Thoughts on Thinking

Knowing what to do with your wandering thoughts is perhaps the greatest challenge for meditators.

By Edward Espe Brown

You could say that the point of meditation is to liberate thinking, and understanding this, you are ready to examine what to do with thinking during meditation. There are two basic strategies. One is to do something other than thinking and to use your thinking to help accomplish that. The other is to give your thinking something to do other than what it usually does.

It's important to keep in mind that the goal is not to eliminate your thinking. I hear this all the time: "I'm so sick and tired of my thinking. I just want to get rid of it once and for all." Your thinking knows you want to get rid of it, so it is going to cling to you for all it's worth.

So what do you do with thinking during meditation? This first strategy, which is basic to Buddhism, especially Zen, emphasizes posture and breathing. With energy and commitment, give your attention fully to them rather than to your thinking.

This means emphasizing a straighter spine, including the small of the back curved slightly in and the neck long. But don't be shy about asking your thinking to lend a hand when needed. Is the neck shortening and the chin jutting forward? That's a red flag that thinking is in full bloom, and when your thinking notices that, lengthen your neck. You can also have your thinking count the breaths, say on the exhalation, or note the breath as it proceeds in and out.

Any Questions?
The second strategy involves giving your thinking a task. Good ways of doing this include koan study, the vipassana practice of noting, and any host of other creative endeavors. For instance, you could challenge your thinking with specific questions, such as, "What was your original face before your parents were born?" (Chew on that for a while.) Or you could practice taking mental notes, as appropriate: "thinking," "judging," "planning," "remembering," "anger," "joy," "seeing," or "hearing."

There is also the koan of daily life: Ask your thinking, "What is it you really want?" or "What is the most important point?" Any one of these activities can keep thinking occupied. In a sense, what you are doing is inviting your thinking to join you in meditation rather than trying to exclude it. This is similar to how you might work with a young child, explaining, "Here's what we are doing, meditating, and I would like you to help me by observing posture, sensing the breath, or whatever it is we are focusing on."

A third approach is to make a deal with your thinking: Leave me alone for now and I'll check back with you later. The secret here is that you are not trying to get rid of your thinking permanently, only temporarily. This is similar to the parent-child model: "Listen sweetheart, I am really busy right now, so please don't bother me. Could you play by yourself for awhile? And later we will play together." You directly ask your thinking to leave you alone—to suspend judgment, gossip, and commenting so you can meditate—and agree to get together afterward to listen to what your thinking has to say.

But even with this approach, your thinking often can be very suspicious. I learned how to deal with this obstacle from a speech consultant when I had trouble expressing myself at meetings.

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