On Thoughts
- ​You don't have to silence the mind in meditation, you just have to lose interest in the thoughts that are floating around.
We all have times, when the mind really goes for it and we comment and say "Wow, loads of thoughts in that Meditation!". 
If you pause for a moment you will notice, you are aware of this going on. 
You know when the mind has been busy and you also know when the mind has been quiet with no thoughts at all.
What is it that knows this difference? What is it that knows when there are many thoughts and when there they are no thoughts at all?
Put your attention on what is it that is aware of thoughts and you will lose interest in the thoughts themselves.
​- What if we can stop for a moment and start to challenge our thoughts?
In meditation, we can become use to observing, watching thoughts as they come and go in our experience. What happens if we can also ask the question "Is that thought true?” 
As we keep asking this question many ideas and beliefs about ourselves will fall away as they are old thought patterns we used to believe and are not true.
- In Meditation we don't stop or silence the mind by going to war with it. 
Whenever we are distracted by thoughts don't fight or resist them, just put your attention fully on the technique you are using. 
If you are following the breath, put your attention fully on following your breathing.
If you are watching the leaves of a tree, put your attention fully on the leaves.
If you are doing Qigong, put your attention fully on your breathing and the movement of your body.
No matter how many times you are distracted, keep putting your attention back and fully to the technique.
- ​It is not a goal or desire of meditation to stop our thoughts. Our thoughts will naturally slowdown of their own accord as we continue our meditation practice. If we try and stop our thoughts we will generally experience more thoughts; it is simply the way it is. 
Whenever we are distracted or become lost in our thoughts during meditation, we gently commit to the meditation again and follow the technique we are using such as following the breath. 
It doesn’t matter how many times this happens in meditation. The important thing is to remind ourselves each time without any sense of failure, to simply follow the technique again.
- Most people have been conditioned or have learnt to follow thoughts as if they are the most important things to follow. Therefore we keep having the experience of thoughts coming and going sometimes in a continuous stream. Almost to a point where we really need a break from these constant thought patterns which is why falling asleep can be refreshing as we have a break from our thoughts in deep sleep. 
The mind will only start to quieten, if or when we notice what is aware of thoughts rather than the thoughts themselves and we continue to do this practice regularly.
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- Develop a curiosity about what is aware of thoughts. We naturally have an awareness when the mind is busy or when the mind is quiet. Put our attention on this awareness rather than the thoughts and see what happens.

- We've all been sold the idea that we are not quite good enough and believed thoughts that we are unworthy in some way.
​We don't have to blame ourselves in anyway for feeling this way as it happens to everyone.
Stop for a moment and accept you are good enough, you are worthy.
You always have been. It is the belief you are not which gets in the way.

Ian McArthur