“At the end of the day, I can end up just totally wacky, because I’ve made mountains out of molehills. With meditation, I can keep them as molehills.”
—Ringo Starr
 

ne of the three benefits to a mindfulness meditation practice (Zen meditation) is learning to observe how the voices in your head create suffering.

Call them monkey mind, gremlins, mind-chatter, or the devil, they are the non-stop, incessant stream of conscious self-talk that runs in the background of your mind. The degree to which you give them your attention and allow them to come to the forefront, by believing them and altering your behavior due to their influence, is the degree to which you’ll suffer. It’s pretty straight forward.

Now, many people will try to tell you that you need to get rid of them, quiet them, suppress them, or transform them (into “positive thoughts”). But I say, “Hogwash!” Zen meditation encourages you to simply notice them and redirect your attention back to the breath. No need to analyze them, get involved or make anything different.

This tactic will frustrate most practitioners because they’ll feel that they need to DO SOMETHING. They’ll demand, “How can you see how these voices work and not get in there and DO SOMETHING?” The irony is that the more “you” feel like you need to go in there and DO SOMETHING, the more you make the illusion real. It is precisely your engagement in the war with the voices that keeps the war going. Once you know they’re a mirage, you don’t need to keep running toward them thinking that they have water. And you certainly don’t need to cut a hole in your wall to allow the massive pink elephant out of your mind. It’s a pink elephant for goodness sakes. Poof! Bye-bye elephant…

Make no mistake, this “passive” approach is not passive at all. Your non-violent resistance is actually actively directing your attention to where you want it to be. By observing and paying attention, the voices will reveal themselves to you. And in this exposure, they will become less powerful – until finally you are mastering the focus of your attention, and they are no longer able to grab a foothold into your consciousness.

This is why I say that meditation is the fine art of throwing your voice.

Would you like to learn how to throw your own voice? Here’s a 2-minute animated video that will give you a crash course in Zen meditation!

 

 

Then, once you learn how to meditate, go ahead and give it a test run. Use the 5-minute animated cartoon timer below. Five minutes is all you need to start your meditation practice. Bookmark this page and come back to it whenever you would like to meditate with the cartoon.

 

 

If you want to experience a deeper, more complete description of how meditation works, do some exercises on attention and awareness, learn the other two reasons to meditate, and create a successful home practice for yourself, then please check out my full online, on-demand Zen meditation workshop called Taming Your Inner Noise.