Stop Thinking?

A few tricks for “stopping” thoughts. It will take some time if you haven’t tried it before. The classical exercise is the stopwatch and “think nothing” for a whole minute. You’ll see what happens. Thoughts will arise almost immediately. But if you review this “thinking” business, you’ll realise that you’ve been thinking since you were a baby. Thinking is ingrained and goes on continuously, as in Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker”, photographed by Alexandr Tkachuk shown here. At best we can normally get a few “good” or positive or affirmative thoughts in edge-wise and combat the supposedly “bad ones”! But it’s still a struggle, because we are so caught up in our thought-world that we don’t live fully in a more complete Present Moment. The classical way to diminish thoughts is to use awareness to make “the thinking mind” subside. so what we have to do is something like this: 

1)    Bring awareness to your breathing process. Breathing is automatic, but you can just breath in and out once, slowly, paying attention to your breath and placing your sense of “self” into your breathing. Just follow your breath in and out. With all your attention and alertness on your breath, it is difficult for a thought to arise. You’ve tricked the machine. Just once, slowly, and see. Then go for three breaths in and out with no thoughts. They will inevitably pop up again. Let them. Then go for three more, and let them come up again. Then a third time with no thoughts. Even that minimum amount of breath control will help to detain the thinking process. Alternatives: 1.1) Changing one’s breathing rhythm or holding one’s breath between inspiration/expiration and vice-versa. 1.2) If in quiet surroundings, synchronising heartbeat and breathing with the repetition of a mantra or sound.

2)    Bringing awareness to specific parts of the body in turn: “I”-placement, or sensing body parts in turn.

3)    Using specific images to prevent the mind from wandering or having unwanted memory-based images appear.

4)    Taking one repeated phrase, question (WAI, Vichara, self-inquiry) or mantra and concentrating on that alone.

5)    Simply promoting a generalized awareness, starting with listening to sounds outside, then listening inside, and continuing with images seen with eyes closed. Eyes open can also be used, although not focusing on anything brings the same spectral images as with eyes closed, so it doesn’t make too much difference if eyes are open or not. But it is good for preventing lapse into sleep, if that happens.

6)    If you are lucky enough to have an “inner sound”, which you “hear” in your mind when the outside is silent. You can use this to place attention on, and listen to it. By just being aware of your listening to your inner sound, you are making the thinking process subside.

7)    Do something with your body that requires all your attention! Physical work. Enjoy your animal nature! This is why we like “making love” or “having good sex” so much. It’s one of the few releases from the constraints of the “thinking mind” and brings us into our bodies and feelings and makes us a little less thought-oriented!

8)    What we cannot do is get exasperated, worried or depressed because thoughts keep coming. Because those things are just thoughts too! So either use bodily awareness or just accept the fact that thoughts will flow – just listen to them as if they were the chatter of children, the singing of birds, or the wind blowing through the leaves. You are more than your thoughts! When momentary silence does come, it can give you a thrill that takes over your body – you are aware of your breathing and your feelings, and calmness and joy may overcome you. That is magical.

In all cases, repetition can be conducive to “automatism” and then images and thoughts naturally pop up. Whenever this happens, a renewed placement of awareness will help, or one can change breathing rhythm, or contain one’s breathing to renew the connection with Awareness. Vichara at this point also detains the odd thought that happens to rise up in the mind, and focuses the mind again on the question “Who is experiencing this thought?”, which leads back to the Source of mind.

The basic process is placing ALL OF ONE’S ATTENTION on breathing and on a bodily sensation. As long as attention is placed fully, no thoughts arise. As soon as they arise, they are simply noted as having arisen and not followed. Having a mantra to follow in case of thoughts occurring helps, but the awareness or presence is the only way. Thoughts and also images in our state of seeking silence will arise. We simply do not condemn or accept or follow them, forcing the mind back upon itself with our mantra or question of Who am I?