Meditating and internal dialogue while doing chores.

tabula

Hi folks, I have just joined this site and would like to introduce myself. My name is Alan, I hope you're all doing well.

I have a question concerning mindfulness meditating and doing things such as washing up or driving etc. I have looked through some of the older questions and couldn't find anything similar.

Anyway...what's your advice on internal dialogue while doing chores and trying to keep in the present moment?

Here's a small example of my internal dialogue whilst driving..."Ok, holding the steering wheel, looking around me and noticing trees and buildings, car in front is grey and needs a wash, the back light is broken, older man jogging wearing blue shorts and white trainers, it's a cold day so he must be freezing in those shorts." etc.

I try to be as observant as I can and I try to notice and recall details. Is this a way to meditate or am I just doing another form of daydreaming?


I find if I talk internally to myself I can stay focussed for a while but if I just try to be aware then my mind instantly starts to daydream.

Anyway, I hope to hear from you all soon, all the best,

Alan

Cole_

Hello Alan, welcome to the community!

What you've described sounds to me like what is called being mindful/present/aware in the moment. Practices such as that help us to act more skillfully since we are paying attention to what we do/think, and the world around us, as opposed to just acting without really knowing why we've acted. It also helps teach us to live in the now and not in the later, or in the previous and to focus the mind.
A lot of the practices work together to achieve the goals stated above, each one having its own unique contributing factor.

I've recently learned that It's a common practice when doing walking meditation, we have a sort of expert on the topic who will likely chime in soon to elaborate on it.


A more senior individual in the teachings will likely be able to tell you the exact name and intended purpose of the practice, but that is what I personally use it for.

tabula

Thank you very much Cole...Yeah I'm just wondering how much internal dialogue...or if any is ok? I try to fully describe to myself what I'm doing and seeing and sometimes what I'm feeling...I find if the voice in my head is loud enough I can stay focussed...but as soon as I try to just be aware of the present moment and the actions I'm doing, without internal dialogue, my mind just drifts off.

I guess I just want to know if talking to myself and describing my actions is still a form of mindfulness meditatin...and if it's an ok way to practice being mindful?

Cole_

Internal dialogue of what we see/feel/do is used primarily as you have experienced, to focus the mind. The place I've seen it used most frequently is during meditation itself, but as some teachers will tell you, meditation can be carried out in everyday life. Some even suggest it as a way of practicing being mindful. As you have also noticed, it often times doesn't last for prolonged periods, I suppose that's what separates the skill level such as yours and mine, from the skill level of a master. Sogyal Rinpoche elaborated on the topic of mixing meditation and everyday life. Check out his books/teachings if you would like. I suggest his work to anyone, as it has helped me personally to understand and deal with life more successfully.

tabula

"The place I've seen it used most frequently is during meditation itself"

Oh really? That's very interesting...I try not to use it during meditation. I'm a total newbie to all this and there is a lot of information to sort through. I have started with guided body scans...and I try to keep my mind quiet and just follow the sensations but I think it would be much easier to talk to myself, just gently and not too much, during meditation to keep focussed. But it's good to hear that internally talking and describing my actions while doing chores is ok.

Thank you very much Cole.

Cole_

tabula said:

"The place I've seen it used most frequently is during meditation itself"

Oh really? That's very interesting...I try not to use it during meditation. I'm a total newbie to all this and there is a lot of information to sort through. I have started with guided body scans...and I try to keep my mind quiet and just follow the sensations but I think it would be much easier to talk to myself, just gently and not too much, during meditation to keep focussed. But it's good to hear that internally talking and describing my actions while doing chores is ok.

Thank you very much Cole.

Meditation is used for quite a wide variety of different things, and there are actually many forms of meditation, from sitting to walking, mindful to transcendent. Each starts with focusing the mind in the present moment and relaxing both the mind and body. It is what Sogyal refers to as "resting in the nature of mind". Internal dialogue in particular is more of a pre-cursor in sitting meditation, and transitions into being aware of arising emotion and thought. However in walking meditation, it seems to be more of a constant way of staying present in the moment, which when combined with the act of taking simple steps, helps us to rest into the nature of mind. Being aware at any given time is a good practice and its practical use comes into play when dealing with everyday life, so when faced with a situation that we manifest emotion over, we can realize that it is something created by our own mind, and it makes it easier to let it rise and fall back into the mind without clinging to it. Living each moment as a continual separation of existence. Keep in mind I'm a student like you, so my understanding of all this isn't anywhere near perfect, but I'm more then happy to share what I have learned, so my pleasure! It seems that a lot of the more spiritually educated guys in the group went to sleep, so you may have to wait until morning to get a pro's response. Hehe.

Cole_

Here's a thread by a great guy in the community who elaborates on walking meditation, I suggest you read through it and watch the video he posted. It might help you to make sense and use of the internal dialogue

http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/17343/walking-meditation#latest

how

@tabula

Mindfulness can be described as the clear experience of the mind.

I usually see it as the attention paid to all sense gate info (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind) or the 5 skandhas (forms ,sensation, thought activity or consciousness).

Meditation is just the word used to describe how we relate to that info. Meditation for me means the open acceptance of all phenomena without trying to hold onto or pushing away anything. It is just being fully present within an ever widening heart.

Daydreaming has nothing to do with mindfulness or meditation as it is an escape from being present.

The intentional generation of internal dialogue is the monopolizing of both (mindfulness) info and the relationship we have to it (meditation).

In your case I might suggest that paying attention to something innately physical (like your breathing) will better teach concentration while providing a more balanced body/mind perspective.

Cole_

how said:

@tabula

Mindfulness can be described as the clear experience of the mind.

I usually see it as the attention paid to all sense gate info (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind) or the 5 skandhas (forms ,sensation, thought activity or consciousness).

Meditation is just the word used to describe how we relate to that info. Meditation for me means the open acceptance of all phenomena without trying to hold onto or pushing away anything. It is just being fully present within an ever widening heart.

Daydreaming has nothing to do with mindfulness or meditation as it is an escape from being present.

The intentional generation of internal dialogue is the monopolizing of both (mindfulness) info and the relationship we have to it (meditation).

In your case I might suggest that paying attention to something innately physical (like your breathing) will better teach concentration while providing a more balanced body/mind perspective.

How is one of the more skilled guys around here, his posts are always insightful and well-put. Not to mention he has a great sense of humor that could warm even the coldest heart. Heed his words, the man knows what he's talking about!

lobster

Hi Alan :wave:
Some great advice. What you are doing, is becoming aware of what the mind is doing. In other words focussing on the mind and its arisings. Daydreaming is unfocussed. The mind just drifts.

So the first part of meditation is attention.
Then you can move into more attentive awareness.
Later on as in the Zen Masters advice on what is Zen, you might hear . . .

"attention, attention, attention"

misecmisc1

try to be aware and see if the mindfulness is getting dropped. if not dropped, then great. if dropped, then become aware of yourself again to regain mindfulness. after mindfulness re-established, try to be aware again and see if the mindfulness gets dropped. repeat this, until continuous mindfulness is established. saying in mind what you are observing, may initially be ok, but eventually this needs to be dropped - so there should be plain awareness of the present and no commentary about it.

Citta

misecmisc1 said:

try to be aware and see if the mindfulness is getting dropped. if not dropped, then great. if dropped, then become aware of yourself again to regain mindfulness. after mindfulness re-established, try to be aware again and see if the mindfulness gets dropped. repeat this, until continuous mindfulness is established. saying in mind what you are observing, may initially be ok, but eventually this needs to be dropped - so there should be plain awareness of the present and no commentary about it.

True but for some people that can be more easily accessed by verbal labeling..
The problem comes if that phase of verbal labeling is prolonged beyond its usefulness and becomes obsessive..
There is an old rhyme..
" The centipede was happy, quite.
Until a toad in fun
Said, " pray, which leg goes after which " ?
Which worked his mind to such a pitch
He lay distracted in a ditch,
considering how to run. "
So bare attention is the aim..but it may for some people take a while, and will be much helped by Taking Refuge and keeping the precepts.

DairyLama

Citta said:

True but for some people that can be more easily accessed by verbal labeling..
The problem comes if that phase of verbal labeling is prolonged beyond its usefulness and becomes obsessive..

I agree. Labelling can be very helpful but should be kept simple ( ideally single words )and should not be overdone.

BhikkhuJayasara

talking to yourself is not really being mindful or observant in the present moment.. it's trying to control your mindfulness .. if you are doing your dishes and your thoughts turn to sexual activity.. or some chore you have to do, or some other daydream and fantasy.. and you observe that..and observe what you are physically doing.. that IS being mindful.

it may not be a bad thing to nudge yourself every once in a while.. but I'm not sure that keeping an internal dialogue is any more mindful then observing what comes up naturally.

seeker242

Is internal dialog actually necessary to just drive a car or just wash dishes? At least in the zen tradition, daily life meditation drops the internal dialog and just washes dishes. So it's not "thinking and washing dishes" but just "washing dishes".

tabula

To everyone that's replied, thank you very much.

This morning I woke up and "coached" my way through the first hour and a half. Saying things like "Stepping, stepping, opening door, putting dish in dishwasher" etc.

I think my next step will be to slowly lessen my internal dialogue and slowly become aware. I find that with some internal dialogue I can snap myself back into focussing on what I'm doing.

Away from being aware while "doing things"...

I was meditating this morning for 20 minutes and trying to focus on the tip of my nose and my internal dialogue ran like this "aware of cold air, aware of warm air, thinking, thinking, anxious, anxious, aware of cold air, aware of warm air" etc.

Is this acceptable internal dialogue for beginners...and then to eventually and slowly just become aware without the internal dialogue?

I guess what I'm asking is, I am using internal dialogue to snap me back into focus, whether I'm doing things or meditating and is this ok as long as I eventually learn to lessen it and just be aware?

Again, thanks to all of you.

Alan

DairyLama

seeker242 said:

So it's not "thinking and washing dishes" but just "washing dishes".

Ideally yes, but thinking "washing dishes" when one starts to wash dishes might be a good way of bringing oneself back to the present and paying attention to the task in hand.

DairyLama

tabula said:

I was meditating this morning for 20 minutes and trying to focus on the tip of my nose and my internal dialogue ran like this "aware of cold air, aware of warm air, thinking, thinking, anxious, anxious, aware of cold air, aware of warm air" etc.

If you're doing samatha ( tranquillity ) meditation it's best to drop the internal dialogue and just pay attention to the breath. Though you might find it helpful to label the 5 hindrances when they arise.
The labelling we've been discussing is mostly an aid to maintaining mindfulness off the cushion.

tabula

From Pedanticpurpoise

"If you're doing samatha ( tranquillity ) meditation it's best to drop the internal dialogue and just pay attention to the breath. Though you might find it helpful to label the 5 hindrances when they arise.
The labelling we've been discussing is mostly an aid to maintaining mindfulness off the cushion."



I was trying to do mindfulness meditation. Sometimes I use a guided body scan for this but this morning I was just trying to focus on the sensation of the air coming in and out of my nose. I ran the internal dialogue to keep me focussed on the sensation of the cold air and warm air in and out of my nose. Occasionally I dropped the dialogue and just became aware of the sensation, but almost immediately I started to drift...lol. So I ran the dialogue again to re-focus.

Is this an ok way of doing mindfulness meditation as long as I'm aware of eventually teaching myself to drop the internal dialogue completely?

Wisdom23

shutting the mind up is virtually impossable so the more you fight it the more it will fight bacik so just calmly acknowledge your thoughts but dont interact with them. Allternatively put your chattering mind to good use when being mindful of your breath say this as you breath.

I breath in and out
i breath in deep and out soft,
When i inhale i am calm and when i breath out i am relaxed and tranquil.
When i take in air the air rushing out takes away all my worries and anxieties,
When i breath in i am mindful and this is the greatest gift of all.

or something like that. Feel free to adapt what you repeat to yourself to suite you.

All the best dude.

DairyLama

tabula said:

I was trying to do mindfulness meditation. Sometimes I use a guided body scan for this but this morning I was just trying to focus on the sensation of the air coming in and out of my nose. Is this an ok way of doing mindfulness meditation as long as I'm aware of eventually teaching myself to drop the internal dialogue completely?

Do you mean mindfulness of breathing? There are lots of different approaches, some people use counting as an aid, some people use a mantra. Personally I feel it's best to keep it really simple and just watch the breath.

tabula

PedanticPorpoise said:

tabula said:

Do you mean mindfulness of breathing?

Actually I'm not sure what type of meditation I was trying. I was just trying to be aware of the sensations at the tip of my nose for a prolonged period of time. And for the most part I used internal dialogue to help me focus and re-focus when I drifted.

misecmisc1

if you are doing sitting meditation and doing anapanasati i.e. mindfulness of breathing in which breath is the meditation object, then it is better to be just aware of the sensation of breath - the exact location of the nose tip to feel the breath can be ignored - but your attention should be that you are aware when you are breathing in and when you are breathing out. when you get lost in thoughts, then take a deep breath - this is just to bring your mind again on the awareness of breathing. but after that don't try to manipulate your breathing, just breath normally and try to bring your awareness on your breath. be patient as it may take some time to be completely aware of your breath throughout your meditation and thereby bringing some calmness in your mind throughout your meditation.

how

@Tabula
From the view of my own Zafu..
The most consistent difficulty that many meditaters face is how to let go of the idea that they are able to think their way into meditation. Meditation is just the process of withdrawing from our deeply ingrained habit of manipulating the incoming input.
The input was always fine on it's own. Suffering is just the result of trying to control that input.

The bare attention to the breath going in and out is a useful aid towards meditation in that it limits the creation of our usual habitual mental clatter.
It does this by moving the attention from our classic "I think therefore I am" obsession with mental formulations and identity to also include the equally valid but usually ignored other 95% of our being.
This frees up the mind from it's enslaved role of captaincy and goes a long way towards letting go of those control impulses that so often hinders meditation.







.

buddhajunkie

Your "dialog" should not become the object of meditation. It shouldn't even be a dialog. At most it should be a "mental note", a single word, whose purpose is to direct your mind to observe the phenomena being noted. Do a Google search for "mental noting and meditation". It is important that you get this right, otherwise you are just creating your own distraction.

Also, you need to focus more internally-- what is your mind doing? So apply mental noting to your mind, and you might note things like "distracted" or "worried" or "hungry", or "bored", etc. As you make the note, your mind should focus on observing the thing you are noting. Observe it until it fades, then go back to your object of meditation.

I strongly suggest sticking with a simple meditation practice, where the object of meditation is walking or the breath, before branching out to the other forms you have mentioned -- those other forms seems to be opening you up to a lot of distraction and commentary. A more structured practice help establish a solid foundation to build from.

So sitting, breathing meditation with mental noting might go something like this: "in... out... in... remembering.... out... in... angry... out... angry... in... thinking..."

Don't fish for things to note. Focus on your object of meditation until the distraction pops up, then note it, and as you note it, don't focus on the word, focus on the phenomena that just happened.

karasti

Just be careful not to assign judgement to what you are thinking. I can't do what you describe because like I said before it is that kind of dialog with myself that I sought to slow down and get rid of, lol. When I do it, I have a hard time not following my train of thoughts, so I just prefer not to have the train of thoughts. Otherwise I end up doing this:

I'm washing dishes
The water is warm and bubbly
I'm rinsing the cup
I'm washing the plate.
Egg is stuck on the plate.
Why can't the kids rinse their dishes like I tell them so I don't have to scrape egg off the plate?
Darn kids why don't they listen to me!
Now I'm angrily scrubbing the plate...

And before I know it, I'm crabby both about doing dishes and the fact that the kids didn't do what I asked them to do, lol, which is obviously not my goal in being mindful.

Jeffrey

In meditation there is an experience, a meditator, and a watcher. You have discovered 'the watcher'. The watcher is just thinking and is not necessary.

BhikkhuJayasara

karasti said:

Just be careful not to assign judgement to what you are thinking. I can't do what you describe because like I said before it is that kind of dialog with myself that I sought to slow down and get rid of, lol. When I do it, I have a hard time not following my train of thoughts, so I just prefer not to have the train of thoughts. Otherwise I end up doing this:

I'm washing dishes
The water is warm and bubbly
I'm rinsing the cup
I'm washing the plate.
Egg is stuck on the plate.
Why can't the kids rinse their dishes like I tell them so I don't have to scrape egg off the plate?
Darn kids why don't they listen to me!
Now I'm angrily scrubbing the plate...

And before I know it, I'm crabby both about doing dishes and the fact that the kids didn't do what I asked them to do, lol, which is obviously not my goal in being mindful.

if you DO assign judgement just observe that.. don't get down or negative on yourself because you judged.. and if you get negative then observe the negativity.. remember if it exists you can observe it, deeper and deeper, level by level, down the rabbit hole.

DairyLama

Jeffrey said:

In meditation there is an experience, a meditator, and a watcher. You have discovered 'the watcher'. The watcher is just thinking and is not necessary.

Though it's possible to be aware without thinking - and isn't that the point?

Jeffrey

@PedanticPorpoise, no the point of meditation isn't to be without thought as I have been taught. That would be very strong shamata, so strong that it might be impossible to balance with the insight.

The watcher happens when we try to get too much control, I think. But the watcher isn't any different from that which he/she is watching. So another thought to WELCOME.

But yeah it's possible to become temporarily without thought. But that state isn't a refuge because you'll eventually go back to square one with a hurricane of thoughts perhaps. All states are impermanent thus we are not striving towards a state.

DairyLama

Jeffrey said:

@PedanticPorpoise, no the point of meditation isn't to be without thought as I have been taught. That would be very strong shamata, so strong that it might be impossible to balance with the insight.

OK, but are you saying that insight requires thinking?

Jeffrey

@PedanticPorpoise, That depends on what we mean by insight or thinking. From my standpoint the indriyas have to be in harmony for insight to happen to a great extent. At the same time the dharma is relative and greater or lesser are in the eye of the beholder.

In this case 'thinking' would be a constant play of thoughts arising. You can find a gap. There is insight in the gap, but the gap is impermanent and if you rely on there being a gap you are not a buddha because you are caught in a 'state'. Since the state is impermanent craving and becoming and so forth will arise. All of the misunderstandings and negative emotions will still torture you even though you have a gap quite often and feel relative improvement. The relative improvement gets taken for granted awful fast.

The lama's role is to dismiss and dispell wrong views and kleshas.

shadowleaver

In my Sangha we have periodic retreats and at the end people get to speak. Almost everyone will mention that for a good part of the retreat they were drowning in some form of "internal dialog". Nobody in my Sangha that I've met has, to the best of my knowledge, been able to achieve a lasting state of peace and quiet. It's more like a hint here, a glimpse there and on rare occasions a few minutes of a sort of a transcendental, unperturbed state of mind.

But being in some sort of bliss or absorption is not the point. The Practice, as I understand it, is about coming back to the Now and whatever object of Meditation is being used, no matter what. It is not particularly fun. It's just that we, practitioners, have come to believe that the alternative is even worse.I have heard one of the Zen Masters said something to the effect of "There are two kinds of suffering: chasing after things and watching the mind chase after things. Choose which one you prefer".

As for the techniques, it probably doesn't matter very much which it is-- there are plenty described in books and, better yet, taught in the many Buddhist centers out there. What matters much more is preseverance. No matter how frustrated or discouraged I am, I still try to do my practice. Once again, it's often not particularly pleasant and yet little by little something starts to shift and suddenly I feel more free.

If it's any help, the technique employed in my Zen center is a kind of questioning, done while slowly breathing with the belly rather than the chest. They call that "bringing the energy down from the head and into the belly". While exhaling, we ask some simple questions, like "What am I?" or "What is this?" and while exhaling, we say "don't know". This can be done both while sitting and while walking. With some practice, it becomes possible to do that while engaged in most tasks that do not require vigorous movement or active thinking. But I find it important to have dedicated periods of formal, sitting practice.

DairyLama

Jeffrey said:

@PedanticPorpoise, That depends on what we mean by insight or thinking.

I was really asking whether you think of insight as an intellectual process.

DairyLama

shadowleaver said:

But being in some sort of bliss or absorption is not the point.

Sure, but some consider "gladdening the mind" to be an essential stepping stone.