Silencing the mind; experiencing the present
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Don’t resist, push away or fight your thoughts. Some may say to accept them.
However, if a person thinks that they need to accept their thoughts, they might start to hold on to the thoughts instead.
Don’t fight your thoughts but don’t hold on to them either. Don’t perform any action on them. Let go of the thoughts. Let them go away by themselves.
And
Let the present moment sensory experience, through all your senses, fill your awareness.
You might think you’re already experiencing the present moment, but it’s very likely you aren’t experiencing it as vividly and with as much depth as you could; let yourself experience more.
This takes (possibly a lot of) practice, but, in my experience, it works.
What I wrote about above—simultaneously letting go of thoughts and letting the present moment fill awareness—is what I do to get rid of intrusive thoughts whenever I get them. However, at other times, I’ve tried just experiencing the present moment more fully, and that works for quieting the mind, too.
You can’t keep holding on to thoughts if you want to get rid of them, but you might automatically let go of the thoughts when trying to experience the present moment more fully.
Practicing being fully in the present moment could be a way to learn to let go.
I want to emphasize that this is a letting (the present moment) into awareness rather than an active taking. It’s a reduction of apparently automatic blocking.
