We’ve all heard it. Some of us have even given it. The instruction to “clear your mind.” From meditation sessions to yoga classes, we’ve all been plagued by the order to think of nothing. I, for one, failed miserably countless times to meditate because when my mind didn’t clear I took that as a sign that I couldn’t do it and I gave up. And remember, the only way to fail at meditation is to give up. So what if we think about meditation in a different way? What if we think “let go of control of the mind” when we sit on our mats, zafus, or wherever we chose to practice? Allow the mind to go where it wants, to think of whatever comes up, and to really listen to our thoughts, rather than try to push them away.
The no-thinking meditation is a practice we have learned from the East. The monks and yogis in the mountains of India have been taught to sit with a clear mind, and this is the practice we have taken from them. There is a major difference between that monk and you on your yoga mat that makes their form of meditation unavailable, at least at first. Americans’ attention spans are short, and getting shorter. Think about all the information you get in a day from Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, news segments that last less than 5 minutes, text messages and phone calls. When do you have time to process all these short bursts of information? By the time you’ve read one Twitter post there are 5 more ready for you and you just brush aside any reaction to the first. Your thoughts and reactions get backed up. When we sit to clear our minds, the thoughts we pushed away all day rush into that quiet space and say “Listen to me! I’m important!” And if you’re just starting your meditation or yoga practice, there are years of suppressed thoughts clamoring for your attention. Those monks in the Himalayas do not receive all the shot-gun information we do on a daily basis. Anyone who lives in an environment free of our western technology has a better chance of processing reactions and thoughts as they come in.
About a year ago this all occurred to me while I was practicing meditation. If I allow my mind to just go, wander where it will, and pay attention to it, will it get quieter? And in my personal experience, the answer is yes. I changed my practice, both in yoga and in meditation, to pay attention to every thought that popped into my head. In giving it attention, I am careful to not become attached to the thought. I have a tendency to have a sentence on a broken record in my head, repeating many times over. However with this new way of practicing, that rarely happens anymore. I listen to my thoughts, really focusing on each one, and allow it to flow into my next thought, and the next. It isn’t always a peaceful experience, but always a positive one. It helps me to be in every moment more because thoughts from yesterday are no longer jammed up in my head. I am finding it easier to quiet my mind, and although I am still a bit away from silencing it, I am much more at peace.
In my yoga classes, I now invite my students to practice this listening meditation during savasana, and no longer instruct to clear the mind. If we can get rid of our thought back-up with a practice of listening during meditation, perhaps we can get closer to clearing our minds and joining the yogis and monks in a silent practice. Or perhaps we will simply calm ourselves down, and enrich our own lives with attention to the moment.
