{"id":673,"date":"2016-03-08T18:38:45","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T22:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/thezenpagan\/?p=673"},"modified":"2016-03-08T18:38:45","modified_gmt":"2016-03-08T22:38:45","slug":"distracting-thoughts-in-meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thezenpagan\/2016\/03\/distracting-thoughts-in-meditation\/","title":{"rendered":"Distracting Thoughts In Meditation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This is a cross-post from my karate blog, Sky Hand Road<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Zen teacher Brad Warner recently tweeted, \u201cThinking your meditation is going wrong because you have distracting thoughts is like thinking your workout is going wrong because you sweat\u201d.<\/a> As someone whose meditation often takes the form of sweaty martial arts workouts, I found this an interesting metaphor.<\/p>\n

(And yes, grammar nerds, though it uses the word \u201clike\u201d it is a metaphor, for simile is<\/a> a type of metaphor<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

When we exercise our bodies, sweat is the normal result. It\u2019s an indicator that we\u2019re putting in effort. If we\u2019re not even working up a sweat, we\u2019re not working hard. (Unless it\u2019s cold out or something.) And it\u2019s worth noting that a workout that might have left us sweaty last year might be effortless now, so we have to step up our efforts over time as we become more fit. Maybe a more athletic person could do my workout without getting sweaty, but that just means they should be working harder.<\/p>\n

So this metaphor seems to suggest that if we don\u2019t find distracting thoughts when we sit, we\u2019re not trying hard enough. How could this be? Isn\u2019t the whole goal to eliminate distracting thoughts?<\/p>\n

In our culture meditation is seen as something one undertakes in order to achieve a certain goal. We are very goal-oriented; we exercise in order to lose weight or to bring our cholesterol number down or relieve stress. We study martial arts to be able to defend ourselves or to get in better shape. We buy a house in a certain neighborhood because it\u2019s a good investment, we date someone with the goal of starting a family, and so on. Now there\u2019s nothing wrong with setting a goal and planning how to get there. But often that has us so focused on that distant goal that we don\u2019t see where we are.<\/p>\n

And so it is with meditation. We start to meditate in quest of some goal, to have a quieter mind or inner peace or some such idea. In recent years it\u2019s become common for business people to learn meditation in order to be better focused on their jobs and better able to raise corporate profits. (This is not a new American sin, by the way; Japanese companies have sent employees off for Zen training for a while.)<\/p>\n

Then we sit, and all this stuff comes up. We find all of these distracting inner voices. We don\u2019t seem to be getting closer to that goal of a quieter, clearer mind. In fact it seem to be getting farther away! We must be Doing It Wrong!<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s ironic, because meditation should teach us to be in the here-and-now. Instead we\u2019re so focused on some there-and-then goal that we think something must be wrong when the truth of our mind in the present moment intrudes.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a funny thing about those inner voices. Many voices together make an incomprehensible noise. It\u2019s only when things become relatively more quiet, when only one at a time is talking, that we can clearly make out what\u2019s being said.<\/p>\n

\"zazen-distractions\"<\/a>The untrained mind (and let\u2019s be honest, even the trained mind at times!) is a susurrus of voices, commenting and offering advice, all speaking at once and thus incomprehensible. If you can clearly make out one voice, it means the noise is less! So when you\u2019re sitting and you find you\u2019re thinking about the frozen pizza you\u2019re going to have for dinner later\u2026as counter-intuitive as it may be, if that\u2019s a single clear thought in your brain, that can actually be a sign of progress.<\/p>\n

Of course obsession, where only one voice ever speaks clearly, is a pathology. So if it\u2019s only \u201cPizza\u2026pizza\u2026pizza\u2026\u201d all the time, that\u2019s not so healthy. But if it is, one voice at a time, \u201cPizza\u2026that computer bug at work\u2026that pretty girl you hope will text you back\u2026need to write something for the blog\u2026gee, sitting like this is uncomfortable\u2026hey, new episode of The Walking Dead<\/i> tonight\u2026.\u201d, if instead of incomprehensible noise only one voice at a time is speaking, then there is the possibility of silence in between. The cloud cover has become broken enough for clouds to have a distinct shape. And that means the moon \u2014 always there, whether you see it or not \u2014 can now poke through from time to time.<\/p>\n

\n

You can keep up with \u201cThe Zen Pagan\u201d by subscribing via RSS<\/a> or e-mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two new blogs here at Patheos that you should check out! On the Buddhist<\/a> Channel, Daniel Scharpenburg\u2019s \u201cBodhisattva Road\u201d<\/a> , and next door here at Patheos Pagan Megan Manson\u2019s \u201cPagan Tama\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you do Facebook, you might choose to join a group on \u201cZen Paganism\u201d<\/a> I\u2019ve set up there. And don\u2019t forget to \u201clike\u201d Patheos Pagan<\/a> and\/or The Zen Pagan<\/a> over there,
\ntoo.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a funny thing about those inner voices. Many voices together make an incomprehensible noise. It’s only when things become relatively more quiet, when only one at a time is talking, that we can clearly make out what’s being said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1860,"featured_media":683,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[100],"class_list":["post-673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-zen","tag-meditation"],"yoast_head":"\nDistracting Thoughts In Meditation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's a funny thing about those inner voices. Many voices together make an incomprehensible noise. 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