Good evening everybody, and, just while we wait for people to come in, I thought I'd say hello and a big thank you to Dawn, as always, for setting up tonight's meeting. And tonight we're going to be looking at, as the screen says, this sense of . Thoughts and emotions and, and just exploring a meditation which allows us to actually observe our thoughts from a very, very strong and useful place.
And the more I work. Using this sort of mindful stance as opposed to a more wrestling with your thoughts stance that you might find with cognitive behavioural therapy or classic cognitive behavioural therapy. It's really beginning to recognise, I suppose that.
Thoughts. I think you can think of them as being the vehicles of our emotions. So if we're feeling a positive or a negative emotion.
There nearly always is. A thought that that emotion is attaching to. And sometimes we talk about having control over how our feelings are expressed.
And the way thoughts arrive in our consciousness actually make that quite difficult. And so Tonight's meditation is along the lines of er looking at thoughts differently and John Cabot Zen uses this phrase here, he talks about thoughts as being like the weather of the mind. And you know, there are some days which are sunny and gorgeous.
And there are others that are rainy. And there's not much that we can do to change that. We just sort of go along with the weather that we're in.
And John talks about how. He sort of, well, sort of bemoans, I suppose, how people get mindfulness wrong and they understand meditation as being a way to banish worldly thoughts, but. As you cannot banish a sunny day or you cannot banish a rainy day, and if you ever try and jump in a car and drive away from it.
We often find that where we get to perhaps is no better than where we left. And so John Cabot's in. Really loves it, if we can get to that place where, and you've heard me, if you've meditated with me before, talk about finding your sense of being your own curious scientist.
And he talks about observing them from a place of real curiosity, like a scientist. And He makes this real distinction between the difference between having thoughts and having awareness. And while it seems plausible perhaps that thinking about something, well then of course we're aware of it.
We're not as in control of our thoughts as we sometimes think. An example might be about the stuff that we buy into. And the thoughts that we buy into at a daily basis.
That perhaps just don't work for us. And I'd like to share with you a mindfulness metaphor that I find really, really useful about this sense of buying into thoughts. So If we can just imagine for a moment.
Being out shopping. And suddenly beginning to feel really sort of unnerved and uncomfortable, and we pass a shop and the shopkeeper steps out and says, you look a bit worried, you look a bit unhappy. And you say, well, I'm not having a great day.
And the shopkeeper says, well, I've got something here. And actually, I'm gonna wrap it up for you, but it, it's gonna cost you £100. But, this, this present in here, you know, might make the difference to the way you're feeling.
And for some incredible crazy reason you part with your well earned £100 and you get home and you open the, the gift that's all wrapped up and inside is a vase. And it's a very ugly vase and it's got a chip in the rim and a crack down the side. And You think well it must be an antique, and then you turn over the bottom and it says that it was made in China.
Last year And You think, oh well, at least I can sort of put flowers in it, that'll pretty us up a bit. And then you notice it's got a dirty great big hole in the bottom. And you look at that vase and you think, good God, I've just.
I've just paid £100 for this and. Every time I look at it, every time I clap eyes on it, it's gonna remind me of what a ridiculous choice I've made here and how this decision to buy this vase was such a silly thing to do, and I get a sense that this vase that I've now bought into, I've bought this vase, is, is just never ever going to work for me. It's not gonna hold water, it's not gonna be useful, it's not good to look at.
It has no redeeming features. And so you go back and . You say to the shopkeeper, look, I don't know what you were trying to do, but I don't wanna buy it, I don't want to buy this vase, you know, I'll, I'll have my 100 pounds back, and he says, well, what are you gonna buy with that 100 pounds and.
Perhaps we think about it, say, well, I'd like to spend that 100 pounds on. Taking someone I really love out for a meal as soon as lockdown ends. And you say, would that be worth £100?
And as I sit and think about that now, I think, oh my gosh, yes, that would be worth £100 to have an evening out, eating good food in good company with someone you love. There's an awful lot to be said for that. And then we stop and we step away and we think about the thoughts that we buy into.
And bringing mindfulness to these thoughts, these ubiquitous everyday old mind stories that we buy into, we're not good enough. One's like that, there's no point. I'm too tired, things will never get better.
And an awful lot of these really difficult thoughts which then attach to emotions as we were saying earlier. We buy into automatically. And the meditation we're about to do.
I, I suppose in a way, it's about beginning to learn that we can look at the thoughts that show up in our lives. And we can ask ourselves, is this a bit of a horrible old leaky vase of a thought. That Just has nothing workable about it that holds no water that brings me no happiness that.
It's something that I really would never pay £100 for it, and so we can look at the thought. What's the point, let's say, a thought like that. And we can bring mindfulness, curiosity to that.
The curious scientist, and we can say, would I pay? 100 pounds for. What's the point?
Or I'm too tired or I'm rubbish or I'm not good enough. And we look at, would I pay 50? Would I pay a tenner?
Would I pay a, I wouldn't buy that thought for a penny. Or what thought would you buy? Well, I, I'd probably buy.
I am. Tired But I'm not too tired to enjoy my life. I'm not too tired to be good at my work, I'm not too tired.
Or I might choose to buy into a thought like . When lockdown ends, I'm going to choose to really focus on doing some really wonderful stuff that I've missed. That worth £100.
Absolutely. So It's that fundamental importance between having thoughts and having awareness. And it's about learning to see thoughts.
John Cabot Zin often talks them in that sense of bubbles. And just like what we did then with the, ugly empty vase exercise. The bubbles can be burst, you know, they're waiting to be popped by awareness.
And if we bring awareness to whether or not this is a thought that I want to buy into. Or not, and we then replace that thought with something that oh my gosh, I definitely want to buy into that thought. Then The negative emotion that's often associated with our thoughts.
Well sometimes just. Disappear Into the thinnest of the air. So there is this sense of being mindful about whether or not we want to buy into.
Thoughts So our meditation tonight is a meditation that allows us to create that space between thoughts. And awareness And the awareness of whether thoughts are useful, whether we buy into them, whether we let them go. Whether some thoughts we choose are definitely worth my 100 pounds.
And so we call this a meditation on thoughts and emotions. Or I sometimes think of this one as a meditation on observing. Thoughts and the emotions that accompany them.
So this is a meditation with bells. And I'm gonna do it really quietly because the dog is asleep on my lap at the moment and he really hates the . The king say bells.
I'm holding them away from his head. And Now he's looking at me suspiciously because he's woken up and he's seen them. Hey, he'll, he'll survive.
So it's a meditation. Of bells. Where we observe thoughts.
And we look at creating that space between the thought and the awareness of them. So As we sit In our wonderful dignified stance. I'm just gonna ask you please to take a few moments.
To just settle into What we call feeling the body. As a whole Either lying down and breathing. Or just sitting.
And breathing Perhaps getting a sense of. Riding the waves of the breath. Moment by moment.
Taking our attention to the breath. And just resting. And that awareness of.
This automatic almost process. Of breath and breathing. And we stay with our breath.
Until we get the sense that it's allowing us To just rest. In awareness of it. An awareness that Features the entirety.
Of the bodyscape. And the breathscape. As they express themselves.
Because as we focus on the brash. We also Build our awareness that with each breath. The whole body Becomes involved.
And as we sit, Here breathing Moment by moment. Finding awareness. It's as though life.
Is unfolding Here and now In the body and in the breath. And an awareness. When you're ready Just let go of the breath.
And the body As a whole, let go of your attention. Let go of your awareness of the breath. Let go of your awareness of the body.
Allow them to Gently float like a bubble. That just floats and floats and disappears. Recedes into the background.
And as we've been saying. Still very much present. But less featured And let's just invite into our mindful brains now.
The whole domain. Of thoughts And emotions. Just let those thoughts and let the emotions that are prevalent in us.
Become centre stage. In our own field of awareness. Let's attend To the stream of thought.
Rather than being carried away by the content. Or the emotional charge of individual thoughts. As though we were sitting.
Resting comfortably on a bank. Watching a stream of thoughts. Just pass us by.
A stream of thought and emotion. Just entering our mind. Moving about.
And Allowing individual thoughts. If and when they push their way in wanting us to buy into them. Wanting us to recognise them as thoughts as events in the field of this.
Stream of awareness. And that's now put on our Curious scientists white coats. And let's step outside.
And look at these thoughts that we buy into. As mental events. Perhaps occurrences.
Emanations of the thinking mind. And let's see them independent of their content. And their emotional charge even as That content and emotional charge.
Are pushing to be felt and experienced. And let's see if we can't. See any and all of these.
Thoughts that are popping up and showing up. As bubbles Or eddies Or currents within this stream. Of thought and emotion And as we step back curiously.
Seeing these things as bubbles as. Ripples within the stream of Emotion and thought We notice that they are. Just Bubbles rather than facts or the truth of things.
Whatever the content. Whatever the motional charge. Whatever the sense of urgency.
Whether these thoughts come Go And reappear Just seeing them as though they're bubbles. It doesn't matter whether they're pleasant or Difficult or neutral. We just sit with them And we explain And it's a bit like perhaps.
The bubbles that come off the bottom. Of a pot of boiling water. That arise in a moment.
Linger for the briefest of instances. And disappear Our job is to. Just relate to their content.
As if it were all Of equal importance and relevance to Say what you had for dinner 3 nights ago. Even if a thought is compelling. We see it as just something that comes that goes, as though it were a thought of no consequence.
And as we sit Chest watching thoughts as bubbles. Accompanied by emotions. Perhaps recognising it as a bit of a running commentary.
Taking a position in this relationship to it. That's sort of like Turning the sound down. On a television programme.
So that you're just watching. Without being sucked in. To whatever's being said.
Just detecting. Thoughts as A moment to moment experience. And knowing them As thoughts Naming them, this is a thought.
And this is an emotion. This is a mental event. And as we start to see them as Not being always truthful.
And as we start to watch. Our mind create thoughts. Send them And let them go We realise that we have choices.
About whether we buy into. These thoughts Because we can watch thoughts and see how easily. These thoughts begin to fabricate views, opinions.
Ideas beliefs. And how easy it is for those. Sometimes difficult negative beliefs.
To proliferate. If we buy into them. Before we know it We've bought the vase.
And we're at home looking at it. On the shelf Beating ourselves up. For having Purchased something that has no usefulness in our lives.
And if so, If we keep doing this. Coming back to. This habit of buying into stuff that doesn't work for us.
Instead, We can sit back. And we can bring curiosity. To the field of thought itself.
Beyond the content of the endless thinking. We can Allow all of this stuff. To just be held in awareness.
As we return to our breath And as we sit here Resting In the awareness of choice. As the awareness of choice takes up residence. In awareness itself.
And we see that. There's accepting of thoughts and feelings. Whatever content.
Whatever emotional charge accompanies those thought bubbles. And we can sit back and learn to observe carefully. And make choices about what we buy into.
What we'd rather choose. What we let go of. What works for us.
And we start to see them perhaps. After a while as being like John's weather patterns. As ripples and waves on the surface of a vast and deep.
Ocean of the mind. And as we inhabit the whole of our mind. We just get a sense that.
As something beyond thought. That's bigger than any feeling, however powerful. We get that sense of ourselves.
And the landscape of our own being. Of our lives unfolding. And so for The remainder of This meditation I'm just gonna ask you to set.
Until you hear the sound of the bells. And just rest in an awareness. Of the arising Of thoughts And the choices that we have to buy into.
To let go Or to simply see them. As Just thoughts and feelings that stream and disappear. A scaffold perhaps.
The Thoughts and feelings just sort of hang from And just to sit. Not looking for thoughts or emotions. Just resting in awareness.
And letting stuff come. Babala And to sit with them And letting them bubble up on their own. Held in this field of awareness.
Moment by moment. Breath by breath. We sit And we allow And we make space.
And we Find the liberating sense of choice. Do you know I'll buy into that one. Because that thought works for me.
No, no. That's a bubble thought. I'm gonna let that just go.
Now that thought's worth. 100 pounds every day of the week. And that thought Well, that's a vase that doesn't hold water.
And maybe I don't buy into that. Any more Well done, everybody, and This concept of thoughts as being something that. We have A choice over, I think is extraordinarily powerful.
And a lot of the new thinking at the moment is this sense of choice, . The language being, you know, that. If we sit back and we look at some of the stuff that almost feels ubiquitous in our lives, that shows up and pushes us around and bullies us, if we sit back with curiosity and we ask ourselves.
Would I pay £100? For that thought. No, 50?
No. A pound? No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't give anything for that.
And if we'd give nothing for it. Because it does nothing for us. We let it go.
And it becomes even more powerful if we replace that. Thought that we see as the Hideous vase with the hole in it. And we deliberately on purpose choose to buy into a thought that our brain will send us at some point that day that makes us smile.
That Is worth buying into. And we start to notice that. We become aware.
Of the emotion. That attaches to some of those thoughts that we've been holding onto and buying into that we're now letting go of and we start to become aware. Of an improved sense of richer.
Better emotion. Beginning to flourish in our lives. I really like this stuff and this sense of having.
Choice over what we think about and how we think it. And the subsequent impact that has. On our awareness and on the Our happiness, I suppose.
So thank you all so much for joining me. Tonight, and if you've enjoyed it, you found it useful, tell your colleagues. And we're doing this, monthly now, and thank you to those of you that.
Contacted me after the virtual congress and some really lovely things were shared, so thank you for that as well. And we look forward to seeing you all. Very shortly, and the wonderful dawn has just said that we're back in again on the Sunday evening of 11th of April.
So have a lovely night and don't forget. It's your choice, what? Thoughts you buy into.
And what you let go of. Good night, everyone.