're here in a very immediate way.

And you can think about love. I mean, just have thoughts about love. And that is, in some sense, a whole world apart from the visceral tenderness. When our hearts are feeling that warmth and that openness. So the first foundation is this training and coming back and really living in this body in an awake way. And then last week, we expanded that to what does it mean to be mindful of the emotions, the different, the weather system? I sometimes like to call them, that move through our hearts and our bodies. And in particular, how can we find a sense of peace and balance in the midst when they're difficult?

And what that means is how do we not resist what's intense and not be possessed by it? So that was last week's exploration of mindfulness of emotions. So this week, we explore what is described as the key element in our trance. And this has been recognized by, I'd say, all the schools of meditation to be really at the heart of our training, which is, how do we wake up from the trance of thinking? How do we recognize, oh, okay, lost in thought, and then back here now. So this week is really the practices that help us wake up from that trance. And I'd like to begin with one of my favorite teaching stories.

And in this one, this is about Harry Houdini, and he was known to travel through Europe visiting small towns and challenging local jailers to bind him in a straitjack and then lock him in a cell. and he had no trouble delighting townspeople with his quick escapes. He could just do it. But in one small Irish village, things didn't go so well, and he ran into trouble. And in front of a crowd of townspeople and news reporters, he broke free of his straitjacket, but he couldn't break out of the cell. He couldn't undo the lock.

So he's just trying and trying and trying, and he couldn't do it. So after everyone left, he admitted defeat. he asked the jailer, what kind of newfangled lock he had on the cell. And the jailer said, oh, it's a very ordinary lock. He said, in fact, I figured you'd have no difficulty at all in opening our lock, so I never bothered locking it. He had just succeeded in locking himself in. So we have this very deep and unexamined belief we walk around with all the time, I think, which is that something's wrong, and if it's not wrong right now, it's about to be wrong. There's a sense that this life is a problem to be solved.

That's how it goes. But something's off, and that we have to keep tinkering and trying to figure out what's going on and trying to control things. And what happens is that the more we tinker and figure and try to fix and manage, things, what we're actually doing is deepening the trance we're in, or deepening our perception that we're a self that has to work our way out of a problem. Does that make sense? How we keep ourselves locked in. So the beginning of being mindful of thoughts is just to know they're going on. And I'd like to start right in with a little exercise so you can experiment for yourself. So if you

well just to come with your eyes closed. And as we've practiced in past sessions, take some moments to bring your attention into your body, let your awareness sweep through your body and take some moments to relax areas that might be tight or tense. I invite you to let go a little on the shoulders and soften the hands. Let the chest be open and the belly soft. Without controlling the breath, you might become aware of the movement of the breath. There's a sense of your home base, of being here and feeling the breath and being awake. Now, for these next moments, I'd like to ask you to count how many thoughts arise. So in a sense, it's as if you were a cat at a mouse hole with a real interest. Okay, how many thoughts? And just notice when they come. I might take a full breath and

and then opening your eyes. Okay, so let me check in with you. How many of you had under 10 thoughts? Can I see by hands? Okay, just for those of you that can't see the hands, there's about 40 people. How many of you may be 10 to 20? Can I see by hands?

Another, maybe 40 again, 50. 20 to 30. Don't be shy. Two. How about over 100? Okay, wait, one. So how many of you thought that because you were watching, perhaps there might have been less thoughts? Can I see by hands a good number?

Sometimes that's so. In fact, when we have the intention to be mindful, because there's an energized presence or wakefulness, there's actually less discursiveness often, but that's not always the case. Now, like you to try something else. Okay, again, close your eyes. And as you again settle right here in this pause, let yourself bring to mind something that occurred today and it might have been something enjoyable or something difficult,

not something traumatizing, just enjoyable or difficult. And take some moments to let yourself remember that. And even as you're reviewing this experience, Have your awareness noticed that these are thoughts. This memory is thoughts. And notice what kind of thoughts they are. Are they visual images? Have your thoughts been like sound bites,

little voice in the mind making commentary? Have they been a kind of fragmented still shot or series? Or has it been more like a movie, perhaps, with a storyline? just to be mindful of the kind of thought. All of those are thoughts. Anything, any presentation in the mind that takes our attention from the actual experience right here.

Little snippets of commentary, images, sound bites, movies, they're all thoughts. And as you're paying attention now, just imagine again this movie screen of the mind And again, simply noticing when thoughts arise. Maybe what you notice is something in your mind going, I wonder when there's going to be a thought. And that's a thought.

When you notice a thought, you might wonder, where did it come from? And where did it go to? So the beginning of mindfulness of thinking is this purposeful attention to thoughts, noticing when they're happening, noticing what they're like. and they're very actually profound inquiry

where do they come from? Where do they go to? With the metaphor of a movie theater and a screen of the mind you might sense the thoughts are actually like a real movie coming from the projector and what's behind the projector is a human mind creating things what's behind that? Just awareness. The thoughts come from this mysterious word

awareness from formless awareness and that we start to begin to notice that thoughts are not the real thing they're a representation but that's a radical realization and we go around thinking our thoughts are actually reality and if you can get that that most of the time we are actually inside our thoughts thinking that this is real when you become mindful you go oh this is a thought It's not reality. Just as a thought of a tree, I mean, we have a thought of a tree, it's no closer than a photo would be to this real living organism that's changing, that's sprouting leaves, the leaves are changing color, they're dropping to the ground, there's leaves or trees and branches swaying in a breeze, sometimes the smells of blossoms or leaves decomposing. How could a photo capture this mysterious living organism. It can't. And a thought cannot capture reality. It represents it. And if you're really thirsty, like really, really thirsty, and you can have as many thoughts as you want about drinking water. But it's not going to ever be the same as the glass and the cool fluid that goes down your

throat. So that's the first piece, is that we become mindful and we start really getting it. that thoughts are a virtual reality. It's as one t-shirt that I had many years ago, and I gave it away in one of our auctions, actually, it had emblazoned across it, meditation, it's not what you think. I love that t-shirt. So some of our thoughts are useful representations

and helpful, and many are not. One of my favorite cartoons has this picture of a car that's a driver. He's entering this big desert, and it says, this sign says, you and your own tedious thoughts next 200 miles. One person says it this way. He says we have 80,000 thoughts a day, and 95% of them we had yesterday, too. So you get the idea. It said that thoughts are a terrible master and an absolutely essential and wonderful servant. So I'm not in any way devaluing thinking.

I mean, it's an absolutely essential and an amazing unfolding in our evolutionary development. When you think about it, everything we humans bring forth into this world, Whether it's a poem or a piano or a building or a computer, it came from the mind. Amazing. Medicines and inventions. So this same mind, these thoughts, are what bring us to unspeakable violence against animals and other humans and the earth. And just as Houdini experienced, these thoughts, when they get patterned and fixed, keep us locking ourselves in our own emotional suffering.

Keep us in a transit and for some people be like a nightmare. Okay? So when we become mindful, we begin to see what it is that causes suffering about thinking. And what it is is we get identified with the thoughts. In other words, we're inside them and we're taking them to be real. And we take the story that's inside them to be true. And the story is often of a self, Mois, that is in some way falling short, that is in some way going to fail, something around the corner is going to collapse for us,

a self that's separate from others, or a self that may be better than others, but we have a story. And that story keeps us from really feeling a sense of belonging and trust and freedom. So the Buddha said that we're shaped, created, and led by our thoughts. And it's amazing to see the power they have over us. I mean, our thoughts say do this and say that and plan and obsess and judge, and they keep us in this little familiar cocoon. So I read for you, it started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then to loosen up.

Eventually, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker. I began to think alone to relax. I told myself, but I knew it wasn't true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time. Then the guy hits bottom, and he sees a sign. Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life? It was a thinker's anonymous poster. And then he describes his recovery after that. This is just something I read on the web.

Right after that, as we go through life thinking heavy thoughts, thought particles tend to get caught between the ears, causing a condition called truth decay. And meditations considered the mental floss. Anyway, it's getting more and more in the culture, as you can tell. But the point is that in the most basic way, when we're thinking we're in a virtual reality, and it obscures truth. We cannot discover the truth of who we are.

We can't really experience the mystery of being alive if we're living inside a virtual reality. Now, the good news is, I mean, it's part of our evolutionary development to develop this frontal cortex and even get identified with it. and it's part of our evolutionary development to have an awareness that can see that and wake up from that trance. That's our capacity to wake up from this virtual reality.

So I like the way Emerson puts it. He writes, Within us is the soul of the whole. When it breaks through our intellect, it is genius. when it breathes through our will, it is virtue. When it flows through our affections, it is love. So within us is the soul of the whole. And our thoughts can be an instrument for surviving, for thriving,

but they can also block the soul of the whole. And our practice, when we start cultivating this mindfulness of thinking, is to rediscover this wholeness of being. In every spiritual tradition I've run into, there are practices, and there could be practices like prayer or dancing, practices on being silent, music. And what they have in common, these religious or spiritual practices, is one thing.

They each wake us up out of conceptual thinking. It's very hard to chant Ome for 15 minutes and have your mind still chattering on what are you going to make for dinner. It doesn't happen that way. Or to get into a really full-bodied dance with rhythm and drums and so on and still have your mind obsessing. And well, she said this to me and I could have said that back and then start rehearsing what you will say next.

It doesn't happen that way. Doesn't that make sense? So these are some of the practices. from different traditions and one of the most basic that we're doing here is this practice of having some sort of a home base so we can keep coming back to the life right in this moment so we're not lost in a virtual reality now I just want to say again our practice of mindfulness is not to vanquish thoughts we're not trying to get rid of them it's almost like imagine that you're flying in an airplane and the difference between

flying and being inside a cloud and your whole world becomes cloud and when you move through the cloud and your back and there's sky and there's still clouds there but you're not lost inside a cloud it's not taking your whole reality over that's what's possible the key thing as what I'd like to most emphasize in this practice of mindfulness of thinking is to start to get familiar between the difference between any thought and this vibrant immediacy of what's right here. So close your eyes for a moment, listen, and in this pause, discover what's actually here, the sounds, the sensations of aliveness in your body,

whatever feelings or emotions are here. Just letting the life live through you, sensing the difference between this, this living reality, and any thought that might arise. Srinar Sargadata, Indian teacher, says that the real world is beyond our thoughts and ideas. We see it through the net of our desires divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong, inner and outer. To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond the net. It is not hard to do so, for the net is full of holes.

Okay, opening your eyes. There are two primary strategies of mindfulness that I'd like to explore with you for the rest of the evening, that help us to really wake up out of what can be quite a sticky trance, because we so often, we spend such huge swaths of time really lost. And the first one is really described as wise reflection. And wise reflection means that when we notice we've been thinking, we actually begin to notice the content of our thoughts and how they're affecting us. And then the second is a direct waking up from thoughts by noticing, letting go, and coming back.

So we'll begin with the wise reflection. and just to say that some thoughts are very conducive to open-heartedness and clarity. We have thoughts that go through us that have to do with what we appreciate, what we're grateful for. Some of you probably today had a sense of the balminess in the air and the beauty of the leaves peaking and just appreciation. And those thoughts are conducive to a quality of open-heartedness. we have thoughts that arise out of curiosity this basic interest in life that really wants to know what is this and who is this person and how does this work and that's that that's a very pure kind of interest that helps to bring a kind of lucidity to the mind so there's a seeking to understand and thoughts

so there are skillful thoughts that's one of the ways in the buddhist tradition it's described that we can notice oh this is helpful this is skillful And then we have other thoughts that are driven by fear, driven by craving, thoughts that are judgmental and that create a separation, judging ourselves, separating ourselves from ourselves and then judging other people. The Buddha described it this way. He said, people with strong opinions just go around bothering one another, you know. So there's those kind of thoughts. For myself, whenever I'm in a really bad mood, I'll ask myself, well, what am I believing? What thoughts are going through right now?

And generally, what I'm believing is that in some way I'm falling short. There's an undercurrent of a sense of failure, some thought or belief about falling short. For some people, when they're in a really tight or bad, mood, if they investigate, they'll find out that they have this sense of their thoughts or something bad is going to happen. I'm worried. Things are going to fall down. And for other people, the state of a kind of a tight heart has to do with sensing, well, other people are judging me. I'm not going to be accepted. But there's always a background of thoughts, if we can begin to

catch them, that create our mood. So for a moment, you might check this. out, just experiment, and I'm just going to give you two words to think about. And notice what happens when you think about them. Okay? And the first word is trouble. Okay, so just hear the word trouble and say it again to yourself. Just repeat it a few times. And notice what happens to your body and to your heart when you say that word trouble. That's enough. Now try this word, kindness. to say the word kindness and just say it a few times to yourself, kindness, kindness. There's two words grabbed out of the air.

Just notice the effect. So this is wise reflection, noticing how thoughts affect us. Continuing to reflect, you might bring to mind an area of some conflict or difficulty in your life for a moment. Just tap into it. Just something going on maybe in a relationship or at work,

maybe something going on with your health, something going on for someone else, just conjuring it up, and just noticing in this area of difficulty where you get stuck, where you get hitched in some way. It might be when certain kind of conversations going on. What are the conditions or circumstances when you get caught?

So you're noticing again what's going on, when you in some way get hooked into feeling angry or hurt, afraid, and just investigate for a moment what thoughts are in the backdrop. What are the beliefs and thoughts going on in these moments when you're most hooked? Maybe in some way you're saying, oh, they are treating me like this, or I am blowing it in some way, or so-and-so shouldn't do such and such. Just what goes on? sensing what you might be believing.

Others aren't caring about me, respecting me. I'm not competent. I'm not capable. I'm failing in a certain way. And find out how it is in your body when you're believing those thoughts. When you're subscribing to those thoughts,

what's it like in your body? You might exaggerate it a little. Like exaggerate the belief, say it again in your mind, whatever it is, just to kind of get a little familiar with what's sometimes not so conscious. Can you sense the suffering of believing your thoughts? You might even ask, are they completely true?

I mean, do I really know this is completely true? Or is it a habit, a deep and long conditioned habit of believing? I mean, who made up these thoughts? Ask yourself what it would be like if you could let them go. This is the radical part. what would it be like if I could just let them go? Let go of the thought about how the future is going to be or what other people are thinking

or my characterization of myself. What if I really let it go? This takes courage, but check that out. How might your life be different? I just try to let go rest in loving kindness, rest in presence, just sense what it would be like, how your life would be if you weren't so caught in the thoughts,

so believing those thoughts. Now what we just did is something that is really meant to be a longer process. And I wanted to introduce it to you because it fits into this category of becoming mindful of what's going on conceptually. Whenever we're caught, there are beliefs and thoughts that we've been subscribing to for a very long time that are keeping our body and our heart contracted. it's always the case. We can't always find them, and I'm not suggesting you go digging. But you might find that when you're having a hard time,

if you just stop and say, well, what am I believing right now? And you'll find that you're believing something that reflects badly on yourself or something that tells you something's going to be terrible about your experience in the future. And it might be something that was programmed in really early from your family or your culture, and that you've been telling yourself a long time. read to you quote somewhere and I can't find where.

I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, if I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell? No, said the priest. Not if you did not know. Then why asked the Eskimo earnestly, did you tell me? So this is the first domain of waking up out of the trance. And it's that we begin to notice the kind of thought. we're having and it may be that we're going around judging and worrying a lot what kind of a biochemical state do you think that puts you in if the preponderance of your thoughts are worried

thoughts I mean what if your thoughts were curious thoughts or loving thoughts grateful thoughts in neuroscience now there's that phrase that neurons that fire together wire together And I think it's a really important one. It speaks to neuroplasticity. And what it basically says is whatever you're thinking about, that's going to be creating your life experience. It's going to become patterned. Gandhi says it this way. He says, your beliefs become your thoughts.

Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your character. and your character becomes your destiny. Now that, for me, when I reflect on that, it's sobering and it's filled with hope. Because what it says is,

when we become mindful of our thoughts and our beliefs, we can have some choice. We can say, oh, okay, that one's causing me suffering. What would my life be like if I didn't subscribe to it? Okay. So one of the invitations in this, time between this session and the final one is that you begin to monitor what are the top 10 hits that go through when you're moving through the day. Are you worrying a lot? Notice that.

Are you fantasizing a lot? Is there a lot of addictive craving? Is there a lot of blame and judgment? Notice and without adding on another level of judgment, notice how it is in your body and see if you'd like to choose to bring your attention elsewhere. Okay? Part two is actually stepping out of thoughts regardless of what kind of thought it is. Doesn't matter what you're thinking, having the muscle of the mind to go, oh, thinking, thinking, and come back to the actual experience of this moment. So this is the basic training in mindfulness meditation,

noticing that we're thinking and coming back. I'd like to read you from Ajan Samado, an American monk who is the abbot of a monastery in Great Britain. He talks about this practice of letting go for is very effective, he says, for minds obsessed by compulsive thinking. You simplify your meditation practice down to just two words. letting go. Rather than try to develop this practice and then develop that and achieve this and go into

that and understand this and read the sutas and study the abidama and then learn poly and sanscript, then the Majumakaya and the Prajna Paramita, get ordinations in Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajriana, write books and become a world-renowned authority on Buddhism, instead of becoming the world's expert on Buddhism and being invited to great international Buddhist conferences, just let go, let go, let go. I did nothing but this for about two years. Every time I tried to understand or figure things out, I'd say, let go, let go, until the desire would fade out.

So I'm making it very simple for you to save you from getting caught in incredible amounts of suffering. There's nothing more sorrowful than having to attend international Buddhist conferences. Now, Ajun Samato's teacher, who is Ajan Cha, said that we spend 70% of our time meditating realizing we have to let go of something but are unable. So we're kind of meditating and we realize that we're kind of hooked, but it's just something in us doesn't let us let go.

So I feel like it's important as I speak to you about this process of noticing thinking and letting go to acknowledge that it's really, really hard. We're very conditioned to grasp on, you know, to really generate thoughts. And there's a few different reasons. And one of them is it's just a habit. We are just habituated, just the way, you know, I've said this before, the body secretes enzymes, the mind secretes thoughts. It just does it.

So it's just a habit. And the second reason is that like stopping any addictive behavior, because we are obsessive thinkers, whether it's binge eating or drinking or whatever it is, when we stop thinking so much, we're stopping so lost and thought, we have to face what we've been running from. We use our thinking to get away from what's difficult,

what's angsty, what's the restlessness and the vulnerability. We're running away. I use the metaphor of kind of bicycling away from the present moment. Well, the wheels are thoughts. We're just spinning away on our thoughts. Often in the present moment there's layers of unfelt unseen experience that wants our attention and that until we open to that vulnerability that's there, it'll keep triggering more thinking. So until we pay attention to what's in our bodies and hearts, we'll keep on spinning off into obsessive thinking. that's the second reason it's hard we don't want to go there we don't want to sit with that uneasiness

and restlessness that's in our body we'd rather be consumed by our thinking reason that it's really hard to let go of thoughts is that when thinking quiet so does the sense of ourself okay as the mind gets quiet the sense of that storyline that kept telling us who we were and where we're going starts to quiet down. And that can be ultimately liberating, but on the way, disorienting. Okay? So there's a part of us that wants to keep reestablishing, re-incarnating our sense of self and holding onto it. It gives us a sense of where we are in time and what we're up to. And we get alarmed when that sense of self doesn't seem so available. So we begin to practice. We sit and we have the, the breath or the body is an anchor and we start noticing when we've gone off.

And sometimes we'll just say, oh, thinking, thinking. I use that as kind of a label we can put on thoughts. And we'll come back and it's very simple. We feel our breath again and we feel our body. And it's really not so difficult. We find that the thoughts are not that sticky. They don't have a lot of roots and emotion. So it's pretty easy to let go and come back.

at other times when we're really snagged in our thoughts it's more challenging and that's an opportunity to really come back with a lot of kindness and gentleness i'll give you an example of that when it's more sticky that about four days ago um i got all the beginnings of what i could sense was going to be a whopper of a cold i mean my i had that kind of sore throat that doesn't just turn right into congestion it's stretched out and you know how when your sore throat face stretches out it's like a bad sign at least that's what I was interpreting and then I you know and then I got and then the cold came on and not only was I experiencing the common misery of a cold my mind was often running on oh my gosh this is Monday on Wednesday I'm gonna have this class and it's being videoed and I'm gonna have I'm gonna be dripping and and

know and spewing and you know and so and so it wasn't it was compounded suffering it was not just the unpleasantness of a cold my mind was worrying and fixated on oh being in public and feeling miserable and looking horrible and i just kept spinning so i did just what i'm talking about with you pause okay so what's going on right now worry thoughts worry thoughts and i would let the thought go when I'd come into my body and what was there was anxiety. And I'd keep flipping back into the worry thoughts because it was kind of some way mulling on what was going to happen in my mind felt a little better than just the raw vulnerability of, okay, anxious.

But when I, after a certain number of rounds, just breathed and stayed with anxiety, there came this space and the simple kind of kindness. It was like, okay, just here. Okay, so waves of anxiety, a little more space, a little more kindness, until the presence itself really was what I was resting in. This is the kind of a small example of the power of mindfulness of thinking. We spend a huge amount of time being worried about the future, huge amount.

What if we could just notice, okay, leaning forward, worrying, you know, obsessing, whatever, we are and just say come back and reestablish that presence in the body and if it's anxiety and discomfort bring a little metter loving kindness just offer kindness to yourself and what we find is that we have gotten out of a virtual reality that was unpleasant we're out of the cell that houdini was in we've stopped trying to kind of tinker and we're just living and breathing in the present moment a breath of fresh air. As this practice deepens, this practice of waking up from the thoughts and being here,

we start sensing the space that really is between thoughts, before thoughts, the space that all thoughts are floating in. And really, this is the space that awareness shines through. We start coming home in a very profound way to what I call beingness. And then the clouds of thoughts can come and go and the different waves of emotions, but we're resting in a vastness that's quite beautiful.

So again, I'm going to just ring this bell and invite you to let the attention go inward. You might begin with the first foundation of mindfulness and just feel your breath and feel the movement of the breath happening in this field of sensation. So you can feel the body from the inside out maybe letting go a little the shoulders,

softening the hands, chest is open, and the belly relaxed. So that if you widen the lens, you could feel this whole body as a field of sensation. Aware of the sounds that are here. You might mentally whisper here and just sense this quality of heerness,

the center of now, just this vivid immediacy, sensing the sensations, and sounds, feelings. And the background, this alert inner stillness, the space of awakeness, the inner space

that everything's happening in. The net is full of holes. Can you sense the space between thoughts? Just this space of wakefulness and radiance. It's right here. Let your intention be to notice the difference between any thought in this immediacy of presence,

this space of awakeness, openness. It's quite natural if the mind is drifted. Just pause. You might notice the kind of thought that was floating, that had taken over, and notice the possibility of relaxing open,

sensing the sounds that are here, the feelings in your body coming back coming back gently relaxing right here sensing the difference between this hereness

and the thought that you might have been inside for some people it helps to name the kind of thought worrying fantasizing obsessing figuring judging

and to relax open again reconnecting with what's actually happening here, with no judgment. If what's right here is difficult, then very consciously bring some kindness to your experience, breathing with what's happening, choosing to be here. So there are two main ways that we practice, and one, as I mentioned, is we reflect on the thoughts,

and we notice the kind of thoughts we're having. Are these thoughts that serve freedom and happiness? Are these thoughts that keep me uptight and judgmental and separate and afraid? What kind of thoughts are they? And so in this portion of the mindfulness practice, we're sensing the content. And if there are thoughts that are not serving us, having a little more of a capacity to choose or to put them down. And then the kind of core training, if you will, is simply to notice thinking and let go and arrive again right here. And as I just mentioned, for many people, a skillful tool in that, and this is something, again, it's very individual, is you might explore naming your thoughts.

And by that I mean you might simply whisper mentally thinking, thinking. And this is a little mental note that's maybe 5% with 95% of your awareness just noticing what's happening and then coming back. The value of noting is that in a moment of noticing what's happening, you're not so inside it. You are re-inhabiting the fullness of awareness. So noting helps to disengage and disidentify from the thought. And the main reason that the thought is causing suffering is that we're identified. with it. Okay, we think it's real. So noting is a tool. And then in the coming back, the other main tool I mentioned was loving kindness, which is not to judge, to offer a kind of gentle care

to your heart or to whatever's going on inside you as you come back into the present moment. So let's, we'll finish by just, I'd like to name some of the fruits, if you will, of waking up from the trance of thinking. And the first one is that every process of healing I know, every process of becoming intimate with ourselves and with each other involves waking up out of the thoughts that we're believing in that keep us apart and connecting with the body. There's no healing without coming into the body and our trance of thinking keeps us from the body. So whether it's in spiritually oriented psychotherapy, our psychologically oriented spirituality, which really are the same, we need to be able to be in our bodies. This training to see thoughts and come into the body,

as I mentioned, it takes a kind of bravery because we're getting in touch with what we've been running from. But the gift of it, the gift of it is that we actually begin to be intimate with our lives. This is a pathway of intimacy. That's one of the fruits. The second fruit I want to mention is that when we live most of our lives and kind of conceptualizing and in thoughts, we're not feeling the full aliveness of our bodies. Our senses are not awake. We're not able to really take in the richness of the colors and the smells and the sounds. And so we're really, apart from a sense of that kind of mystery that's here, that we can only perceive with our sense. senses. This is

a read you one of my favorite verses from D.H. Lawrence. When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests

again, we shall shiver with cold and fright, but things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in and passion will make our bodies taught with power. We shall stamp our feet with new power, and old things will fall down.

We shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper. So we get this gift of aliveness, of passion, of not being caught in conforming to some of what the conventions that really keep us small. So there's intimacy, there's this aliveness. And the third is that in waking up out of conceptual mind, we begin to understand directly the nature of reality. There's a saying from the Zen Buddhists that you take this world of concepts in two hands and drop it. You know, I like that.

So as we begin to consider to quiet the mind, I mentioned this earlier, the sense of a self begins to become more transparent. The only way we can sustain a solid sense of separate self is by telling ourselves stories over and over again about who we are. That's the way it works. So we start quieting down and when we're not so identified with thoughts, this kind of sense of a separate self that's obscuring our wholeness that separate self fades. And without thoughts to divide up the world, there's this boundless unity,

boundless sense of being. One writer, and I can't remember who, I think it might have been Srinar Sargadata, who's not a writer, actually, a teacher. He said, the mind creates the abyss, and the heart crosses it. The mind creates the abyss and the heart crosses it.

so as the mind quiets were more able to sense the stillness and the silence and this vast luminous presence that's really our home that all form arises out of i read you another one of my favorite verses this is roomy be empty of worrying think of who created thought why do you stay in prison when the door is wide open. Move outside the tangle of fear thinking. Live in silence. Flow down and down in always widening rings of being. So the question I get when I speak of this as I am tonight is one that's very, very real and practical, which is, well, but I move through the day and I have to think, the work I do requires thinking, any time. I'm going out of the car, I have to figure out how I'm getting from place to place. How do we drop thinking?

And so that's always an invitation for me to say we don't, and we're not supposed to drop thinking. What we're doing here is training to have the capacity to let go of thoughts when we want to. Have the capacity to notice when thoughts are creating a prison and are not supporting us in what we want to do. have the capacity to quiet so we can see past the net of thoughts to this radiance and wakefulness and openness that's always here but obscured by our ongoing storytelling. It's to develop a capacity.

As a kind of rule of thumb as you move through the day, the more you anchor yourself in your body, the more you'll know when your thoughts are actually serving and helpful, and part of what you need to do versus worry thoughts, fear-based thoughts that keep your body in some way clenched and your heart separate. Check your motivation.

It's very, very helpful when you kind of wake up and pause and sense, oh, I've been doing a lot of thinking. What's the motivation behind these thoughts? I mean, sometimes it's going to be very sincere. Oh, I'm trying to work out this and get from this point A to point B or work out, you know, solve a problem that needs to be solved

or plan something I need to plan. And it can be very, very productive and useful. And at other times you'll get that you don't need to be thinking. It's not serving. And it would be possible to pause and feel your breath and listen to the sounds around you and take in the people around you and feel the aliveness of your body.

You can choose that. We come back at the end to Houdini again, and just this recognition that we spend a lot of time with the assumption that something's wrong, that life is a problem to be solved, not a mystery to be lived. So what happens? We're always solving problems,

and we're not living it. So the invitation is to come back and sense if it's possible these moments to just inhabit that mystery. You don't have to figure out something right now. Start finding that true wisdom arises in the silent awareness that's simply experiencing. And it's precious to give ourselves a space to arrive in that. So I'd like to close tonight again with a meditation because considering it's a talk on thinking there's been a lot of words

and this very short guided meditation will allow you to sense the progression that we've been following thus far to begin and this is always a way you can begin in any pause is sense your intention even for these short moments of a closing meditation, sense your intention. You might take a few full breaths to collect your attention.

You might invite yourself to see if it's possible to relax just a little bit more. Just notice where the body might have habitually clenched up a little. Feel your home base, the breath, sensations in the body, whatever allows you to connect with the here and now. If you notice there's a strong emotion, a weather system inside, just to say yes to it. Say yes to whatever might be intense, pleasant or unpleasant. It's recognizing and allowing this changing flow of life.

Be aware of the quality of presence itself, this mysterious awakeness, this alert inner stillness when you find the minds drifted, the thoughts. If you choose, you might just name thinking, thinking, or note the kind of thought and gently arrive again right here, inhabiting this changing flow of sounds and sensations,

feelings in life, and sensing the silence that's listening, the space that everything's happening in. The poet Lee Poe writes, the birds have vanished down the sky now the last cloud drains away we sit together the mountain and me until only the mountain remains

thank you the talk you just listened to has been freely offered if you'd like to make a donation learn more about my schedule or about programs offered by the Insight Meditation Community of Washington please visit either my website, which is tarabrock.com, our IMCW site, which is IMCW.org. Thank you very much.