A popular misconception about meditation is that we need to clear our minds of all thought. While on some level, meditation practice will eventually take us to a place where our minds feel free and clear, we cannot find this place by constantly trying to remove thought after thought. We must access this thoughtless realm using a different, kinder, more accepting strategy.
Practicing pushing thoughts away is an inherently resistant activity. Resistance, or any time we wish the present moment to be something different (in this case, wishing our mental chatter would quite down), is completely incompatible with finding the internal peace we seek in meditation.
We can achieve the same result we are seeking of a clear mind by instead becoming very interested in the direct and immediate experience of our practice. If you use mantra meditation, invite yourself to become absorbed by your mantra. If your technique is to focus on your breathing, let yourself become so interested in your breath that there is not room for anything else. Including those thoughts.
When we focus on what we want to do, rather than what we want to stop doing, the mind opens up and relaxes. From this place of peace, we find ourselves sinking deeper and deeper into our meditation and into ourselves.
Namaste my friends!
kari ann levine 