Sometimes thoughts can create a lot of emotional energy which leads to mental afflictions. This morning, I woke up with a whirlwind of thoughts, leading to strong emotions, and thereby a disturbed state of mind. When we go through such a state of mind, we mostly try to distract ourselves, engage ourselves with something or go on an endless thought Loop experiencing various unpleasant emotions.
I decided to sit with my thoughts and do my meditation. When I started to practise, my mind just wouldn't slow down because there were so many thoughts and on every thought impulse that came up, holding on to that I was attaching a few more thoughts and getting swept away. Some of these thoughts also led to strong emotions, and thereby the practice began with a very unsettled and disturbed state of mind.
I decided to bring more awareness and try as best as I could to release the grasp on the thoughts. As I started doing that my mind started settling down. The thoughts that seemed to harass me and as if glued in my head now weren't as solid as I experienced them just a few minutes ago. I could let go of those thoughts and the result was that my mind started becoming calmer. As nothing in the mind lasts forever, so didn't the peace and the unpleasant thoughts returned.
Every time these thoughts came up and at times strong sensations along with them, I brought more awareness to the rising of thoughts, my grasping onto them and leading me into strong emotions. As a result of bringing this moment-to-moment awareness, I wasn't now getting swept away by my thoughts. To my surprise, what felt like a daunting task even to sit for a few minutes now extended into almost an hour.
This was again a great experience for me to understand my mind very closely and how holding on to my thoughts can lead me to unpleasantness. During the meditation, I also had thoughts of hope, thoughts of inspiration, and with that, I could also experience some pleasant sensations in my body. Now there could be a strong tendency even to grasp onto this. I decided to bring more awareness to the rising of these thoughts and drive me into grasping the pleasantness. As I watched these thoughts of pain and pleasure cross my mind, I also realised again, the impermanent nature of the mind and how easily we can get dragged into pain and pleasure by holding on to whatever arises in the mind.
So our daily practice is also a practice to achieve freedom from our mind slowly and restore our mental balance, which then can be used for a very meaningful contribution to our growth and to help others.
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