A Meditation For Racing Thoughts

Sometimes, when caught in a problem or thinking about it, I can get lost in my head. Plus my thoughts get racy, and if I'm not careful I can get easily "lost in my head". If this describes you, join the club. If you’ve tried meditation many times in the past and nothing has worked, this one might.

I call it the Thought-Crunching Meditation. It’s another way of saying using the thoughts and images woven by your mind during meditation the subject of your meditation practice.

Meditation Steps

First, you sit in the standard meditation pose. You begin the meditation by inviting thoughts to come. Yes literally, you invite your mind to churn out thoughts. as if you’re expecting, welcoming it. Ironically the mind will go quiet at least for a few seconds. then the thoughts come and before you know it you’re stuck in the groove.

Instead of “dammit”, you would ask your mind to “hold” that “thought”. As you hold that thought you instruct the mind to bring itself to observe the physical sensation of breathing. Whether it be on the tip of the nostrils as air enters and leaves your body, or at the abdomen or stomach rising and falling, the key is focusing on the physical sensation.

That is one complete cycle.

Invariably, while you’re holding that thought and observing that breath, that thought may dissipate, as it often does, or it might linger, or you may be pulled into another string of thoughts. When that happens, you simply ask the mind to hold that thought. And on and on.

Broken down into thirds, the formula goes like this:

1. Invite thoughts into your mind. Dialogue with your mind, asking for thoughts to arise.

2. Catch Hold and Release: catch those thoughts in the act – ask your mind to hold that thought for as long as you are able. If you forgot the last train of thought, release it and catch a new one. The tricky part is to remember to practice this if you get pulled in.

3. Simultaneously bring attention to the physical sensation of breath and juggle both. See how long you can do it.

What to do when your thoughts carry you away…

Sometimes you will notice that while you are trying to hold the thought while focusing on the breath, your mind may wander off, or even momentarily, and this is a good time to see if you can re-catch that thought and remember what you were focusing on just before your mind did a number on you. Doing this might even bring more insights that your thought process couldn’t do when the mind is stuck in its old grooves and operating on autopilot.

The more you have thoughts arise, the more material you can crunch during your meditation. By holding it gently, instead of pushing the thought away, or punishing yourself, you can thank your mind for doing its thing. The mind is made to think. You cannot banish the thinking process, because our minds aren’t made that way. That being said, meditation simply stated is a process of working with your mind to see what lies behind the thoughts.

For an excellent treatise on how to work with the thoughts in meditation, try reading this article by Shinzen Young.