I’ve been interested in Buddhism and meditation for nearly 30 yrs now and practiced the latter on and off for the same time but never advanced to where I knew was possible, (due to poor discipline as well as back troubles which interfered with my ability to sit for any length of time)

About 7 months ago I made a decision to commit to daily meditation aiming for twice a day and have managed to keep it going ever since.

Although subtle, my life seems to be improving and most noticeable is that my chronic generalized anxiety seems to have dwindled to a distant murmur when for many decades it has been at the forefront of my experience.

I recently had an endoscopy which would have caused me immense worry in the past but even on the table with all the medics around I felt a sense of calm .

It has been shown the amygdala shrinks ( via MRI scans) in people who undertake an 8 week course in mindfulness and so I feel sure that has happened to me or at least it is no longer hyper vigilant.

So many of us invest so much in improving our wellbeing from a physical standpoint when , in reality , our life is experienced through our minds which is what decides whether we are content or not. I presume it’s because people don’t believe / can’t understand that this is the case that so few people work on their minds apart from stuffing them full of more information .

Anyhow …as I am now becoming more skilled in seeing my thoughts arise through the practice of meditation ( which leads to more freedom ) I would like to ask anyone interested to take a short challenge and report back.

Sit down somewhere quiet , close your eyes and see if you can observe your thoughts arising before you become involved with them.

They like to draw you in without you noticing and gain your attention btw. If you give them attention they grow stronger and often lead to a chain of mind wandering where you are oblivious that you’ve been caught and you go off into la la land ( kind of day dreaming) until either you realize what you are doing and come back to a meditation object ( breath / whatever)or experience a short break until you are seduced again.

If you manage to observe the thought rather than being involved with it it will quickly disappear as they don’t seem to like that!

I find it incredible that such tiny “wisps” of energy that or so transient have so much power in our lives and in many cases determine our destiny.

If you take the challenge (only needs a minute or two) , report back and if you can see the thoughts arise could you notice

1/where the arise from or appear ?
2/ what is it that notices them ?

I’m expecting a lot of ribbing over this thread but maybe ..for a few people it could lead to a life of more freedom.

Finally am in no way enlightened or a master of anything…very much a beginner but I have had a glimpse of what what many traditions have talked about for millenia.

The mind is a great tool but a terrible Master and my ambition for the rest of my life is to cultivate equinimity and find peace of mind.

Over and out.

In other words, think about your thoughts.

No thinking needed to observe

I’ve been meditating every day since April (10 min a day with ‘waking up’ app). Would absolutely recommend it, specifically as the OP says for reducing generalized anxiety.

Can’t see myself ever stopping.

I spent about eight years participating in ayauhasca and peyote cermemonies, during which if you lose focus the mind can run riot. I find yoga, moving meditation, is superb for keeping the connectivity to the experiences during those ceremonies. What I find in everyday life is that I can often be aware when my mind starts to wander off the present moment and begins to cause unnecessary mood change, and reel that in to bring myself back to where I need to be. Not all the time of course, sometimes I get caught out. Yesterday was a prime example, being specifically difficult as we’ve recently had a couple of deaths in the family and my father hadn’t bothered to tell me. Trying to arrange to get to one of the funerals and my brothers wife won’t let him attend due to putting her own interests first.

I guess it can be likened to an advanced CBT in some ways …you don’t replace the thoughts though you just observe and let them go rather than getting involved.
Simply knowing this can be done is in some ways therapeutic.

Iain Banks in Raw Spirit answering the question ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ says Everyone has ideas, but writers from a young age train themselves to recognise, and then develop, them.

As a one-time Buddhist monk and sort-of writer, I’m torn between the urge to simply recognise and the desire to play. The trick is to watch your train of thought dispassionately.

Watching thoughts arise? They all come from somewhere. Training might be another word for habit, and I’m currently seriously out of practice.

Mega..sorry about your challenges . It seems it is optimal to see meditation as a lifelong practice to keep reminding yourself ..otherwise the mind will sneak in and take over at any opportunity ..particularly stressful ones when the amygdala starts shouting too. Even the Dalaï lama keeps his daily practice without fail…I often wonder if he would change if he stopped.

In the “science of meditation” a new book with cutting edge information on the practices it describes the fact that thoughts are produced before we are even aware of them . This was discovered again with brain scanning tech . The scientists were able to predict what people were thinking before they themselves knew, by viewing the data.

This summarises what I was trying to say earlier quite nicely IMHO.
[url=https://postimages.org/]image hosting website[/url]

OP is describing mindfulness. A lot of people discover it as part of Buddhism, yoga etc but it’s possible of course just to practise it outside of a belief system. I think everyone who does it would agree it’s very beneficial! I would agree that a lot of people concentrate on physical fitness/training whereas mental/spiritual “fitness” is equally important but often overlooked.

Thanks for starting this thread. I’ve had some success with doing this in mindfulness practice but I’m not always very good at remembering to do it. I also find it helps with recurrent troublesome thoughts.

Zilo : I believe being aware of cognition is “Metacognition”? Yes very much
mindfulness related .

VickyP …yes remembering to remember is challenging indeed !

I find Noting/ labelling very useful. ( Google if interested) .

Once learnt and practiced I believe these skills are perhaps some of the most helpful for well being you will ever practice. And practice is key .

For a while it seems impossible then ..little by little you start to notice what’s really going on .

Human beings are running round all day long trying to avoid suffering and increase pleasant experience which is 1/very hard work 2/ is a never ending pursuit when investing a little time everyday would make the ride far less bumpy and reap greater peace of mind.

When the volume gets turned down in your head it’s a much nicer world.
I spent 30 yrs turning down the volume by using alcohol which worked whilst under the influence but unfortunately turned it up louder than ever the next day.
This way ..with practice the volume stays low!

Great thread kaiser, thanks.

I learnt to meditate 30 years ago and have continued to meditate twice a day for most of that time. I will never stop. It’s the single most important thing I do every day to maintain and improve my well-being.

I practise TM – which is not a mindfulness meditation. I learnt mindfulness too, some years ago when going through a really rough patch, and I try to make room for both.

As I understand it, TM allows me to transcend thought and gives my body and mind a period of profound rest – and that has certainly been my experience – which brings subtle and not so subtle benefits. Mindfulness is something I try to practise amidst daily life to train myself to react better to challenges and difficult thoughts, and to generally be happier and a better person (as I see it).

It’s all good. 🙂

Excellent thread.

I really need to work on some meditation or mindfulness. Anxiety levels getting a bit too high for comfort and I know I need to address the constant mental chatter.

Biggest barrier when I’ve tried is with four of us permanently working/studying at home, finding somewhere quiet to sit for half an hour is actually really bloody hard!

Mindfulness is something I try to practise amidst daily life to train myself to react better to challenges and difficult thoughts, and to generally be happier and a better person (as I see it).

yes definitely, mindfulness is not exclusive to meditation i.e. can be done outside of the 10 mins or whatever that you set aside for it specifically. I don’t think it really clicked with me until I realised that!

I took a course in TM in 1988 and to this day reckon that I was the happiest I have ever been – like wherever I was, I always felt like I was at home.

I ‘try’ TM every morning for 20 mins these days and have for years, but havent found any benefit, or certainly nowhere near my previous experience..

Bonzo…

that’s strange …maybe you are less aware of the resources it strengthens or perhaps just become habitualized.

As far as I understand TM is simply mantra meditation with lots of bells and whistles added to justify the cost of learning. Undoubtedly it is very beneficial but I was turned off by the business and drawn more to Buddhism as true Buddhists are generally very nice people to be around , don’t demand large sums of money and give their time freely.

The Buddha was also extremely wise IMHO ..virtually everything he said or taught seems to be true,helpful or both + he said “don’t believe anything I say it’s true but find it out for yourself” …I liked that!

Oh ..and I too experienced a deep feeling of peace the first time I ever meditated in the early 90’s. I walked through a park that I regularly crossed and saw things that had always been there but I hadn’t noticed before , probably as my mind wasn’t distracting me for the first time in decades. I have rarely experienced that since or at least not so profoundly.

MoreCash …if you can get it started the volume of distractions definitely reduces ime plus your concentration improves so it gets easier. I often meditate when in the car ( not driving) after parking somewhere quiet. I used to find any noise unbearable but now I often barely notice it ! Decent ear defenders?

I feel excited to start this thread as I’m sure many people feel lost at the moment and ,with discipline ,a little effort and persistence this is a way to rise a little above of the burdens of everyday life or at least make them less weighty . I have experienced much mental suffering over the years and became an alcoholic as a result( which nearly killed me) in a desperate attempt to escape the way I felt…despite having had quite a privileged life.

I now feel that my daily practice is like a soothing balm or antidote to the daily barrage of stress and strains …although even those seem to have become less bothersome. It’s hard to put a finger on it but after a while your meditation acts rather like a perfume …the calmness begins to linger throughout the day and even longer.

After my endoscopy last Thursday the nurses who were observing me afterwards for discharge were concerned my breathing was so slow and calm . I had to explain that has become normal due to meditation ….so they asked me to speed it up !

I know I will feel ill at ease again ..probably very soon ,when life throws a spanner in the works ,but I feel I will recover quicker and suffer less because of this resource .

I am currently awaiting a biopsy result which in the past would have left me with chronic insomnia but I’m strangely accepting that what will be will be. Even being able to do that for a short time would be remarkable for me but it seems so.

I believe Sam Harris who has considerable meditation experience said ” meditation is the best preparation for the worst day of your life” I hope that won’t be the case this time but glad I’ve made a start as at 57 with no pension or a house, life is not going to get any easier!

I do the daily meditation on Headspace (almost) every day for 15 minutes and find it really helpful. It starts with a new intro each day, and gives a routine which I can keep to.

Through CBT I’m aware of the the power of negative thinking…

I did try mindfulness for a bit, but failed to find the space to incorporate it into my daily routine. I really should try again.

I definitely would benefit from thinking less.

There’s a really good series of short mindfulness meditation classes on Netflix (I think, but might be Amazon – I’ll check later).

Really calming. You can watch the gentle images on the screen or just close your eyes and listen. English too.

Biggest barrier when I’ve tried is with four of us permanently working/studying at home, finding somewhere quiet to sit for half an hour is actually really bloody hard!

Been there MCTD! When I initially learnt to meditate I was still living in the parental home with a noisy family. Like kaiser, I’ve found earplugs, and meditating in the car while sat in the driveway (although maybe not so much at this time of year!) to be useful. Also, I found fitting it into the day early on when people weren’t up and about yet – or at least not yet at full volume – was helpful. Also, even a shorter time – maybe 10 minutes – may be more doable, or doing it even before getting out of bed in the morning. Once my family could see how important it was for me to have that time to myself, and could see the benefits, that really helped.

bonzodog – Like you, the period immediately after I learned TM was superb, and since then I’ve had periods of obvious benefit and other periods where the benefit was not so obvious. I suspect any process of self-discovery or self-improvement doesn’t follow a linear path. Anyhow, my understanding is that introducing any element of ‘trying’ into the process of TM can mean you don’t get the full benefits. It might be helpful to contact your local TM Centre to arrange to get your meditation checked (although whether that’s possible at the moment I don’t know) – in case you are inadvertently interfering with the process. I’ve done this and have found it helpful – like a wee refresher – especially if you learned so long ago.

kaiser – hope all goes well for you with the result. Sounds like you are in a good place to deal with whatever comes.

Thanks Rona that’s kind and reminds me that becoming kinder seems to be another added benefit! Perhaps it becoming more aware?.Nobody has taken the challenge yet but I hope to get some feedback although I suspect I might know the answers already !

This is the Netflix series I alluded to earlier. Great thread Kaiser..

Not sure this is relevant… I’m 50 next month and have always struggled to get to sleep at night. It’s difficult to switch off.

Speaking to a friend of similar age, maybe around 5 years ago now, he mentioned that feeling of when “you can feel yourself going to sleep”. I must of looked confused, because he explained… Turns out I’d never “felt” myself nodding off. I’m either awake, thinking about something, trying to get over or I’m waking up, the next morning. I can honestly say, I’ve never felt mysel drifting off.

So… I’ve tried mindfulness and yoga, to try to relax. But, it doesn’t help, I can’t concentrate… Or not, as it were!

How do I begin meditation?

I was following the headspace app and I’d recommend it as a starting point.

I’d also be interested in an alternative as I stopped when it came to renewing. Not interested in religions-just the meditation practices.

Still find a few of the techniques useful. When I’m feeling overly anxious or struggling to sleep.

You could look into Kundalini meditation. I’d a friend who practiced that as part of his healing to drive off alcoholism.

Pandhandj I will try and make some suggestions tomorrow.

How do I begin meditation?

Sit down for a minute, close your eyes and wait patiently and deliberately for the next thought to pop into your head. That period of nothing while you were waiting, that was it.

Now do it again and think of thoughts like a cloud, drifting away while you return to the blank space. Whatever happens don’t dwell on the thoughts, or replace them with other thoughts, let them drift off. It often helps most people to focus on something, for many this is counting breaths.

Don’t be put off that those blank periods will be short, just keep coming back to them. It takes years of practise for most people to get long periods of allowing the thoughts/clouds continually drift away and dwell in the blank space.

Pandhandj…what started it all for me ( almost 30 yrs ago ) and funnily enough a well known Buddhist monk , was a book called the calm technique . There are so many resources available nowadays but that would make a good start imo. Good luck, don’t expect miracles and keep practicing. One day you may notice something has changed !

I keep reading the thread title as “Watching your thoughts arse..”

Sorry. As you were.

I have found daily mindfulness practice very useful

Lots of refinements on this thread to think about

This is the approach as I understand it

Thoughts and feelings are different.

Awareness is crucial. If you are aware of feeling worried that puts you one level up from the part of you that is worried. This in itself gives a greater feeling of control

Never attempt tackle feelings head on. Trying to stop worrying is worse than worrying. Accepting feeling worried makes it easier for the feeling to pass.

You can let go of thoughts

My tip is don’t make mindfulness practice another thing to worry about how good you are at or feel you need to do or right to make it work.

If you sit with head full of worries you still benefit every time you get back to you breath. It’s like training physically. There are lots of poor work outs on the way to success

I find this book from the Tean that got Mindfulness approved by NICE useful

So I just sat for 17 minutes

I couldn’t quite see thoughts float away

I could tune them out mainly be concentrating on my breath. I could get back to my breath very fast as I realised I was drifting

My breathing rate slowed as I tuned into how the rubbish bit of work today made me feel

Interesting thread – read as it sounded like something I started noticing in training a number of years ago and realised I’d been doing more of it in the last year. Wondered if it was linked –

Basically I found that I could hit a certain effort level on the bike and hold it and at that level my thinking changed, or I had to quieten the thoughts to hold the level (45-90 mins). I became aware of the early stages of a thought pattern and had to dismiss asap it to maintain effort, seemed that any train of thought took my focus off my pace and that number on the HRM. So I was thinking still, but only about the effort and ride and more as a focus on the feeling than a thought process.
After a number of sessions like this (1x a week usually) I realised I liked the mental game and benefits as much or more than the ride itself, or maybe it was the mix of empty mind and effort. Always felt quite calm afterwards, in a different way to a turbo session tiredness. Realised I get snippets of this in most rides but rarely for 30 mins+ unbroken.

Anyway, that’s the riding link and a bit OT. I haven’t tried the same thing sitting still. As much as I admire a lot of things in Buddhism in general I’ve never taken the step towards meditating, maybe always saw it as something a bit wooly (I know that’s daft and no disrespect intended).

Will give it a go. Thanks for the prompt.

Don’t be put off that those blank periods will be short, just keep coming back to them. It takes years of practise for most people to get long periods of allowing the thoughts/clouds continually drift away and dwell in the blank space.

My experience with the process of TM has been that the ‘blank space’ between thoughts can be easily accessed even in the first meditation, and in most meditations thereafter – perhaps not if I’m especially tired or agitated, for example. But I find that even short periods can be extremely refreshing and, of course, enjoyable too.

jameso – sounds great 😃

when i try and mediate i start seeing all sorts of colours and shapes. I find this really distracting but if i focus on a path then i dont get as good a feeling afterwards. Would headspace or similar help? ive only done guided meditation with teachers before.

I’ve tried a couple of mindfulness courses (you tube and the like) and they all share that irritating habit of either speaking in a weird ASMR voice, or use the sorts of tones that one reserves when speaking with dangerously unstable people who are carrying a box of matches and a jerry can of fuel.

whist recognising “who am I to judge” the emptiness (whisper it; commodification) of certain aspects of westernised Buddhism (to the point there actually exists a thing called secular Buddhism) such as mindfulness and meditation as it’s practiced, sold, and commercially packaged as an inwards focussed “cure” to modern ills;  somewhat misses the whole point. You may as well sit in a church and listen to a Latin liturgy it will make no sense but the poetry of it will probably lull you into the same state.

the 2 people I know both most emotionally vulnerable and emotionally “violent” both practice mindfulness and profess to follow the teachings of Buddhism, go figure…

Link to “free” version of the book I mentioned above

The introduction is worth a read on it own

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With regards to distractions ..whatever they are is unimportant ..just as soon as you realize you’re thinking then go back to your point of focus or whatever you use as an anchor.
Over and over again …it’s the realizing and going back that is actually where all the heavy lifting is done!
Of course , meditation with an anchor such as the breath or repetition of a mantra is only one type of practice.
Despite lots of practice over the years and more recently , I still spend lots of time getting caught by thoughts and mind wandering. If you really pay attention and watch intently for a thought to arise it often won’t happen …they prefer you to be off guard.Once they have your attention they grow rapidly . Stop attending and they quickly evaporate.