In today’s message Jiddu Krishnamurti reminds us that meditation is not about trying to prevent this brain from thinking thoughts, but about watching the thoughts dance. To get involved in a battle with your mind will only turn into a futile fight with your own brain. Instead, shift your focus. Become the observer, watching the parade of thoughts and feelings rise and fall.
“Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence. The silence that we try and create with our thoughts is stagnation, is dead, but the silence that comes when thought has understood its own beginning, the nature of itself, understood how all thought is never free but always old repetition – this silence is meditation in which the meditator is entirely absent, for the mind has emptied itself of the past.”– Jiddu Krishnamurti
In this mouthful by Krishnamurti, he makes a few points beautifully:
- We’ll never be without thoughts. Trying to stop thoughts from happening is futile.
- But there’s a place from where we can observe our thoughts with awareness, seeing how it is that these thoughts were created, and that mostly our thoughts are stuck in the past. Seeing how old thoughts are recycling again and again.
- Becoming this observer in awareness brings with it a natural silence, and sets us free from being controlled by our thoughts and feelings.
How do we find this space? How do we tap into this oasis of calm? It always starts with breath…
“The great advantage of choosing one’s breath as the object of mindfulness training is that breathing is an instinctive and effortless activity, something which we do as long as we are alive, so there is no need to strive hard to find the object of this practice.” – The Dalai Lama
By bringing our attention to the gentle rhythm of our breath, we create an anchor in the present moment. This simple act of mindfulness allows us to gently detach from the incessant stream of thoughts and begin to observe them with greater clarity. We start to notice how our thoughts arise, how they influence our emotions, and how they often get caught in repetitive patterns.
Being the observer of your thoughts and feelings allows you to have the experience without being controlled by the experience. As the observer, it becomes easier to understand that every difficult thought and emotion that visits, will again move along leaving you with the wisdom that comes from being one who sees.
Remember, even the biggest storm eventually settles. Every difficult thought, every uncomfortable feeling, will pass. Choose to be the mountain, unmoved by the winds of your mind.
Mantras to find your mountain:
- My breath is my anchor.
- Thoughts come and go, like clouds in the sky.
- I am the watcher, not the weather.
When, like the mountain, we are able to watch the clouds roll on in and observe the clouds roll on out again, without feeling the need to interfere and ‘make’ something happen… then what we are left with is the wisdom of the mountain.
– pierre –
Today’s LIVE meditation is: I am the mountain.