48. Meditation 24

Provoke a negative thought and pay close attention to what happens.

Once again, take your seat. And resolve to put everything down. In this first moment. The minutes you spend here are precious. Don’t let them slip into planning your day or worrying about what has happened. Or may yet happen. Give yourself this time. Ten minutes. To be undistracted. And as you feel the energy of your body. You might take a few deep breaths. I don’t want you to bring to mind something that you regret. Something that you did badly. Or a conversation that didn’t go well. Some awkward encounter. Some negative experience that you think reflects badly on you. And bring that to mind however you can. Visualize it. How does that feel? Simply feel the emotion associated with these thoughts. Notice how it seems to modify your mind. Your mind seems to take the shape. Of this feeling. How is that possible? All of these things are just appearances in consciousness. Consciousness never takes the shape of anything. Is simply the light by which these things are seen and felt. Again, bring to mind something that you don’t like. Some thought about yourself. Notice how this makes you feel. Where does this feeling come from? Feel the energy. In the body. Where is the feeling of shame or embarrassment? Or regret. Or self-doubt. The moment you can kindle a negative feeling like that bore into it. With your attention. Feel it as closely as possible. As energy. This kind of attention robs it of meaning. There are simply appearances in consciousness in this moment. How could this next, a rising feeling be what you are? You are simply noticing it. And it passes away on its own. Once again, feel your body as a state of energy. Sensations just coming and going. Notice any mood that might be present? And just drop everything. Pay attention. In and as consciousness. To whatever appears. In the last minute of the session, turn attention upon itself. Notice this feeling. That you’re paying attention from some place. Perhaps in the head. And look for that place. Look for that which is looking. OK. Well, I hope you found that exercise useful. Meditation really doesn’t work unless it works, so it’s good to experiment to see if you could actually do this practice in the midst of unpleasant emotions. I think you’ll find that as you learn to be mindful, as you learn to break the spell of the story, you’re telling yourself about your experience. And simply pay attention to moods and emotions and thoughts themselves. The half life of any negative mental state is remarkably short and just noticing that beyond any other insight you might have into the nature of consciousness can be incredibly freeing. I wish you the best of luck for the rest of your day.