In the book “Zen and the Brain,” author James Austin, MD, writes:

“Meditators discover a surprising fact when they finally arrive at moments of “no-thought”: they do not have to think to be conscious. For consciousness starts with being aware. The awareness has a receptive flavor, its normal landscape is not a level plateau. Instead, it rises and falls as a series of peaks and valleys.”[i]

(To read an interview done with Dr. Austin by MIT Press, check out this link:  http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/auszp/austin/interview.html)

As we work with our mind and begin to develop insight into its dynamics, we’ll come to realize—even if slightly— that if we learn to follow after our thoughts less, returning repeatedly to the present moment, we’ll find a quieter and more stable nature of our mind.

When we begin to look at our thoughts, we find out that our thoughts are quite fragile, nonexistent, and fleeting. What we take to be so real is very unreal. What’s actually quite funny in a sense is that we become so distracted by phenomena that are, quite essentially, unreal! And because it’s actually funny at how distracted we can become by things that are so nonexistent, the next time that we find ourselves hopelessly distracted by the seemingly real challenges of our lives, why not return to the present moment…and laugh out loud!!

As we begin to work with our thoughts, we may find that they seem to increase. We may become discouraged to find that where there was once only a slight buzz, there’s now a loud rumble. It’s okay. Because we have not spent a lot of time simply resting in our awareness of thoughts without elaborating on them or creating new stories about them, when we first begin to work with the mind and with the phenomena of thoughts, it may seem as if things get worse! Far from anything being wrong, this can be a good sign.

In his book Coming to Our Senses, Jon Kabat-Zinn writes:

“[W]hen you go deeply into stillness, it is amazing—all there is, is hearing yourself think, and it can be louder and more disturbing and distracting than any external noise…We may be shocked at what we discover, at how much of our thinking is chaotic and yet at the same time severely narrow and repetitive, shaped by much of our history and habits…When unattended, our thinking runs our lives without our even knowing it. Attended with mindful awareness, we have a chance not only to know ourselves better, and see what is on our minds, but also to hold our thoughts differently, so they no longer rule our lives.“[ii]

I’ve written about this topic in previous posts, and will continue to do so since, after all, how we mind the bedside as healthcare professionals, and how we are with others as humans is affected, either positively or negatively, by what we’re doing with the stream of thoughts that – endlessly – arises within our mind.

To share a laugh at myself and to benefit my readers, I remember one particularly trying period of meditation, where every time that I sat down to meditate, I became distracted beyond belief. I was really trying, but no matter how hard I tried, I kept on returning to one recurring cycle of distracting thoughts, ruminating on the same stinkin’ thinkin’ over and over again. Finally, in desperation, I shouted out, “Help me cut this chain of distracted thinking!” Whereupon a voice inside my head, in the form of a wise old teacher, said, “Sure, show me where it is, and I’ll cut it.” At that moment, I burst out laughing; all of the pressure that I felt and the solidity of my thoughts simply dissolved. Of course; why was I so stubbornly holding on to the belief that my thoughts and my way of thinking was something that could be cut? There was no “where” to cut my thoughts; there were no solid objects called “thoughts.” They were all a product of my mind, and my focusing on them simply made them more “real,” or as real as they could be. I still laugh when I think about how tightly I was holding on and how ridiculously simple it was to simply let go of what I thought was distracting me…and how hard it was!!

As always (are at least I’m trying to have it be always) I’ll leave you with a downloadable practice script that you can use to work with in support of your meditation practice. I’m still working on getting my audio tracks posted as I’d promised a few weeks ago. Please bear with me; I’ve got to get the technology in place to do so. For now, here’s the document: Exercise # 3 Continuing to Work with Our Thoughts

Enjoy!

Please let me know, do you like articles and posts like this? Let me know, leave a comment. My job is to give you good content.