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Guided Meditation: Calming Thoughts; Dharmette: Wise Thinking (4 of 5) Thoughts that Calm Thinking - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on December 21, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Calming Thoughts

Introduction

Hello everyone on this Solstice winter day. I'm recalling how, when my son was in third grade, there was a teacher who gave all the students in the class each their own poem to memorize. Over the course of the year, once a week, each student would recite their poem for the whole class. My son was happiest with his poem because it was so short. It went something like this:

"Nothing is born without darkness, nothing grows without light."

You can certainly question if that's universally true, but I was inspired by that. My son doesn't remember having that poem, but I do. There is a tremendous value in what gets born out of the darkness. Whether it's a seed buried in the ground in the so-called dark, or a human being who develops in the so-called darkness of the womb and comes into the light. What it does for me is to appreciate that everything has its season. Everything has a potential. The darkest days of our lives, when things are very difficult, maybe contain the seeds for something new to be born. What wants to be born out of the darkness? What wants to be born out of our difficulties and challenges?

I've found that this mindfulness practice has been invaluable in making space for this deeper kind of organic, natural process to unfold in the midst of our challenges. Rather than thinking we have to fix all our challenges and solve them, we create the conditions within ourselves that make room for something profound, something right, to be born out of the challenges, out of whatever is happening. Now, on the darkest day of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere, maybe we can think of this as a time for birth. Something new is coming for all of us.

Part of that condition is to be simple, to be simple enough that we are not crowding the space of awareness with distracting thoughts. We are not crowding it with commentary and judgments, planning, analysis, reviewing, and trying to figure things out.

One of the tasks of meditation is not to be lost in thought, not to be caught up in it, not to be claustrophobic, and not to fill the space of the mind and heart with ruminating, discursive thoughts. One of the ways to do this is to think thoughts that calm the thinking—to have thoughts which calm our thinking down. For that, we first have to have very clear recognition and acknowledgment of what's happening. We are thinking. We are maybe out-of-control thinking. Sometimes this is discursive thinking, this is rumination, this is fantasy. Whatever it is, you have to begin by acknowledging it.

When the acknowledgment is really clear, really definitive—"Oh, this is the distracted mind"—at that moment, we've stepped away from it. Part of us is not identified with it. We are identifying it, but not identified with it.

Then, one possibility is to have that recognition be done with a voice or a manner that is calming, that conveys a sense of care, goodness, and safety. Like meeting someone who is agitated and talking to them in a calm way. Then, to use the simplest kinds of thoughts that you can to continue with a calm, assured, settled mind—thoughts to recognize what's happening.

We use a mental note. A note is a kind of thought. We're using a thought to stay present and not to drift away. The manner in which we say the note is calming, maybe even soothing if that's what's needed; it is grounding, it is centering. To make this mental note more meaningful, have the note of recognition come from a profound place within. Not in the surface mind, but in the deep mind—maybe in the heart, or in the belly, someplace deeper. It doesn't have to be a labeled word that you say; it could be a preverbal cognition or recognition, which is a kind of thought without words. But have that be clear. Make time for the recognition, the act of noting. Do it in a way that's calming to that part of your mind which is agitated—calming the part that's wanting to daydream or think. These are thoughts which calm thinking.

Meditation Practice

Assuming an upright meditation posture, or a posture that's right for you, gently close your eyes.

Just notice straight off: how are you? How are you in your body, mind, and heart? Start by acknowledging where you are, the starting point of this meditation. Then, allowing your diaphragm, your body, to extend the inhale, and giving more time for the body to exhale. As you allow the body a little longer time to inhale, use the expansion of the torso to feel and sense the torso, and use the exhale to relax. Let the breathing return to normal. Then spend a few moments as you breathe to feel different parts of your body on the inhale, and then to relax that part of your body on the exhale.

Breathing in and out, feeling the thinking mind and relaxing the thinking mind. As the torso expands on the inhale, maybe imagine that the mind expands on the inhale, and relax on the exhale.

Center yourself on the calmest, quietest, or most stable place deep inside of you. Like a rock dropping into a lake and settling on the lake bottom, let awareness drop into your body until it finds a place to settle. Awareness at rest deep in the body.

From the deepest place available to you, the calmest place within, allow yourself to engage in certain thoughts. Recognize your present moment experience, maybe verbally or nonverbally. Calmly, peacefully recognize with a single word what is happening, what you know and feel here and now.

If your mind is thinking a lot, having distracted thoughts, from that deep place within clearly and definitively name that that's the case. Say "thinking," or "distractions," or "rumination"—whatever it might be. Acknowledge it with a word, with a thought that is calming and peaceful, where you have all the time in the world for each label, each note.

Maybe the note recognizing what's happening is made on the exhale. A calm, quiet, definitive thought arising from the depths. Whenever there's thinking in the mind, let that be an occasion to use a calm note to recognize, to disidentify, and to calm the thinking mind.

If you find yourself lost in thought, swept away in thought, or thinking habitually, there is an alternative. That alternative is to find a place deep within from which to have simple, calming thoughts of recognition. Recognize that you're thinking. Recognize that you're breathing. Recognize your hearing, or whatever is happening. Take refuge in a calm knowing, a calm thought of recognition.

Reflections

As we come to the end of this sitting, have some quiet, calming, spacious thoughts. Think about how your meditation has unfolded from the beginning until now. What might you have learned about different ways of thinking, and about how to think in a way that is calming? What have you learned about thinking deliberately so that how you think is calming, peaceful, and deactivating? Think about these questions in a way that is calming.

Now, turning your attention outward into the world, to the people you know and you don't know, experiment with repeating the words that I say. Repeat them in a calm way so that there's a calming influence on yourself, and maybe on the world itself:

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

Thank you.

Dharmette: Wise Thinking (4 of 5) Thoughts that Calm Thinking

Welcome to our fourth talk on wise thinking. When thinking is on automatic pilot, it's way too easy for thinking to be stressful, or even harmful to ourselves. It's very easy to spin out in all kinds of thoughts, worries, judgments, and biases. We don't have to be the victim of our thoughts. Sometimes people are major victims of their thoughts. They don't realize it because they think they are their thoughts, they are their thinking. They believe, "If I'm thinking something, it must be true because it's who I am."

But thoughts are not who we are. Thoughts are a product of the mind, but that doesn't mean they define who you are, any more than your growing fingernail defines who you are. It's just what the mind does. It's a product of the mind that is a consequence of many causes and conditions in the inner landscape. We don't have to be identified with it. Especially, we don't have to be lost in it and live at its whims—going along with it, or just coping and managing with how it is. It's possible to think deliberately, and in doing so, to have a beneficial influence on the mind, the heart, the body itself, and on the world itself.

We don't want to think deliberately all the time. There's a time for giving the mind freedom to think whatever it wants to think. I do that when I exercise, and I find that very helpful and nice to give that kind of freedom to my mind. But I don't give that kind of freedom to my mind when I'm swept along with my distracted thoughts. I marshal deliberate attention, a deliberateness of thinking, to see and know that I'm thinking. I step away and disidentify with thinking so that I can call upon a way of being, a way of thinking, that has a more beneficial influence on me than the way my automatic pilot thoughts might be having.

Mental Noting and the Deep Mind

In Vipassana¹, we have a technique called "mental noting." That is just an emphatic way of recognizing what's happening while it's happening. Sometimes being more emphatic in the knowing is what frees us from being caught up in it. Mental notes are a form of thought. They are meant to be simple, rudimentary, non-judgmental thoughts just recognizing what's happening. We think of it not as work, not as something coarse that we do, but having the mental note—that recognition—come from a place that's very peaceful, calm, and settled within.

If the distinction between the surface mind and the deep mind is relevant for you, have that thought well up from the deep mind. From this deep, calm vantage point, recognize: "There are distracted thoughts. These are distracted thoughts." If you recognize distracted thought with the very same kind of thinking that's distracted, you can stir yourself up even more. But if we recognize it from this deep, quiet place that has all the time in the world and is not in a hurry for anything—just calmly recognizing—then it can be settling and calming for that surface mind.

So, we use thinking to calm thinking. By using this deep thinking that we're capable of—the source of creativity, the source of intimacy, the source of feeling and of wisdom—we drop into this deeper place that is wiser than the surface mind because it's holistic. It takes in all the information from all the different faculties that we have. So it is much wiser than the distracted mind, which is very limited in how it's integrated into the rest of us.

Relaxed Deliberateness

We can have a certain kind of relaxed deliberateness. Not forcing it, not overriding your thinking, but in a sense, underwriting it, coming from underneath it, just recognizing it. Like saying, "Come, sit down, relax, it's okay. Sit down." The idea is deliberately thinking in a beneficial way, in a calm way. Not exactly controlling the situation, but taking a little bit of charge of yourself by choosing how you're going to know, see, and be present for your experience.

This mental noting can be done verbally. It can be done in images; people visualize a lot when they think. It could also be done nonverbally, because we often know things before we have the words for them. There's a nonverbal precursor to the words that we say. There can be a sense or feeling of knowing that doesn't seem to come along with words, but it's still a knowing. It's still a kind of thinking process, and it's possible to adjust that so that it's calm, it's peaceful.

To do this in meditation is kind of like going to a gym and working out. We're strengthening, developing, and bringing forth more and more, a different way of relating to our experience. We're not calming ourselves in meditation merely to be calm—letting that be all we do just sets us up for getting agitated again. We're calming ourselves by calling upon a way of relating, a way of being, and a way of thinking that is an alternative to the thinking that usually happens for us. Over time, that can become more of a resource for us, even second nature, more of a refuge for ourselves. There are ways of thinking that become a refuge.

Cultivating Thoughts of Recognition

It's important not to overemphasize thinking, even coming from this deep place within. The task of thinking is to unglue us, to unstick us. To let go of desires, aversions, doubts, regrets, and agitations. To experience ourselves as more and more free, deeper, and quieter. So that we can enter the world relating to it from the deep mind and the deep heart that does have desires, but there's no stickiness in them. It wants to engage in the world and speak with our friends, but has no stickiness with it. It comes from this place of freedom, calmness, and peace.

If what I'm talking about today makes sense to you, experiment with this throughout the day. Maybe even put a timer on your device that reminds you, at times when you're alone, to take a timeout to assess how your thinking is going. What kind of thinking are you doing? Is it possible to change gears and think from deep down inside, to think in a calm and peaceful way?

This deepest and simplest way of thinking that is calming is to think thoughts of recognition. All we do is recognize what's happening. There's a time and place for other forms of thinking and creativity, even from this deep mind. But for this practice of mindfulness, what really supports us to do a house cleaning, to settle, and to connect with something deeper is to have the simplest, most peaceful, calm thoughts of recognition. Usually with just one word. Let it be that simple.

That simplicity is part of the message; it is part of the influence on your whole system. It's like stepping into a calm room after being in a very noisy place. The simple recognition is that calm room: "Ah, this is what's happening."

What I hope this will do is teach you that there are different ways of thinking. You don't have to merely go along with the way you habitually think, as if that's the way it has to be. Somehow the causes and conditions of your life have led you to think a particular way, but there are other ways. If your thinking is not good for you, by all means, experiment with this alternative I'm offering today. Find whatever place you can that's calmer than your surface mind, and know and recognize what's happening calmly. Bring a calm, reassuring presence to all that is agitated and unsettled within you.

May you be your own best friend. May you be your own refuge by how you think about yourself. Thank you very much.