Thoughts Understanding the Nature of Thinking

Even if we're doing some simple activity and zone out for a bit, some sort of thoughts will eventually come trickling back in that capture our attention and distract us from it. We'll start planning something, or remembering something, or imagining some crazy thing…

This happens so often that we barely even notice it at all, it just seems to be normal. We seem to have various "states" of thinking, and we can notice the difference in subjective quality between them.

There's a distinct feeling accompanied with catching ourselves, where we "notice" that we were just distracted, or zoned out. This is a sort of momentary mindfulness that most people can relate to.

When in a conversation with someone, or doing something at work, we have the split moment where we suddenly become aware that we're distracted. We're almost never aware when we're boarding the train of distracted thinking, but the feeling of getting off of it can come with a palpable feeling of present awareness.

By cultivating mindfulness, you become not only aware of what the train of distracted thinking looks like, but you start to gain overall deeper insight to what your conscious experience is actually like.

"Mindfulness is like the ability to stroll the landscape of consciousness and look at every leaf, and turn over every rock."

When starting out, sitting down to meditate can feel useless, even to the point of mental difficulty. You're sitting there, trying to focus on the breath, and a lot of thoughts can pop into your head.

What's happening here? You sat down to meditate and focus on the breath, which should be the easiest and simplest task ever. You are almost literally doing nothing. You understand that you need to sit down, focus, and gain some insight, but it doesn't seem to be happening here.

What's happening is a hell of a lot of thoughts.

You'll begin to notice that very interesting and annoying feature of thoughts, is that there always seems to be another seemingly attached, or accompanying one that follows it.

Recognizing how our mind is conditioned to tend towards distracted thinking, despite our efforts to do something as simple as focus on breathing, can be extremely eye-opening.

It's one thing to recall some times where you snapped out of a distracted state and got back to work, and it's another thing to cultivate the ability to notice the amount of times we get distracted just in a 15 minute session of sitting down and doing nothing.

It's when we actually get off the train of distraction, sit down, and clearly see our mental landscape, that we gain insight.

Remember again that we are thinking all day every day. As you've listened to / read this, you've probably noticed yourself being lost in my words, or distracted by your own thoughts, or having moments of present awareness when I mention it, like right now.

"Cultivating mindfulness allows you to increase the amount of times you notice your thoughts and mental state."

Our thoughts affect how we act and what we do, and can be caused or affected by emotions and bodily sensations. The same noticings will apply to emotions and bodily sensations, which combine with thoughts to more easily overwhelm and take over our attention.