Being Present

Mind wandering drives more people off meditation than any other variable. Probably more than falling asleep, being disturbed, or feeling physical discomfort, not being able to “control” the mind seems to be the most discouraging. 

Newcomers to my meditation classes report that they have tried meditation in the past and couldn’t get their minds and thoughts to stop. They abandoned the practice because they felt like they were doing something wrong. Not only did it lead them to stop practicing, it led them to believe there was something wrong with them because they couldn’t control their mind.

Bravo!! to them for not being able to stop their thoughts. I’ll explain in a minute.

However, sad, too, because it is workable. With a bit of help, we can begin to understand what is going on and find a way to work with the wandering mind, or monkey mind as we call it. Seeking a teacher, and reading more about how meditation, and mindfulness meditation in particular can lead us on a path of less self-judgment, more understanding, and more kindness for ourselves. 

Now, back to the Bravo!!!

We do not want our thoughts to stop. 

To have our thoughts stop is to be brain-dead. Thoughts are a result of the electrical and chemical processes that occur in the organ of the brain. Much like heartbeats tell us our heart muscle is working, therefore we are alive, our brain also puts out energy – in the form of thoughts – that tells us we are alive. Our stomach gurgles when it is digesting food and grumbles when it is hungry – signs of being alive that we truly don’t want to have end and can be troubling at times (in a quiet meeting, during meditation) 

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather keep those thoughts coming if it means I am still alive.

So what can we do with our thoughts?

We can treat them like any other stimulus that enters our sensory field and simply note them. Let them come and go without getting stuck in them. As we engage in formal mediation and track where our attention is, thoughts simply become one more place our attention can land. Then we notice, become aware, and become mindful, that we are not on the object of meditation that we set as our intention. And we guide attention back to our object. 

A couple of metaphors might help here.

Being in meditation is a bit like sitting on a river bank. All kinds of things float by us as we sit there – debris, leaves, sticks, trees, shingles, tires, animals, fish, etc. If we are noticing from a mindful posture, we simply note, name if you will, as these things float by. When we are less mindful we are in the river getting bumped and chasing after. We are stuck with swimming to and fro. The antidote is to treat our thoughts like simple objects floating by, nothing I need to jump in the river for. Can I just notice the river moving by with all that shows up? Name it, not chase it?

When we sit in formal mediation we can consider our attention to be like a wide open sky. Our thoughts and experiences are like weather that floats by. One moment clear and sunny. The next is cloudy and gloomy. Then stormy and scary. No matter the weather pattern, it shifts and changes within moments or from meditation to meditation. Our task if you will, is to stay awake to the type of weather floating by, let it float by, and remember that weather is the nature of our reality, 10,000 joys, and 10,000 sorrows. 

Another view is considering the bombardment of thoughts, the monkey mind, like standing in a waterfall. There is a torrential downpour of thoughts and most of the time we are under the deluge. Mindfulness meditation reminds us that there is always a space behind the waterfall where we can step back and rest. We are no longer in the deluge and we can find some space to observe and let be.

Remember. We need thoughts to let us know we are alive. Using our essential practice of holding attention to our object and noting when it wanders tames the mind over time. We learn to hold attention longer and longer and as we do, thoughts move into the background becoming less troublesome. 

Science shows that when we name what we are observing – here, thoughts – parts of the brain quiet and become disengaged resulting in a calmer presence.