Session 014: How to Overcome a Restless Mind in Meditation

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In today’s talk, we tackle the fourth meditation hindrance, restlessness, when it appears during our meditation. Read/watch these helpful AGM method that Cristof introduces in today’s class.

Talk

Guided Meditation:

Ocean waves video by Ruvim Miksanskiy from Pexels. Photo by Lightscape.

Handout

This week we have a 4-page handout. It is posted below as blog content for you. Plus, you can download it by clicking on the button below:

How to Overcome a Restless Mind in Meditation

Talk + Guided Meditation Session 014: Apr 8th, 2020, by Sophia Ojha Ensslin and Cristof Ensslin

Last Sunday, Sophia empowered me to go on my second day-long home retreat this year. I read in Thich Nhat Hanh’s book “The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching” - thank you Jo Anne - (if you’re interested in it, you’ll be able to find it in your library, in your local bookshop or on amazon under https://amzn.to/2Jlj1Ke). I meditated in sitting position and while walking. I listened to dhamma talks by Ajahn Brahm. That’s it. Sophia graciously made me food and hot water for tea and hot chocolate and made sure that all possible interruptions were kept off my back. Thank you, Sophia!

As the afternoon progressed, my mind became somewhat restless. Thoughts of past memories and future plans swirled around, mixed with fantasies and regrets. As we can learn from the Buddha, from Ajahn Brahm, Ajahn Brahmali, Ayya Khema and other experienced meditation teachers, the mind becomes restless if it isn’t content with what is.

Restlessness is the fourth of the five hindrances that keep us away from deep states of meditation, where we can experience our own mind, nothingness, and pure happiness (for that, review our last two sessions What to Expect from Meditation (Part 3) under https://www.reflectionpond.com/blog/session-012-what-to-expect-from-meditation-3 and What to Expect from Meditation (Part 4) under https://www.reflectionpond.com/blog/session-013-what-to-expect-from-meditation-4)

Restlessness is a very commonly occurring hindrance. Why? Easy answer: we are used to it. Our society rewards busyness and creativity and hustling and speed and planning ahead and having goals to strive for. We are habituated to continuously seek for the better. We have never really learned to stop at times and be content with what is. We encounter this habitual way of being in meditation as a restless mind state.

How to Deal with Restlessness in Meditation

So, going into the afternoon meditation session of my day-retreat at home, being aware of restlessness being present in me, I searched my memory for methods to acknowledge and address the situation at hand. I found the following antidotes to be very helpful.

Step 1: Acknowledge and Accept

First, I remembered what Venerable Sampasadana, one of Ajahn Brahm’s monastic disciples in Bodhinyana Monastery near Perth, Australia, so kindly told me. He said (I’m paraphrasing): “It’s all part of meditation. No worries, mate! Just accept the restlessness as your current reality and be okay with it.”

In essence, there’s nothing wrong with having a restless mind. All we have to do is accept it, observe it, be okay with it. That generates a first layer of calmness which is a conducive basis for further steps.

Step 2: Be Grateful

More or less automatically, my mind then moved on to a brief gratitude meditation. What could I be grateful for? So many people and things:

• Us being healthy, free from ailments of COVID-19 and other germs.

• Having a home that shelters us from wind and weather.

• Clean air to breathe.

• Clean water to drink.

• Having plenty of food, tasty food on top of that.

• My wife Sophia supporting my spiritual path so wholly.

• Taking this whole Sunday to rest my body and mind and to explore within.

• My parents, my sister and her family, and the rest of our clan who have taken care of and shaped me to who I am right now.

• …

The list is practically endless.

Reflecting on what I can be grateful for right now propels me into the present moment. It allows me to see how good I have it and, thus, turns my attention away from what is lacking. Gratitude contains in itself contentment, an effective antidote to restlessness.

Step 3: Practice Loving Kindness

The next step is not a step I had to take, it happened by itself. With the mind glistening in gratitude, it started to shine. The radiance moved visually and vividly from North Carolina to Canada and to Germany, enveloping my sister and my parents. 

From there, it is only natural to expand the golden hue to the whole globe, wrapping it in this velvety energy of pure love. This kind of love is love that wishes well and doesn’t want or expect anything in return. Practicing it in this way, I did get something beneficial in return immediately: a peaceful, glad, serene state of mind. Restlessness had vanished virtually completely.

The shining light of gratitude we can send to all the people from our gratitude meditation. Then, we can expand it to the whole world, realizing that this includes ourselves. We’re giving pure love to ourselves - a welcome change to the self-critic that we usually are, aren’t we?

We can now dwell in this state of radiating well-wishes and well-being for the rest of the meditation session. The late German nun Ayya Khema teaches loving kindness meditation, also known under its Pali name metta meditation, as a major tool to reach and enter the deepest states of meditative absorption (jhanas in Pali).

As a result, we can still our mind, rest it, and then use the resulting serene state of mind to enquire and gain insight into the true nature of life. (See also last session What to Expect from Meditation (Part 4) under https://www.reflectionpond.com/blog/session-013-what-to-expect-from-meditation-4). Insight that is not based on blind faith or intellectual understanding, but on our own experience. That is the highest level of understanding possible.

With AGM to Freedom from Restlessness

Don’t we all love acronyms to help us remember things? How about this one: AGM.

No, not the annual general meeting of our credit union, but rather

Acknowledge and Accept

Be Grateful

Practice Metta, also known as loving kindness.

This is how to practically and effectively deal with restlessness in meditation.

Let’s practice this in meditation right away.

Peace,
Sophia + Cristof

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