When I try to meditate it is basically as if my mind is trying to send inflammatory thoughts my way to distract me from the meditation. Is this an effect others have noticed? Did you have troubles overcoming it? In my experience when I meditate for the first 5-10 minutes my mind sends inflammatory thoughts but after that time frame they basically die down and my mind becomes clear and stays clear for a few hours afterwards. Is this some kind of ego defense?
It is what it is. Note the thoughts and let them go.
Yep, that’s the nature of human mind, to go clinkety-clink along with thoughts alla time, and why meditation is a means to clear your mind. By sitting still and letting go of thoughts, observing them without obsessing or attachment, a calm, clear state of relaxed mind can be achieved, and that clarity can permeate one’s daily life. It’s a mechanism of body/mind that can be activated by many different methods: in addition to meditation, intense physical activity like running, Sufi whirling dervish dance, or African drumming /Dance can produce the same superceding of mind chatter and clarity.
It ain’t easy, as monkey mind chatters on a lot, suppose that’s why it’s called “practice”. And I’m no expert, my “location” here not withstanding. (Twas a given in a long ago Create yer Profile thread by Uncle Beer)
Coincidentally, I’m currently reading a book by a Buddhist teacher, Gesture of Balance by Tarthang Tulku, which is helping me to understand the process of meditation in a very clear manner. I recommend it for understanding the process of mind that is honed by meditating. Reading is no substitute for the direct experience of sitting yerself down and practicing, but helps to clarify the process. This is where a good teacher is invaluable, too. They can help to guide you through states of mind that aren’t recognised in Western Culture, and give different methods as your practice develops.
Not to say that meditation requires a teacher, the basic MO is pretty simple, as you’ve found. But, an experienced teacher can help you develop further skill, and answer basic questions like the one you’re asking.
OK, found this favorite quote by interdisciplinary religious scholar Huston Smith, who sums it up quite nicely:
“Try” to meditate? If you’re trying, you’re meditating, as far as I’m concerned. I recall someone saying that if you can concentrate on one breath in and one breath out, you’re doing it.
Do the inflammatory thoughts bother you? Do you try to push them away, or do you just let them go? It might help to envision your thoughts like fish - they swim in, and they swim out - they aren’t good or bad, they’re just thoughts. We are so conditioned to judge everything that it seems strange to have a weird thought and not think of it as a negative or scary thought; to just let it be what it is and not give it any energy. And I do think that the intrusive thoughts are your mind testing you - its had its head for so long with no conscious control from you, it’s like a horse being broken - it’s questioning whether you’re serious about taking charge or not.
I think I need to get my practice on board again, too. I’ve got a lot of chatter going on upstairs these days.
They don’t bother me much, the only concern I have is I feel like I’m wasting the first 10 minutes of meditation due to it. However I find it interesting because my mind almost has a will of its own and is getting defensive with my attempts to meditate by sending thoughts that almost beg me to respond or agknowledge them. They aren’t evil or scary thoughts, just thoughts of things I take seriously presented in inflammatory ways.
I really like featherlou’s description of fish swimming in and out. It helps me to have a visual metaphor like that. When I was meditating (need to return to that), one effect that stayed with me in daily life was the realization that I am not my thoughts - that I can hold thoughts apart from me-the-observer. It helped me step back from habitual emotional responses to certain things.
I think of my mind as an untrained puppy. When I was meditating I was training my mind. I have a problem with distracting thoughts substantially slowing me down when I read. But when I was meditating, that problem corrected itself.
I found (don’t laugh) Meditating for Dummies to be a big help. Much more so than the TM class I took 34 years ago.
If you stick with it, you should eventually get to the point where the intrusive thoughts stop almost immediately once you begin. And that’s really what most people are seeking when they begin meditating. I started meditating about 20 years ago, though I’m only a “dabbler”.
It may also be helpful to focus your thoughts on some neutral thing that deoesn’t illicit other thoughts - a blank white sheet of paper, a cloudless blue sky or the night sky all work well for me under different circumstance (if I have a report to write, for instance, thinking of a blank page has the opposite of the desired effect).
Good luck,
Winston
I never get this. It’s always struck me as strange too because my friends say they keep thinking of other things but I don’t. I don’t meditate often either. Am I having these thoughts and just not picking up on them or is my mind alarmingly empty?
Everyone, even the Dalai Lama experiences stray thoughts during meditation. It is the nature of the mind and ego to reiterate the memories of the past, and explore the imagination. Mediation is a practice in the control of that experience. It is not denial or force applied to the mind, but rather to disengage, and separate from the normal process. The simple answer is to note that is has happened, and again direct the mind to disengage from conscious thought.
Don’t expect that to happen often, or for long in the first decades of your practice of this very difficult art. It will happen first in unexpected moments, and the “realization” that such a moment has just occurred is the most common cause of disruption of that state during the time when your mind has become more disciplined. The important thing is to learn not to waste time berating yourself, or examining the frustration. Gently set the interrupting thoughts aside, without rancor, or emotion. Get used to the return to meditation, rather than the disruption of it.
There is a time when the very beginnings of the “thinking” process will have a non specific feel that you will learn to avoid in your mind without engaging in thinking about them. Kind of like lumps on the horizon of your spiritual perception. You will eventually find your way around the lumps without actively “looking” at them. While this is not the emptiness of conscious you seek, it is a path to that state, and can help you.
In the final achievement the thoughts will not be an interruption to your awareness. You can learn to maintain that sensitivity to the spiritual self without the tools of silence, or motionlessness, or chanting that you have used to learn. One of the great advantages of such practices as Tai Chi, or some types of martial arts is that the forms become habitual, and not conscious, and lead to a level of spiritual unity that allows normal body movement to be a part of that meditative state. This is a level of mastery which very few can achieve, and it requires long study.
Tris
“Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.” ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Learning to shut this sort of background crap down is one of the principle benefits of meditation.
Keep trying, you’ll get better at it.
You’re not wasting your time; you’re training your mind. Think of it like building a muscle; you build a muscle by moving it against resistance. In your mind, the resistance is the intrusive thoughts; you keep hauling your attention back from the intrusive thoughts, and by doing so, you are flexing your mind muscle. It sounds to me like you’re having a very useful practice.
It was interesting. I decided to breathe in & out 500 times and just focus on my breathing. In and count to 1, out and count to 2, in and count to 3, etc. For breaths 1-150ish I kept having intrusive thoughts that were presented to make me respond to them but after that it was mostly easy to concentrate and the thoughts quit. I have noticed this when meditating before. The mental clarity I’ve had has more or less stayed with me since then (this was yesterday afternoon that I did this) and if I meditate again the thoughts aren’t nearly as intrusive. I need to take up daily meditation to tame my monkey mind.
Sounds good, Wesley, the breathing focus is such a simple tool, and accessible to everyone. Doing your meditation at a set time helps too; morning works well for me, before the chatter of the day takes it’s toll, and your body is tired.
Featherlou’s swimming fishes analogy is very apt, as well as her “building muscle” comparison. As is Triskcademus’ post.
I’ve found that training your mind seems hard at first, especially since we Americans are taught to absorb information and constantly sort through and judge it in daily life. Plus, we now have a constant barrage of visual stimulation through media since childhood, and our minds have to process alla that. This was not an issue in the Eastern development of meditative techniques, so it’s harder to calm our minds now.
Seems like a hard row to hoe, yet the basic techniques still work; sit still, stretch and relax your body, and do simple concentration exercises to relax your mind, too.
This is one point in the book mentioned above that I now understand; before meditation, do exercises that relax your body (this is the point of Yoga exercise) before meditation. By stretching and relaxing your body, it’s easier to calm your mind, too.
And there’s nothing wrong with meditating in the evening for relaxation/sleep enhancement, either, as far as I’m concerned. Pure practitioners say to try not to fall asleep while meditating, but I’m all for it. I figure if I get so relaxed and peaceful that I just drift off at night, that’s a good thing. I complete agree that a relaxed body and a relaxed mind go hand in hand. Of course, I’m not exactly aiming at ultimate enlightenment, either; I just want to relax more, worry less, judge less, and enjoy my life moment by moment more.