In the beginning of a meditation practice, we get some pretty big insights to the nature of the constantly thinking mind.
Four things you may immediately observe:
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How many thoughts there are
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How repetitive they are
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How strong the pull is to take you into the full narrative of the thought
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How the pull always takes you away from the present to the past or future
The Thoughts Just Keep Coming. There is a relentlessness to the thinking mind. Experiments of monitoring the brain indicate tens of thousands of thoughts per day. The meditation practice may be seen as a train running down the tracks – each car another thought. The meditation practice is to note the gap between the cars – the gap between the thoughts – and hang out there for awhile – before the next train car comes.
I Keep Thinking The Same Stuff. Estimates from experiments indicate a high repetitive nature to our thoughts – we keep thinking the same stuff over and over. It’s like watching re-runs of old sitcoms that were pretty bad the first time around! So if we take a break from this traffic of thought, we’re not really missing anything – we’ve already thought most of it before anyway.
I Can’t Help Myself. It’s difficult to maintain a place of simply witnessing the stream of thought – we invariably get dragged into one of them. It’s not just realizing we were thinking about making the grocery list – we’re actually adding the items to the list in our head! Not just a thought about a conversation – but a retelling of the lines with the new material you wish you had said! As you “wake up” deep into the narrative of a thought, pull yourself out of it by coming back to the breath or other object of concentration you are working with.
Where Am I? Invariably, when you are pulled into a thought, you are taken right out of the present moment and your present experience to relive something in the past or to plan or worry about something in the future. The pull into the narrative of a thought is also a pull out of the present moment. Coming back to your object of concentration is a simple practice of bringing you back to the present moment at the same time.
The famous philosopher Rene Descartes proclaimed about 400 years ago, “I think, therefore I am.” Unfortunately, we’ve been believing that ever since! In meditation, our experience is the other way around – “I am, therefore I think.”
Wishing you all the best in recovery,
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