Bringing awareness to mental activity: thoughts, emotions, moods and mind-states, and training in knowing the process of thinking without getting involved in the content of the thoughts

Short teaching and guided meditation on mindfulness of thoughts and thinking.

Incessant thinking is like a vehicle whose wheels have left the ground. Presence can be anchored by mindfulness of the body; this allows the heart safety from agitation and reduces addictive longing for sense stimulation.

00:00 Q1 Where do energies come from? Do these drive evolution and the origin of life? 01:16 Q2 In walking meditation do we have to keep walking back and forth. 13:10 Q3 The days start alright but I accumulate the detritus of thinking through the day. What to do?

Mindfulness of thinking

The Buddha gave a teaching on five different methods he recommended to work with disturbing thoughts. When we are mindful of the thinking process it's possible to see thoughts simply as mental fabrications. However, when we get caught in them and the body gets activated, we spin out in the story and are caught in a negative emotional response. We become identified with those mental formations and can more easily get lost. When that happens, the Buddha offers these five strategies as skillful techniques to deal with the confused mind.

Beginning by establishing mindfulness of the body and breathing, then opening to sounds and the experience of thinking

From Harris Park. Guided gratitude meditation. Dhamma talk on the topic Why am I always right? Discussion on ahankāra (I-making), thinking, truth, and views.

Sayadaw U Tejaniya style of practice

On the occasion of the publication of her third book, Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Free the Mind, Shaila Catherine shares a progressive series of strategies to overcome the hindrances of restlessness, obsessive thinking, and rumination; dispel thoughts of anger, hatred, and anxiety; and curb habitual distractions. By freeing the mind from the fetter of restlessness, meditators can calm their minds, develop tranquility, strengthen concentration, create the conditions for jhana, comprehend the nature of the mind, experience emptiness, and incline the mind toward liberating insight and nibbana. These teachings are based on two suttas (19 and 20) in the Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha.