Welcome. My name is Derek and I am the certified meditation teacher and lead mindfulness facilitator at Middleway Meditation Center and this is an introduction to mindfulness meditation. There are many reasons why someone might
want to begin meditating. If you're here, it might be because your mind feels busy, cluttered, or perhaps you're just seeking a few moments of peace. Whatever brought you here, the invitation is to simply sit and meet
this moment together while we explore the study and practice of mindfulness meditation. In our first two sessions, we've been building a foundation. We've learned how to anchor ourselves in the present moment, often using the
breath. We've started to notice that the mind wanders and we've practiced with kindness simply bringing it back. Today we're going to get a little more curious about the why the mind wanders
so much. We're going to explore what I call our storytelling minds. Because the human mind isn't just a mind. It's a master storyteller. It's constantly weaving narratives,
creating meaning, judging, planning, and replaying the past. Now, this ability to tell stories is an amazing gift. It's how we learn, how we create art, how we connect. But as we'll
see today, it can also be the source of a great deal of our stress. We're going to spend our time together looking at this process with the same kind of gentle, compassionate awareness that we've been cultivating.
We'll see that we don't have to be caught in every story the mind tells us. we can learn to simply recognize it and find a different relationship to it. So, let's start off with a short
practice to settle in. So, if you're comfortable with it, let your eyes close or simply soften your gaze downward. Take a couple deep full breaths. Inhaling deeply,
exhaling slowly. a kind of letting go. On the next exhale, just let the breath return to its natural rhythm. Let your body settle into the chair.
Feel the support beneath you. No need to do anything. Just be here for this next moment. Now, opening the eyes if they were closed
and let's talk about what happens when these stories we tell ourselves get a little intense. Think about your own life. What's easier to remember? a moment
where someone said something critical or a moment where someone offered a kind word. For most of us, it's the criticism. It sticks. My mentors like Jack Kornfield often
used a wonderful analogy for this. They say that for our minds, negative experiences are like Velcro and positive experiences are like teflon. Think about it. A harsh word, a moment
of worry, a painful memory. It hooks into our mind immediately. Stick. It's there. We replay it. We analyze it. And we add to the story. But a compliment, a beautiful sunset,
a moment of peace, it slides right off. Gone. Teflon. This isn't a flaw. It's actually an ancient survival mechanism. Our ancestors who were most attuned to danger, the rustle in the bush, the
potential threat, were the ones who survived. Their brains were hardwired to scan for negativity. And we've inherited that same brain. It's always looking for what's wrong, what could go wrong, what
did go wrong. So when our storytelling mind starts to spin a tail of worry about a project at work, someone's health, a conflict with a friend, our body
reacts as if that story is real right now. The body doesn't know the difference between a real tiger in the room and a thought about a tiger. This is the body's reaction to stress.
The heart beats a little faster, muscles tense, the stomach might clench. We call this the fight, flight, or freeze response. It's designed to help us survive a short-term physical threat. But when
it's triggered by our thoughts and triggered again and again, day after day, it becomes chronic stress. And here's the key. The stress isn't coming from the situation out there. It's coming from
the story in here. It's the mind's interpretation, the worry, the rumination. So if the stress is arising from our thoughts, what do we do?
We can't just stop thinking. But we can change our relationship to our thoughts and that begins with a profound realization. We are not our thoughts. This is one of the most liberating
insights in mindfulness meditation. We are not our thoughts. Think of it this way. You have thoughts just like you have a heartbeat. You are not your heartbeat. It's just a
biological function. In the same way, you are not your thoughts. Thoughts are just mental events. They arise and they pass. They are not who we are. But our storytelling mind is so powerful
that it tricks us into believing the opposite. It says, "I thought it, so it must be true." or I had a scary thought so I'm in danger. Dharma teacher Joseph Goldstein often
says thoughts are just thoughts. They are not commands. They are not facts. Imagine you're sitting by a river. The thoughts are like leaves floating by on the water. One leaf says, "You messed up that
presentation." Another says, "What if your friend is angry with you?" And another, "You need to worry about that thing tomorrow." Our habit is to jump into the river and grab onto every leaf trying to fix it,
analyze it, fight with it. We get soaked, we get tired, and we get carried away. The practice is to learn to sit on the bank. Just watch the leaves float by.
See them. Acknowledge them. Ah, there's a worrying thought. There's a planning thought. There's a self-critical thought. And then let it continue on its way down the river.
This is the heart of our practice today. Learning to observe thoughts without getting swept away by each one. So, how do we do this in the middle of a busy day when the stories are loud and
the stress is high? We need a simple portable tool. I'd like to introduce you to a practice called Stop. It's a micro practice, something you can do in a minute or even 30 seconds,
anytime, anywhere. It's an acronym. S T O P. Let's walk through it. S stop just for a moment and don't
react. T take a breath. Breathing in and out. Track your breath. Sense the chest rising and falling. O.
Observe your experience. Notice the sensations in the body. Observe the thoughts or the story going on through your mind and appreciate that thoughts are not facts. Explore your emotions and get a sense of
where you are in this moment. P. Proceed. Move forward in a way that feels right to you and is consistent with your values. That's it. Stop.
You can do it while you're waiting in line, before a difficult conversation, in the middle of a busy afternoon. It's a way to interrupt the autopilot of our storytelling mind and return to the
present, even if it's just for a moment. We'll do this together in a few minutes. To help us strengthen this muscle of observing without reacting, we're going to introduce a new formal practice
today. It's called mindfulness of sound with noting. Sound is a wonderful anchor for meditation because it's always changing. It's not as personal as our thoughts and it can help us loosen the grip of our
inner narrative. We're going to add a technique called noting. Noting is simply giving a soft, gentle, mental label to what we're experiencing. It's like saying, "Ah, this is a sound."
Or, "Ah, this is a thought." It's not about analyzing or judging. It's just a light touch of acknowledgement that helps us stay present. Let's try this one together. Now, we'll do about a 10-minute practice. We'll
start with the stop practice, then move into our mindfulness of sound. So, let's settle in. Find a posture that is alert yet relaxed. If you're comfortable with it, allowing
the eyes to close or simply turning a soft gaze toward the floor. And first, let's stop just a pause right where you are.
T. Take a breath. Take a deep conscious breath in and a long slow breath out. Oh, observe. Take a moment to scan your body. any
tension, any tightness. Not trying to fix it in any way. Just simply noticing and noticing the mood in the room, in your mind.
Just observing. And P proceed. We're going to proceed into our practice. We'll use the breath for a moment as our anchor. So, beginning to bring a kind attention
to the breath. Just the natural effortless sensation of breathing. Feel the air moving at the nostrils or the rise and fall of your chest or belly. No need to control it.
Just let the breath be the anchor. Now let's expand your awareness to include sound. Just open your ears to the world of the sounds around you. You don't have to go searching for
sound. Just let them come to you. You might hear sounds in the room like the hum of lights or a fan. You might hear sounds outside,
maybe a car, a bird, the wind. You might even hear the sound of silence. As you hear a sound, you can gently note it softly in your mind.
Just say the word hearing or sound. You don't have to name the source such as a car or bird. And no need to make up stories about the sound, just hearing.
So hearing or sound Now the mind will wander. That's what the storytelling mind does. It will pull you into a thought. You might find yourself thinking about the
sound or the story behind the sound. planning your day, replaying a conversation. The moment you notice your thinking,
that is a moment of mindful awareness. That is the practice. Gently note what happened. Softly say thinking and then with the same kindness
return your ear to the world of sound hearing just like training a puppy. The puppy wanders off. You just gently bring it back. We'll do this for a few more minutes in
silence. So, for about 5 to 7 minutes. I'll keep time. Try this practice out for yourself. And if you find yourself caught in a story,
just notice it. You can label it thinking and come back to the simplicity of hearing. Perhaps you're noticing the quality of the sound rising and falling.
Near or far? And just allowing a certain receptivity to the sound around you. And now gently slowly letting the practice come to a close.
Let go of the noting for now. Take one deep breath in and out. And if your eyes have been closed, when you feel ready, you can open them.
In that practice, you might have noticed how quickly the mind jumps from the sound to thought to story. That's the nature of the storytelling mind. And it's okay.
There's a beautiful metaphor that can help us understand this process. It's the metaphor of mind like the ocean. On the surface, the ocean is often choppy with waves
stirred up by the wind. Those waves are like our thoughts arising and falling. Sometimes calm, sometimes stormy.
The wind is like our reactivity, our emotional triggers, the stories that stir us up. But beneath the surface, the ocean is deep,
vast, and still. That depth is our natural awareness. It's the part of us that can see the waves without being tossed around by them. In our practice, we are learning to rest
in that deep still awareness. We don't have to calm the waves on the surface. They'll do what they will. We just learn to stop identifying with the waves.
We learn to drop in and rest in the depth of the ocean. One of my mentors, Tara Brock, calls this recognizing the space that holds the waves.
It's not about getting rid of the waves, but about realizing that you are not the waves, you are the whole ocean. As we cultivate this ability to rest in awareness, we also become more sensitive
to how the stories in our mind affect our body. A worrying thought hooks in and the body reacts. The shoulders come up, the jaw tightens, and the stomach knots.
We can live our entire lives with this chronic lowgrade tension without even realizing it. But as we practice mindfulness, we start to feel it. We start to notice the stress in the body before it becomes
a full full-blown crisis. We can feel the tension in our shoulders as we're driving. We can feel the clenching in our jaw as we're reading an email. We can feel the tightness in our chest when we start to spin a worried story.
This awareness is the first step toward freedom. When you notice the stress in the body, you can pause. You can take a stop. You can put a hand on your heart and say, "Ah,
this is stress. I feel it here." Instead of being in the stress, you are now the one observing it. And that simple shift changes everything. Before we end for today,
I want to leave you with a poem. It's by the 13th century poet Roomie and it speaks directly to the practice of being with our own thoughts without being defined by them. It's called the
breeze at dawn. The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doors where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep. To me, don't go back to sleep is an
invitation to wake up from the trance of our storytelling minds. It's an invitation to stay present, to be curious, to not get lost in the old familiar stressful narratives,
to stay awake to the reality of this moment which is always fresh, always here. I invite you to take one more gentle breath here together. Taking a moment to acknowledge yourself
and your dedication to your own well-being. You navigated distractions. You followed your breath. You noticed body sensations. You showed up for yourself. And that is
a profound success. and maybe noticing how you feel now compared to an hour ago. Perhaps a little more grounded, a little more spacious, a little more present.
Some of the benefits like this may be felt right away. However, meditation is not a quick fix. It requires regular practice. Just as with exercise,
as you meditate more, you may begin to see more positive benefits that generalize to other parts of your life. If you would like to explore mindfulness meditation at home, it can be as easy as having a dedicated space where you can
limit distraction and setting aside just 5 to 10 minutes a day to practice. If you would like to explore mindfulness meditation together with a community of meditators, I invite you to join us in
person at Middleway Meditation Center located at 60 Adam Street, Milton, Massachusetts. Currently, classes run every Saturday at 9:00 a.m. More information is available on our website at mindfulselfdefense.org.
I thank you for your presence and your practice. Hey. Hey. Hey.