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Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of Thinking; Dharmette: Introduction to Mindfulness (4 of 5) Thinking - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on December 11, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of Thinking

Good morning, or hello, and welcome. Today the topic is mindfulness of thinking. What mindfulness can do is shift our relationship to thinking in such a way that we don't get easily lost in thoughts. More importantly, the attitudes, unconscious beliefs, and preoccupations with thoughts can lessen. As they lessen, they give an opportunity for something very different to occur.

It's as if someone has painted on a canvas and put paint on everything. Because everything is covered with paint, there's no room to paint something new. But with a blank canvas, something new can happen; something new can arise; creativity can appear. It is the same with thinking. If we're crowded with thoughts—if the chain of thinking goes on and on, from one to the next, so that as soon as one thought stops, it's already gone on to the next one, or if there are multiple tracks of thinking going on—there's no room for something new. Maybe something profound, which doesn't exactly belong to the world of discursive thoughts, but belongs to the world of some deeper intelligence, deeper intuition, deeper creativity, or deeper sources of wisdom and love.

So, we are becoming wise about thinking. There are a few approaches to thoughts in meditation. Some people can successfully just ignore them, letting them be in the background. If thoughts are in the foreground of attention, we become aligned and attuned with the breathing, riding the breath, staying with the breath so that the energy of attention and interest goes into breathing.

The other approach is to look thinking right in the eye and see it clearly for what it is. Often enough, how we're thinking, what we're thinking, and the mood or emotions of our thinking affect how we are mindful and how we see. We're already biased if we turn around and look at thoughts themselves; we carry the thinking and attitudes with us. But we can step away, turn around, and look at our thoughts right in the eye with a quiet, calm, clear mind that recognizes, "This is thinking." We do this calmly, clearly, with an independent knowing that is not caught up in discursive, analytical, and judging thoughts.

The third thing to do with thinking is to realize that thinking, like emotions, is a composite event. It involves many things, including some emotion, mood, or deeper feeling. The more we're caught in emotions, the more likely there's some attitude or emotion fueling it, keeping it going. To turn around and look at the emotion—doing mindfulness of emotions like we talked about yesterday—is also a way to begin clearing the canvas. It allows for settling and quieting, so attention is no longer caught, preoccupied, and filled. There can be a silent awareness, a simple knowing of the present moment that's peaceful and calm.

Assume a meditation posture. Take a quiet approach to adjusting your posture: maybe sitting up a little straighter, adjusting the shoulders, rotating the head a little bit, and aligning the spine of the neck. Quietly close your eyes.

With the quietest quieting of the mind—kind of like when you come into a library and lower your voice—quiet the mind. Lower the mind. Take some gentle, fuller breaths. Relax as you exhale. Settle as you exhale. Let the breathing return to normal.

With normal breathing, relax the thinking mind. Maybe on the inhale, feel the tension, activation, or energy of the thinking mind. As you exhale, soften and quiet the thinking mind. Quiet it and relax it so that the thoughts drift away like thought balloons, or so the whole brain can settle and rest.

Lower your attention down to where you experience breathing—the body's experience of breathing. Notice the ways you can know. You can be aware of breathing with a kind of silent knowing, a silent sensing. Silent without any discursive, explanatory, or judging thoughts. Quiet sensing. Quiet knowing.

It is as if the experience of breathing is a guide leading you towards a peaceful place. Follow the guide. Stay close, sensing and feeling, letting your thinking recede to the background or letting the thinking mind become quiet. Especially at the end of the out-breath, let this caring guide hold your hand and gently guide you.

Gently, as if you can know from deep in your torso, access a deeper, embodied sense of seeing and knowing—an inner seeing, inner knowing. You can turn around when you're thinking to simply know clearly, "This is thinking." It doesn't matter what you're thinking about, so you're not caught in the content or reacting to what you're thinking about. Simply recognize there is thinking. Maybe breathe with that recognition. Breathe through the thinking mind, knowing, "This is thinking." After a few rounds of breathing, return to be centered and settled on breathing.

If you find yourself caught in thoughts again, step away, turn around, and know you are thinking without being in your thinking. Know it calmly and clearly. The knowing, the sensing of thinking, is free, not caught. Maybe you recognize the space around thinking—the greater, larger spaciousness of awareness when awareness hasn't collapsed into thinking. Then, settle back into just being with breathing for a while. See if you can sense and feel breathing without any commentary.

If you find yourself thinking, especially if thoughts are strong, notice if there is any mood, emotion, or mental state associated with the thinking. This often offers part of the pressure or momentum to think. If there is, feel that mood or emotion in your body. Feel the physical manifestation of the emotion. Feel it well. Sense it. Become intimate enough with it that you see its changing nature—shifting and changing in small ways. The sensations of emotion. Does the thinking mind become quieter if the emotion is attended to?

You could do the "three-breath journey" with that emotion connected to thinking: knowing the emotion, breathing through it for three breaths, and then settling back to just be with breathing.

Become aware of how you might be calmer and more settled than before. Feel a little bit more connected to your present moment experience in your body. Ever so lightly, ever so gently, have simple thoughts instructing yourself to enjoy your breathing. Enjoy being in your body here and now, even if it's painful or difficult. Give yourself simple instructions to feel that which is not painful—that which is maybe reassuring or settling. Maybe a certain part of the cycle of breathing.

As we come to the end of the sitting, spend a few moments thinking, having thoughts that place the context of the meditation. Come out of the meditation in goodwill, having goodwill and care for this world. Have thoughts wishing that this practice of mindfulness supports you in acts of speech, body, and mind of goodwill. Metta¹.

May it be that this practice that we do supports us to live in the world benefiting all beings, self and others.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Introduction to Mindfulness (4 of 5) Thinking

Hello and welcome to this fourth talk providing an introduction to the basic mindfulness teachings at IMC. Today the topic is mindfulness of thinking. This is the last of the four beginning topics—areas of our life—before we start tomorrow to bring them all together into one whole.

With mindfulness of thinking, there is occasionally an idea, conscious or unconscious, that thinking is the enemy of meditation—that somehow you're not supposed to think when you meditate. I think there's a better idea about thinking in meditation: we don't want to be preoccupied with thoughts. We don't want to be swept away by them. Sometimes in Buddhism, they talk about being swept away by a flood—the flood of thinking—because it can be so strong.

It's not useful, especially if the thoughts are deflating or discouraging, or if the mood of the thoughts undermines us. The more we get swept away into thoughts, the more we get depressed, upset, or afraid. Thoughts come along with "mood music." Thoughts are not simply innocent ideas that float by. If they are strong, preoccupying thoughts, there's often a strong mood or emotion that goes with them. It's like the mood music in movies. You know, a pastoral, beautiful scene on a path in the woods just seems pleasant and enjoyable until the ominous mood music begins. Then our hair stands on end; we know something terrible is about to happen. We're very affected by the mood. Part of the reason why rumination is so deleterious for us is that mood which undermines and drains us. It has a message of discouragement, fear, or anxiety. Drop by drop, we're filling our being and reconditioning ourselves by it.

To learn how to think better, to think wiser, to be a wise thinker is part of Dharma practice. To be a liberated thinker is to think in ways that are beneficial and helpful for us. Buddhism is not about ending up thought-free, but rather thought-wise—wise in our thinking.

For that to happen, we need to spend some time getting to know our thinking, being mindful of it. Thinking is a completely valid subject for mindfulness—an area of being mindful and discovering what's happening when we think. What is thinking about for us? How are we when we're thinking? What's the effect thinking has on us? This can take years, maybe a lifetime, because it's always shifting and changing. Thinking is like the tip of an iceberg, representing so much more of what our life is about.

So, we begin including thoughts as part of the subject of meditation in such a way that it helps keep us present. It helps us to settle and be more connected to ourselves rather than the opposite.

There is a variety of ways of practicing with thoughts. Some of them I mentioned in the guided meditation. Sometimes it's invaluable just to leave them alone if it's possible. Just ignore them. Let them be in the back of the mind, or let them be in a different room of the mind, in a sense. Sometimes if we leave them alone—ignore them—then we're not feeding them, we're not supporting them, and they quiet down by themselves.

Related to that is the simple act of letting go every time we're caught in thoughts. Let it drift away and settle back into the breathing. Some people find it useful to have the exhale be the time they remember to let go of their thoughts. Thoughts creep back so easily, but if on each exhale you return to quiet, return to a mental peace or calm without thoughts, over and over again, it's like giving yourself a massage. Something in the brain, in the thinking mind, begins to relax. If we don't give heed to thoughts, if we don't give in to them or keep feeding them, they quiet down. In fact, all thoughts will fade away if we don't reinforce them.

In that regard, I think it's useful to distinguish the new English word "thoughting" from "thinking." "Thoughting" is just what the mind does; it produces a thought. "Thinking" is a chain of thoughts, a chain of associated thinking. It is taking one thought and engaging it, feeding it, picking it up, adding to it, reacting to it, judging it. A cascading flood of thoughts can come along.

Thoughts don't represent being caught. Thoughts just represent that, naturally, the mind is a thought machine. It produces a thought. But it's possible to leave a thought alone, see it clearly float up and float away. In Zen, they sometimes talk about thoughts being like a small cloud drifting in an endless sky. That can certainly be the case in very deep, quiet, still meditation. You really see a thought just arise and float away. Nothing picked up, no reactions to it. By just letting go every time you notice you are thinking and coming back to your breathing, we stop feeding it, and the thinking mind quiets down.

But to be mindful of thinking is to turn the attention around 180 degrees to really look at thinking—to know and recognize, "Oh, this is thinking." How we recognize it is very important. If we recognize that we're thinking with aversion or discouragement, oddly enough, that just supports more thinking. To hate the thinking supports more thinking. To come to some conclusion—"I'm a bad meditator" or "I shouldn't be thinking"—supports more thinking.

There's a way of gently, calmly just saying, "Oh, look at this, there's thinking. That's a thinking mind." You do this in a way that is neutral, aimless², calm, and peaceful. We're not caught in the cycles of thinking about thinking; we're just recognizing.

What I mean by "thinking" that's a problem is discursive thinking—this chain of thinking. There can be very simple thinking that's almost just thoughts of recognition: "Oh, I'm thinking." That's not the same thing as discursive, commentary, or explanatory thinking—carrying on a conversation in the mind. That's "Thinking" with a capital T. But "thoughting"—"Oh, thinking, strong thinking, a lot of energy in thinking. Let me see if I can look at thinking. Name it, look it in the eye. Oh, this is thinking"—these can be very simple instructions that technically would be called thinking as well. But it's a whole different kind of thinking that supports meditation, settling, and seeing clearly, as opposed to this discursive thinking, this chain of thinking that we get caught in.

Turn around and recognize, "Oh, I'm thinking." I like to call it looking thinking right in the eye, but lovingly, kindly. Sometimes thinking just being seen clearly and recognized clearly is enough for thinking to fade away. I've had people say something was wrong because every time they tried to be clearly mindful of thinking, it would wander off and they couldn't be mindful of it. That's not a problem; that's a success. Because that means that the mindfulness of thinking wasn't perpetuating the thinking, and there was no more feeding of the thinking. Thoughts only continue if there's some way in which the mind is involved with them. Seen clearly, they can fade away.

But sometimes they don't do that either. Sometimes it's useful to spend some time getting to know the thoughts. Let it be what it is. Don't make a problem out of it. Don't try to make it go away or do anything except just accompany it. Be present. What is this like? It's like a good friend who's really troubled, and you want to just take a walk with them in the park. Accompany them and hear them out so they can speak. Be your own good friend who knows how to listen, where mindfulness becomes a deeper listening to what's going on in thinking. What is thinking? What's really happening here?

Just like walking with your friend, maybe the content of the words is less important. You're attuned to the emotion that's being expressed—the fear they have, the upset they have—and you relate to them that way. So, as you're listening deeply to yourself or your thoughts—or watching deeply if you think more in images—you start seeing that thinking is made up of different parts. There's the emotional part, and that's often the fuel for it. There's the physical part. What does it feel like physically to be thinking? The stronger the thoughts, the more likely we'll feel some kind of tension, pressure, or constriction physically in the area of the brain, the forehead, the eyes, or it could be someplace else in the body that's clearly connected to thinking. You might spend time feeling that physicality of thinking, maybe relaxing it on the exhale. If you think in words, what's the tone of the voice? What's the speed and energy of the voice? Whose voice do you speak with?

There are more things to know and feel. But again, the goal is not to think more, not to judge yourself in any kind of way. It's the opposite of judging. Do the mindfulness of thinking as a way of caring for yourself, like a good friend walking in the park who's there to accompany, to know, to care for, to listen deeply, and to support a settling into the present moment.

That's the primary characteristic of mindfulness and mindfulness meditation: to settle into the here and now so you can find a useful way of being present to the experience you're having. The danger with thinking is that it takes you to "there and then." It takes you into the past, the future, and other places into fantasy. You can be anywhere but in the present moment. It's possible to be quiet and still enough, clear enough in mindfulness, that you really recognize in the present moment, "I am thinking." That clear recognition, without making a problem of anything, makes a world of difference.

I would encourage you today, for the next 24 hours... Each day I'm adding five minutes to your extra meditation. Today I would encourage you to sit 25 minutes. Sit down to meditate before you go to sleep. Find a way. Some of you are busy; I would encourage you to do it anyway. The carrot to offer you is that you might find you have more time after you meditate than less, in some kind of magic or special way.

Also, spend the day studying and paying attention to what effect your thinking has on yourself. Thinking is not effect-free. Notice the impact, the influence thinking has on your body, your emotions, your heart, your mood, and how you see the world. As you notice your thinking more, being mindful of thinking, what consequence does that have? Become wise about the effect of thinking on yourself.

Tomorrow we'll bring all this together into the complete instructions on mindfulness. Thank you, and I hope that you become a good friend to your thinking.