Mindfulness of Thinking Mindfulness of thinking continues the effort to broaden the field of awareness. Thoughts can be primarily words, primarily images or a combination. Anything imagined is regarded as a thought. Our thoughts are largely conditioned by our past experiences. They are central to the actions that we take. Yet we are often unaware of our thoughts; we are simply identified with them and caught in the “story”. Mindfulness of thinking allows us to develop a greater degree of freedom in our thinking and in our actions. Practicing Mindfulness of Thinking •Settle into your sitting position with an erect but relaxed posture. •Take several deep breaths. Then allow your breath to flow in its normal, ever changing manner. •With a quality of spacious awareness, rest your attention in the sensation of the breath flowing in and flowing out either at the tip/rims of your nostrils or in your chest or abdomen, wherever the sensations are most predominant. •When you become aware that your awareness has been pulled away from the breath or that you have become lost in thought, hold that thought in your non-judgmental awareness until it disappears. Then return to the breath. •If you are finding that it is very difficult to hold the thought in awareness, you might try gently labeling it as “thinking ... thinking ... thinking” until the thought disappears. Labeling or noting can be a support for developing concentration and mindfulness. However, it can also become a habit that can interfere with your ability to be present. When able to hold a thought in awareness, see if you can drop the noting. •After you are able to hold a thought in awareness from beginning through the middle to the end of the thought, begin to pay attention to how thoughts arise, are present and pass away.  •If you ever feel confused about what you are experiencing or what you should do, simply return your attention to the breath. •Continue this practice until your meditation period is over. •During the day, take a few moments to be mindful ofyour breath, body sensations, moods and thoughts. This is a good way of helpingyourself to settle down into the present moment and to bring your meditation practice into your everyday life. Obstacles to Meditation: Meditation is not easy.  Some days the last place you want to be is sitting on your meditation cushion.  Those are generally the days that you need the benefits of meditation the most.  There are 5 Hindrances to Meditation identified in the Buddhist tradition.  They plague every mediator at some point or another.  When the mind wanders and it is a challenge to refocus the mind and bring it back to the meditation, the incessant wandering is called a hindrance.  The hindrances are: 1. Desire - grasping, wanting, craving, fantasy  - Wanting is a bottomless pit.  If you fulfill this desire, the mind will only want more.  Try to understand the Power that craving has in your life. 2. Aversion - Anger, Fear, Boredom, Judgment, Resentment, Dislike of an experience.  Aversion is experienced as unpleasant sensations, things you want to avoid and keep out of your experience. You may experience it as a pain in your leg distracting you as you meditate - you want that pain to stop, and resent having to sit still.  Aversion takes many forms - notice how it arises for you - identify its forms.  Do you feel it in your body?  Where?  What effect does it have on your mind?  Do you express it internally ("I hate this, it bothers me, I am afraid of that")  Anger and Fear show us where we have blocks - where we are stuck.  They are a signal to you, to draw your attention.  Examine and work through your forms of Aversion, so you can know them and integrate them back into your heart. 3. Sloth and Torpor - Sleepiness, sluggishness, Confusion, Boredom, Spaciness, Laziness, Drowsiness.  Can be related to several things - little prana (energy) in the mind.  Use your awareness to penetrate the tiredness in your mind and explore its qualities, sit up straight or try standing or walking meditation.  It can also be a sign of pain or sorrow that we don't want to feel - sleepiness is a temporary escape from those feelings.  Examine the sleepiness, and see what the root cause is.  Work through it with your focused mind. 4. Restlessness - Agitation, Anxiety, Nervousness, Jumpiness, Scattered Energy, Worry, Planning.    "I have other things I need to do now - I have no time for this.  After I meditate, I will finish my project, do the dishes, etc."  Can be too much energy in the mind, which is not focused.  Can also be a response to not wanting to feel.  Focus the mind by counting your breaths slowly from one to ten, then start over. 5. Doubt - Judgment, Self-doubt, Insecurity, Doubting the teacher, doubting the technique, doubting our capacities, skepticism, often accompanied by a need to escape.  The voice of Doubt can be "What am I doing here?  Why am I doing this?  This is too hard.  This won't work for me.  What's wrong with me?  What's wrong with you?  I can't do this."  To work through doubt, one needs to increase faith and trust in the experience.  Continue to sit, and decide to put aside the doubting mind and just see what gifts the meditation experience has to offer you today. As these hindrances arise, don't fight them.  Fighting and resisting them gives them an insidious power.  Allow them to move through you, examining them, treating them with awareness and non-resistance.  This softens them, and soon you will be able to listen to these hindrances and see what they have to teach you.  If you make space for them, they have much to offer you - an increased awareness of yourself, to show you areas where you need to get to know yourself better.  You can use the hindrances to go deeper into yourself and into the practice of meditation.  The hindrances will speak to you, showing you blocks, and as you treat them gently with non-resistance, their voices will fade allowing you to continue your meditation with focus and a greater knowledge of yourself. Another technique for moving past the hindrances is to silently name them as they arise.  As you become aware of the hindrance in your mind, name it twice, for example, "aversion, aversion" or "judgment, judgment."  Then bring your awareness back to your breath.  After two or three silent namings of the hindrance, it often dissolves.  You gain power by having a calm and non-reactive mind.  You can acknowledge the hindrance without reacting to it, which helps you develop patience, calm, and balance. REMEMBER - it is normal for your mind to want to wander, draw your attention to issues that are blocks for you, to entertain itself, and to plan for the future.  You are still meditating while this is going on.  The hindrances are a sign that your meditation is working.  Draw on the hindrances to go deeper into your meditation.