Prodigal Mind
When my mind
returns to the breath
there is such a sense
of homecoming
such a celebration of
this most perfect union
that I would not be surprised
if the invitations were sent out
the band hired
and the cake decorated
were there only enough time
before my wayward mind
sets off to wandering again.
- Stephanie Noble
---------------
In the River of Thought
In the river of thought
may I rest like a rock
in the riverbed
cleansing the water so that
downstream it will be clearer.
If I’m not ready to be a rock
unchanged by thought-stream,
if I feel more akin to the flotsam
tossed about by the rapids
of thoughts, then at least
May I keep my head above water
and see the wide world around me
beyond the thoughts in which I swim.
May I find my weary way to the shore
and rest on the banks of the river.
May I discover that I am not the river
and bear no shame for its stench.
May I look upstream and downstream
and see that its course is endless,
that it neither starts or ends with me.
May I know not to dip my bucket
in the river and offer the foul broth to others.
And then someday may I feel awake enough
to re-enter the river for periods of time
and sink deep into the rocky riverbed, fully aware,
able to breathe in the vilest thoughts
with cleansing compassion.
May some day the river itself be so pure
that swimming in it will cause awakening.
- Stephanie Noble
Showing posts with label thought. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thought. Show all posts
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Meditation: Coming into Relationship with our Thoughts
There are various ways to be in relationship with our thoughts that can be helpful in meditation. One many people use is to imagine the mind as clear blue sky and thoughts as clouds floating through. Another, is to think of thoughts as a river or sea. As beginner meditators most likely we are submerged so deeply in our sea of thoughts that we don’t know which way is up. But if we relax a little we will naturally rise to the surface, to air. A practiced long distance swimmer comes up for air on a regular basis. And as meditators we learn to do the same, coming back to our breath over and over again as we swim in a sea of thoughts.
Sometimes we can have our head above water for long periods of time, perhaps floating on our back, enjoying the spacious air and vast sky. We are still with our thoughts. They sparkle on the surface of the sea or are the waves that we body surf. And if we submerge into them, we know which way is up, and come up for air on a regular basis.
Both these analogies remind us that thoughts are naturally arising phenomena. We train ourselves to be in relationship with them, not to push them away or scold ourselves for having them. We can even let go of the idea that these are ‘our’ thoughts, freeing us from judging them, feeling ashamed of them or intoxicated by their brilliance. There are other swimmers in this sea of thoughts! Other minds through which these thoughts, or ones very much like them, flow.
If visualizations like these don’t interest you, perhaps you can embrace the physical manufacture of thoughts – all those electrical impulses in the brain. How much of your identity is attached to the specialness of the way your heart beats or other inner workings of your body? The brain makes thoughts. That’s what it does. Of course, the thoughts are affected by a certain set of causes and conditions, and are filtered through your inherent and acquired set of habitual patterns and perceptions, but still and all, they are just thoughts. Understanding that this is part of the brain’s function, that this is what the mind does, releases our need to control our thoughts, and frees us to simply notice them as they arise into our awareness and pass away.
Finding a way to be in relationship with our thoughts is key, because thoughts are such a dominant part of our moment to moment experience. And because thoughts will often pull us away from simply being in this moment -- into remembering or revising the past or planning for or worrying about the future -- becoming aware of them and knowing how to gently return to the breath is central to developing a meditative practice.
Sometimes we can have our head above water for long periods of time, perhaps floating on our back, enjoying the spacious air and vast sky. We are still with our thoughts. They sparkle on the surface of the sea or are the waves that we body surf. And if we submerge into them, we know which way is up, and come up for air on a regular basis.
Both these analogies remind us that thoughts are naturally arising phenomena. We train ourselves to be in relationship with them, not to push them away or scold ourselves for having them. We can even let go of the idea that these are ‘our’ thoughts, freeing us from judging them, feeling ashamed of them or intoxicated by their brilliance. There are other swimmers in this sea of thoughts! Other minds through which these thoughts, or ones very much like them, flow.
If visualizations like these don’t interest you, perhaps you can embrace the physical manufacture of thoughts – all those electrical impulses in the brain. How much of your identity is attached to the specialness of the way your heart beats or other inner workings of your body? The brain makes thoughts. That’s what it does. Of course, the thoughts are affected by a certain set of causes and conditions, and are filtered through your inherent and acquired set of habitual patterns and perceptions, but still and all, they are just thoughts. Understanding that this is part of the brain’s function, that this is what the mind does, releases our need to control our thoughts, and frees us to simply notice them as they arise into our awareness and pass away.
Finding a way to be in relationship with our thoughts is key, because thoughts are such a dominant part of our moment to moment experience. And because thoughts will often pull us away from simply being in this moment -- into remembering or revising the past or planning for or worrying about the future -- becoming aware of them and knowing how to gently return to the breath is central to developing a meditative practice.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Precious Thoughts
Sometimes we get attached to our thoughts in meditation, and if we are reminded to come back to focusing on the rise and fall of our breath, we get grumpy. We were in the middle of a brilliant idea, a creative solution, a lovely visual feast – and the teacher wants us to come back to the breath? Boring!
If this feels familiar to your experience, remember that you have almost all day and night to think or dream anything you want. The mind runs free! But in this short period of meditation, we are training our minds to concentrate. So no matter how glorious a thought is, the breath is more important.
Why? Because this training is the means to end suffering. And what thought could be more valuable than that? By learning to bring ourselves back the the breath over and over again, we are making it possible for ourselves to find this still core within ourselves at some future time when we may desperately need it -- when our minds are careening full speed trying to cope with a crisis, and our emotions are on heightened alert and everything seems absolutely impossible. In that situation, I am guessing there is no past thought, no matter how entertaining or brilliant, that will rush in to save us. But knowing the way back to the breath will.
So that’s the biggest reason that we welcome anything that brings us back into awareness of the breath, whether it’s the teacher’s words or another sound in the room. And if what brings us back is simply our own recognition of the fact that we are lost in thought, a little inner celebration is not out of order, as long as it doesn’t send us off into another train of thought!
If this feels familiar to your experience, remember that you have almost all day and night to think or dream anything you want. The mind runs free! But in this short period of meditation, we are training our minds to concentrate. So no matter how glorious a thought is, the breath is more important.
Why? Because this training is the means to end suffering. And what thought could be more valuable than that? By learning to bring ourselves back the the breath over and over again, we are making it possible for ourselves to find this still core within ourselves at some future time when we may desperately need it -- when our minds are careening full speed trying to cope with a crisis, and our emotions are on heightened alert and everything seems absolutely impossible. In that situation, I am guessing there is no past thought, no matter how entertaining or brilliant, that will rush in to save us. But knowing the way back to the breath will.
So that’s the biggest reason that we welcome anything that brings us back into awareness of the breath, whether it’s the teacher’s words or another sound in the room. And if what brings us back is simply our own recognition of the fact that we are lost in thought, a little inner celebration is not out of order, as long as it doesn’t send us off into another train of thought!
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Thoughts During Meditation
For most of us the challenge in meditation is to find our way back from deep within a tangled thought in order to focus on the breath. At first it might seem that the goal is to get rid of thought, but this is not the case. It is not a policing that is required, but a quiet awareness. Thoughts are what our brains do. They are not bad, and trying to evict them from our experience even for a short length of time is not only unnecessary but counter productive.
Thoughts are just part of our experience, like emotions and sensations. Through meditation practice, awareness increases over time so that we are able to more clearly distinguish all of these aspects of our experience. We can see our thoughts coming and going. We can see the associational strings that link one thought to another, luring us deeper and deeper. We can see the nature of our thoughts, whether they tend to be more about planning, problem solving, remembering, remodeling the past, complaining, finding something or someone to blame, fantasizing or catastrophizing. We can see thoughts that come up again and again, as we tell ourselves the same story over and over. We can see our judgments about our thoughts.
While it is useful to know that this kind of awareness is a direct result from simply setting the intention to sit and be with our experience, it is important to understand that this awareness comes from regular practice over the course of time. To have an expectation of immediate clarity is setting yourself up for disappointment, and may cause you to give up on the practice.
Getting lost in thought is a natural part of meditation. A beginner meditator might feel that he or she was lost in thought the whole time. This is why sitting in a group with a little guidance is valuable. The teacher may occasionally remind you to come back to a focus on the breath. Practicing in this way helps us to incorporate the teacher’s voice into our own daily practice, so that we remind ourselves to return to the breath.
Every time we return to the breath is a celebration of sorts. It is not a time to scold ourselves for having been lost. It is a time to be grateful for returning. And each time we return to the breath we are paving the way there, making the path a little clearer, wider and easier to find. So that when we are in a crisis in our daily life, we can more readily find the path to our source of equilibrium. So, in a way, the more often we are lost in thought and find our way back, the better!
Thoughts are just part of our experience, like emotions and sensations. Through meditation practice, awareness increases over time so that we are able to more clearly distinguish all of these aspects of our experience. We can see our thoughts coming and going. We can see the associational strings that link one thought to another, luring us deeper and deeper. We can see the nature of our thoughts, whether they tend to be more about planning, problem solving, remembering, remodeling the past, complaining, finding something or someone to blame, fantasizing or catastrophizing. We can see thoughts that come up again and again, as we tell ourselves the same story over and over. We can see our judgments about our thoughts.
While it is useful to know that this kind of awareness is a direct result from simply setting the intention to sit and be with our experience, it is important to understand that this awareness comes from regular practice over the course of time. To have an expectation of immediate clarity is setting yourself up for disappointment, and may cause you to give up on the practice.
Getting lost in thought is a natural part of meditation. A beginner meditator might feel that he or she was lost in thought the whole time. This is why sitting in a group with a little guidance is valuable. The teacher may occasionally remind you to come back to a focus on the breath. Practicing in this way helps us to incorporate the teacher’s voice into our own daily practice, so that we remind ourselves to return to the breath.
Every time we return to the breath is a celebration of sorts. It is not a time to scold ourselves for having been lost. It is a time to be grateful for returning. And each time we return to the breath we are paving the way there, making the path a little clearer, wider and easier to find. So that when we are in a crisis in our daily life, we can more readily find the path to our source of equilibrium. So, in a way, the more often we are lost in thought and find our way back, the better!
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Which Way to this Moment?
Coming into a full awareness of the moment sounds great, but how do you do it?
Having a regular meditation practice, we experience being relaxed, quiet, attentive, spacious and curious. After a while we may notice that in daily life, we are able to be present much more of the time.
Meditation paves the way to the present moment because in meditation we are constantly transitioning from a mental-focused thought-producing state into a state of relaxed broad-focused awareness. It’s a shift in perception rather than a shift in location, interior or otherwise. We are aware of our body, our surroundings, and we know that we are sitting. But if we are sufficiently relaxed and alert, the moment may be illuminated with the expansive light of awareness – a moment outside of time -- that shows what was always there but seemed invisible because we hadn’t settled down in silent attention to notice it. Once experienced in meditation, this shift can happen whenever we are sitting quietly doing nothing but allowing the world to unfold around us.
This shift is brought about by releasing any tension or patterns that keep us in our active mental focus. When thoughts come up, and they do, we can welcome them as an opportunity to practice this important skill of transitioning into a relaxed state of alert awareness. The more we practice, the more adept we become at making this transition. By being open to the thoughts but not seduced by them, we keep a relaxed attitude which is conducive to an easy transition.
Most of us tend to devalue a meditative experience that is full of thoughts. We may even think it wasn’t a meditation and wish we could just be in a state of bliss. But having many opportunities to gently bring our attention back to the breath, back to the moment, is the essence of meditation practice. We are effectively creating a well worn path that we will be able to find in our daily lives when we most need it.
Sometimes when I am able to transition into this relaxed broad-focused state of awareness, I can sense my connection to all that is. And bringing even a milli-second of that awareness into my daily life can make all the difference in how I relate to the world around me.
Why does even one sliver of an insight change our whole lives? Maybe it has to do with the right brain awareness being timeless, so that it doesn’t matter if it was just a brief glimpse. The experience infuses our being. A keyhole may be small, but hold your eye up to it and you can see everything!
Having a regular meditation practice, we experience being relaxed, quiet, attentive, spacious and curious. After a while we may notice that in daily life, we are able to be present much more of the time.
Meditation paves the way to the present moment because in meditation we are constantly transitioning from a mental-focused thought-producing state into a state of relaxed broad-focused awareness. It’s a shift in perception rather than a shift in location, interior or otherwise. We are aware of our body, our surroundings, and we know that we are sitting. But if we are sufficiently relaxed and alert, the moment may be illuminated with the expansive light of awareness – a moment outside of time -- that shows what was always there but seemed invisible because we hadn’t settled down in silent attention to notice it. Once experienced in meditation, this shift can happen whenever we are sitting quietly doing nothing but allowing the world to unfold around us.
This shift is brought about by releasing any tension or patterns that keep us in our active mental focus. When thoughts come up, and they do, we can welcome them as an opportunity to practice this important skill of transitioning into a relaxed state of alert awareness. The more we practice, the more adept we become at making this transition. By being open to the thoughts but not seduced by them, we keep a relaxed attitude which is conducive to an easy transition.
Most of us tend to devalue a meditative experience that is full of thoughts. We may even think it wasn’t a meditation and wish we could just be in a state of bliss. But having many opportunities to gently bring our attention back to the breath, back to the moment, is the essence of meditation practice. We are effectively creating a well worn path that we will be able to find in our daily lives when we most need it.
Sometimes when I am able to transition into this relaxed broad-focused state of awareness, I can sense my connection to all that is. And bringing even a milli-second of that awareness into my daily life can make all the difference in how I relate to the world around me.
Why does even one sliver of an insight change our whole lives? Maybe it has to do with the right brain awareness being timeless, so that it doesn’t matter if it was just a brief glimpse. The experience infuses our being. A keyhole may be small, but hold your eye up to it and you can see everything!
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